Stephen King's Fortune

Short introduction

Stephen King is the author of numerous novels, most of which are in the genre of horror. His books have sold over 400 million copies and are available in over 50 different languages. He is considered one of the most commercially successful writers.

Early life

In 1947 he was born in Portland, Maine, the state in which he still lives today. When he was two years old, the father left the family. Raised in poor conditions, he often had the opportunity to see science fiction and fantasy films in the cinema. These shaped his writing from an early age. He is said to have written his first stories at the age of seven. He first published a story in the Comics Review magazine when he was 19 years old. Following his school days, he studied English at the University of Maine from 1966 to 1970, where he met his future wife, whom he married in 1971. He then worked as an English teacher in Hampden, also in Maine. However, since the income from this was not sufficient to support his family, he also worked as an ironer in a laundry at night. Nevertheless, he managed to write further short stories in his tight spare time. Despite some sales of these stories, it was still some time before his breakthrough as well as a commercially successful author. He won this with the novel “Carrie”, which he actually wanted to throw away. However, his wife persuaded him to finish the work. Eventually Stephen King was able to sell the novel for $ 400,000.

Career

From then on, his career as a successful author really got going. The following novels “Brennen muss Salem” and “Shining” were also very popular with the corresponding monetary success for King himself. During this time he also wrote many short stories that further reinforced his standing. Even in this early period of his success, many of his works were made into films, which not only enabled him to earn more income, but also contributed to his enormous popularity.

Over the course of his career, Stephen King has written over 50 novels and 100 short stories, as well as a few short stories and screenplays. Stephen King also wrote numerous poems, columns and even non-fiction books. A typical pattern of his actions is that of the average person, who is suddenly drawn into nightmarish and not least supernatural events.

King himself slipped more and more into drug problems despite the success. In addition to alcohol, he also consumed excessive amounts of cocaine and other stimulants. In 1987, however, at his wife’s insistence, he managed to put an end to these addictions in a rehab clinic.

The renunciation of drugs only briefly stopped his creativity, Stephen King quickly returned to his previous creativity and production rate, sometimes with several novels per year. In 1992 he also founded a band made up of writers, with whom he mainly appeared at fundraisers.

In 1999 he was the victim of a traffic accident in which he was seriously injured. But he also recovered well from this and wrote his first work afterwards in the hospital by hand.

Career highlights

The novels “Shining”, “Es” and “Cujo” are probably the best known worldwide, with almost all of his works achieving huge sales. Many of his novels were also made into films, although King was not always happy with the adaptation, which was particularly the case with Shining. But this film, which goes back to King’s novel, also became a worldwide success. If you look back on his entire career, you can probably call his greatest success not having been in prolonged creative crises for decades – nor has he ever fallen in favor with his audience.

Famous quotes

“My books are the literary equivalent of a big mäc with a large portion of fries.”

“People think I’m a very strange person. But that is not correct. I have a little boy’s heart. It’s in a glass on my desk. ”

“Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work. ”

“When asked ‘How do you write?’ I answer without hesitation: ‘One word at a time.'”

“The beauty of religious fanaticism is that it has the power to explain everything. Once God (or Satan) is accepted as the first reason for everything that happens in the mortal world, nothing is left to chance … logical thinking can be safely thrown overboard. ”

Amazing facts

Stephen King is a very big baseball fan and especially the Boston Red Sox. He has had two season tickets for himself and his wife since the 1980s.

In several films in which his books were filmed, Stephen King has cameo appearances, by 2019 there will be over 10 different ones.

Stephen King appears several times as himself in the TV series “The Simpsons”.