in Misery at the B Street Theatre
It’s “fans” week here at the worldwide headquarters of J. Scott Coatsworth, Incorporated.
First off, a tale from the dark side of fandom.
We saw an amazing production of Misery (the play) – written by the same guy who penned the screenplay for the movie. It was produced at our local B Street Theatre, and featured two of our favorite local lead actors – Elizabeth Nunziato and Jason Kuykendall – who are married in real life.
It was a surprisingly funny production, bringing out all the latent dark comedy in the piece, mostly due to Nunziato’s great talent as an actress, and included a “Talk Back” session after the play with the three actors.
For those of you unfamiliar with the plot, hugely successful novelist Paul Sheldon is rescued from a terrible car crash in Colorado in the dead of winter by a woman – Annie Wilkes – who turns out to be one of his biggest fans. She is determined to keep him all to herself so he can right what she views as a great wrong in his last book. And yes, the play includes the famous scene.
Throughout the play, the words “I’m your number one fan” become a creepy catch phrase that echoes through the play, and that has freaked out writers like me since the day it came out. No one wants to live in the world where fandom becomes psychosis.
But back in the real world, I experienced the lighter side of fandom. I got a beautiful note on my column from last week from a sweet local fan. You know who you are.
This fan (who also follows a number of other local queer authors) took the time to tell me how much he appreciates both my column and my work.
And unlike the super fan in Misery, his comments made all the difference in my life in a good way, lifting me up at a time when I am under a huge amount of stress and am questioning my ability to keep writing.
I don’t think most readers realize what an impact they can have on an author, simply by writing to us and telling us that they appreciate what we do.
It’s such an uphill struggle, all the time, simply to find the time, strength and will to write, let alone to do all the other things one needs to do in today’s world to be seen and heard as an author. So when someone really sees us and reaches out to tell us, it means the world. And it may make the difference for some writers who are struggling with whether they want to keep writing at all.
So while there are probably a few crazy fans out there like Annie, there are so many more wonderful fans who may just be too scared to actually talk to us writer folks.
Please do. You might just save us (in a good way).