I am certainly not religious, but I have religious acquaintances. I actually consciously gave up praying at the tender age of 8-years-old. I had decided God must be dead, and it was a waste of time.

Logic took over for religion, and, as a child prodigy, I buried my mind in learning everything that didn’t have to do with school. Eggheads are not treated kindly by other children and teachers, mistakenly, do not intervene in any bullying. Damn—I just wanted to fit in—not shine.

That’s enough background. Let’s jump way ahead:

Decades later, I decided to study writing. I chose to study Stephen King’s prose. Because of him, I noticed something about fiction I hadn’t considered before. In his book—Misery, a captive/kidnapped author was provided with a typewriter with a missing key.

I knew in my gut King had suffered through Missing-Key Syndrome at some time or other…