Song of Susannah

CODA

July 12th, 1977

Man, it’s good to be back in Bridgton. They always treat us well in what Joe still calls “Nanatown,” but Owen fussed almost nonstop. He’s better since we got back home. We only stopped once, in Waterville to grab grub at the Silent Woman (I’ve had better meals there, I must add).

Anyway, I kept my promise to myself and went on a grand hunt for that Dark Tower story as soon as I got back. I’d almost given up when I found the pages in the farthest corner of the garage, under a box of Tab’s old catalogues. There was a lot of “spring thaw drip” over there, and those funny blue pages smell all mildewy, but the copy is perfectly readable. I finished going over it, then sat down and added a small section to the Way Station material (where the gunslinger meets the boy Jake). I thought it would be kind of fun to put in a water pump that runs on an atomic slug, and so I did so without delay. Usually working on an old story is about as appetizing as eating a sandwich made with moldy bread, but this felt perfectly natural… like slipping on an old shoe.

What, exactly, was this story supposed to be about?

I can’t remember, only that it first came to me a long, long time ago. Driving back from up north, with my entire family snoozing, I got thinking about that time David and I ran away from Aunt Ethelyn’s. We were planning to go back to Connecticut, I think. The grups (i.e… grownups) caught us, of course, and put us to work in the barn, sawing wood. Punishment Detail, Uncle Oren called it. It seems to me that something scary happened to me out there, but I’ll be damned if I can remember what it was, only that it was red. And I thought up a hero, a magic gunslinger, to keep me safe from it. There was something about magnetism, too, or Beams of Power. I’m pretty sure that was the genesis of this story, but it’s strange how blurry it all seems. Oh well, who remembers all the nasty little nooks of their childhood? Who wants to?

Not much else happening. Joe and Naomi made Playground, and Tabby’s plans for her trip to England are pretty much complete. Boy, that story about the gunslinger won’t get out of my head!

Tell you what ole Roland needs: some friends!

July 19th, 1977

I went to see Star Wars on my motorcycle tonight, and I think it’ll be the last time I climb on the bike until things cool off a little. I ate a ton of bugs. Talk about protein!

I kept thinking about Roland, my gunslinger from the Robert Browning poem (with a tip of Hatlo’s Hat to Sergio Leone, of course), while I rode. The manuscript is a novel, no doubt-or a piece of one-but it occurs to me that the chapters also stand on their own. Or almost. I wonder if I could sell them to one of the fantasy mags? Maybe even to Fantasy and Science Fiction, which is, of course, the genre’s Holy Grail.

Probably a stupid idea.

Otherwise, not much doing but the All-Star Game (National League 7, American League 5). I was pretty hammered before it was over. Tabby not pleased…

August 9th, 1978

Kirby McCauley sold the first chapter of that old Dark Tower story of mine to Fantasy and Science Fiction! Man, I can hardly believe it! That is just so cool! Kirby sez he thinks Ed Ferman (the Ed-in-chief there) will probably run everything of the DT story that I’ve got. He’s going to call the first bit (“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed,” etc… etc… blah-blah, bang-bang) “The Gunslinger,” which makes sense.

Not bad for an old story that was moldering away forgotten in a wet corner of the garage last year. Ferman told Kirby that Roland “has a feel of reality” that’s missing in a lot of fantasy fiction, and wanted to know if there might be even more adventures. I’m sure there are even more adventures (or were, or will be-what’s the proper tense when you’re talking about unwritten tales?), but I have no idea what they might be. Only that John “Jake” Chambers would have to come back into it.

A rainy, muggy day by the lake. No Playground for the kids. Tonight we had Andy Fulcher sit the big kids while Tab amp; I amp; Owen went to the Bridgton Drive-in. Tabby thought the film (The Other Side of Midnight… from last year, actually) was a piece of shit, but I didn’t hear her begging to be taken home. As for me, 1 found my mind drifting off to that damn Roland guy again. This time to questions of his lost love. “Susan, lovely girl at the window.”

Who, pray, be she?

September 9, 1978

Got my first copy of the October issue with “The Gunslinger” in it. Man, this looks fine.

Burt Hatlen called today. He’s talking about me maybe doing a year at the University of Maine as writer in residence. Only Burt would be ballsy enough to think of a hack like me in connection w/ a job like that. Sort of an interesting idea, though.

October 29, 1979

Well, shit, drunk again. I can barely see the goddam page, but suppose I better put down something before I go staggering off to bed. Got a letter from Ed Ferman at F amp;SF today. He’s going to do the second chapter of The Dark Tower-the part where Roland meets the kid-as “The Way Station.” He really wants to publish the entire run of stories, and I’m agreeable enough. I just wish there was more. Meanwhile, there’s The Stand to think about-and, of course, The Dead Zone.

All of this doesn’t seem to mean much to me just now. I hate being here in Orrington-hate being on such a busy road, for one thing. Owen damned near got creamed by one of those Cianbro trucks today. Scared the hell out of me. Also gave me an idea for a story, having to do with that odd little pet cemetery out in back of the house. PET SEMATARY is what the sign sez, isn’t that weird? Funny, but also creepy. Almost a Vault of Horror type of thing.

June 19th, 1980

Just got off the phone with Kirby McCauley. He got a call from Donald Grant, who publishes lots of fantasy stuff under his own imprint (Kirby likes to joke that Don Grant is “the man who made Robert E. Howard infamous”). Anyway, Don would like to publish my gunslinger stories, and under their original title, The Dark Tower (subtitle The Gunslinger). Isn’t that neat? My own “limited edition.” He’d do 10,000 copies, plus 500 signed and numbered. I told Kirby to go ahead and make the deal.

Anyway, it looks like my teaching career is over, and I got pretty well baked to celebrate. Took out the Pet Sematary ms. and looked it over. Good God, is that grim! Readers would lynch me if I published it, I think. That’s one book that’ll never see the light of day…

July27th, 1983

Publishers Weekly (our son Owen calls it Pudlishers Weakness, which is actually sorta accurate) reviewed the latest Richard Bachman book… and once more, baby, I got roasted. They implied it was boring, and that, my friend, it ain’t. Oh well, thinking about it made it that much easier to go to North Windham and pick up those 2 kegs of beer for the party. Got em at Discount Beverage. I’m smoking again, too, so sue me. I’ll quit the day I turn 40 and that’s a promise.

Oh, and Pet Sematary is published exactly two months from today. Then my career really will be over (joke… at least I hope it’s a joke). After some thought, I added The Dark Tower to the author’s ad-card at the front of the book. In the end, I thought, why not? Yes, I know it’s sold out-there were only 10,000 copies to start with, fa Chrissake-but it was a real book and I’m proud of it. I don’t suppose I’ll ever go back to ole Roland the Gun-Toting Knight Errant, but yes, I’m proud of that book.

Good thing I remembered the beer run.

February 21st, 1984

Man, I got this crazy call from Sam Vaughn at Doubleday this afternoon (he edited Pet Sem, you will remember). I knew there were some fans who want The Dark Tower and are pissed off they can’t get it, because I also get letters. But Sam sez they have gotten over THREE THOUSAND!! letters. And why, you ask? Because I was dumb enough to put The Dark Tower on the Pet Sematary author ad-card. I think Sam’s a little pissed at me, and 1 suppose he’s got a point. He says listing a book that fans want amp; can’t get is a little like holding out a piece of meat to a hungry dog and then yanking it back, saying “No, no, you can’t have it, har-har.” On the other hand, God amp; the Man Jesus, people are so fucking spoiled! They just assume that if there’s a book anywhere in the world they want, then they have a perfect right to that book. This would be news indeed to those folks in the Middle Ages who might have heard rumors of books but never actually saw one; paper was valuable (which would be a good thing to put in the next “Gunslinger/Dark Tower” novel, if I ever get around to it) and books were treasures you protected with your life. I love being able to make my living writing stories, but anyone who sez there’s no dark side to it is full of shit. Someday I’m going to do a novel about a psychotic rare book dealer! (Joke)

Meanwhile, today was Owen’s birthday. He’s seven! The age of reason! I can hardly believe my youngest is seven and my daughter is thirteen, a lovely young woman.

August 14th, 1984 (NYC)

Just got back from a meeting with Elaine Koster from NAL and my agent, the ole Kirboo. Both of them pitched me on doing The Gunslinger as a trade-sized paperback, but I passed. Maybe someday, but I won’t give that many people a chance to read something so unfinished unless/until I go back to work on the story.

Which I probably never will. Meantime, I have this other idea for a long novel about a clown that’s really the worst monster in the world. Not a bad idea; clowns are scary. To me, at least. (Clowns amp; chickens, go figure.)

November 18th, 1984

I had a dream last night that I think breaks the creative logjam on It. Suppose there’s a kind of Beam holding the Earth (or even multiple Earths) in place? And that the Beam’s generator rests on the shell of a turtle? I could make that part of the book’s climax. I know it sounds crazy, but I’m sure I read somewhere that in Hindu mythology there’s a great turtle that bears us all on his shell, and that he serves Gan, the creative overforce. Also, I remember an anecdote where some lady sez to some famous scientist, “This evolution stuff is ridiculous. Everyone knows that a turtle holds up the universe.” To which the scientist (wish I could remember his name, but I can’t) replies, “That may be, madam, but what holds up the turtle?” Scornful laugh from the lady, who says, “Oh, you can’t fool me! It’s turtles all the way down.”

Ha! Take that, ye rational men of science!

Anyway, I keep a blank book by my bed, and have gotten so I write down a lot of dreams and dream elements w/o even fully waking up. This morning I’d written Remember the Turtle! And this: See the TURTLE of enormous girth! On his shell he holds the earth. His thought is slow but always kind; he holds us all within his mind. Not great poetry, I grant you, but not bad for a guy who was three-quarters asleep when he wrote it!

Tabby has been on my case about drinking too much again. I suppose she’s right, but…

June 10th,1986 (Lovell/Turtleback Lane)

Man, am I glad we bought this house! I was scared of the expense to begin with, but I’ve never written better than I have here. And-this is scary, but it’s true-I think I want to go back to work on The Dark Tower story. In my heart, I thought I never would, but last night when I was going to the Center General for beer, I could almost hear Roland saying, “There are many worlds and many tales, but not much time.”

I ended up turning around and coming back to the house. Can’t remember the last time I spent a totally sober night, but this is one of that dying breed. It actually feels fucked up not to be fucked up. That’s pretty sad, I guess.

June 13th, 1986

I woke up in the middle of the night, hung-over and needing to pee. While I was standing at the bowl, it was almost as if I could see Roland of Gilead. Telling me to start with the lobstrosities. I will.

I know just what they are.

June 15th, 1986

Started the new book today. Can’t believe I’m actually writing about old long, tall, and ugly again, but it felt right from the first page. Hell, from the first word. I’ve decided it’ll be almost like the classic fairy-tales in structure: Roland walks along the beach of the Western Sea, getting sicker amp; sicker as he goes, and there’s a series of doors to our world. He’ll draw a new character from behind each one. The first one will be a stone junkie named Eddie Dean…

July 16th, 1986

I can’t believe this. I mean, I’ve got the manuscript on the desk right in front of me so I sorta have to, but I still can’t. I have written !!300!! PAGES in the last month, and the copy is so clean it’s positively squeaky. I’ve never felt like one of those writers who can actually take credit for their work, who say they plot every move and incident, but I’ve also never had a book that seemed to flow through me like this one has. It’s pretty much taken over my life from Day One. And do you know, it seems to me that a lot of the other things I’ve written (especially It) are like “practice shots” for this story. Certainly I’ve never picked something up after it lay fallow for fifteen years! I mean, sure, I did a little work on the stories Ed Ferman published in F amp;SF, and I did a little more when Don Grant published The Gunslinger, but nothing like what I’m up to now. I even dream about this story. I have days when I wish I could quit drinking, but I’ll tell you something: I’m almost scared to stop. I know inspiration doesn’t flow from the neck of a bottle, but there’s something…

I’m scared, okay? I feel like there’s something-Something-that doesn’t want me to finish this book. That didn’t even want me to start it. Now I know that’s crazy (“Like something out of a Stephen King story,” har-har), but at the same time it seems very real. Probably a good thing no one’ll ever read this diary; very likely they’d put me away if they did. Anyone want to buy a used fruitcake?

I’m going to call it The Drawing of the Three, I think.

September 19th, 1986

It’s done. The Drawing of the Three is done. I got drunk to celebrate. Stoned, too. And what’s next? Well, It will be published in a month or so, and in two days I’ll be thirty-nine. Man, I can hardly believe it. Seems just about a week ago that we were living in Bridgton and the kids were babies.

Ah, fuck. Time to quit. The writer’s gettin’ maudlin.

June 19th, 1987

Got my first author’s copy of Drawing from Donald Grant today. It’s a beautiful package. I’ve also decided to let NAL go ahead and do both Dark Tower books in paperback-give the people what they want. Why the hell not?

Of course, I got drunk to celebrate… only these days who needs an excuse?

It’s a good book but in many ways it seems like I didn’t write the damn thing at all, that it just flowed out of me, like the umbilical cord from a baby’s navel. What I’m trying to say is that the wind blows, the cradle rocks, and sometimes it seems to me that none of this stuff is mine, that I’m nothing but Roland of Gilead’s fucking secretary. I know that’s stupid, but a part of me sort of believes it. Only maybe Roland’s got his own boss. Ka?

I do tend to get depressed when I look at my life: the booze, the drugs, the cigarettes. As if I’m actually trying to kill myself. Or something else is…

October 19th, 1987

I’m in Lovell tonight, the house on Turtleback Lane. Came down here to think about the way I’m living my life. Something’s got to change, man, because otherwise I might as well just cut to the chase and blow my brains out.

Something’s got to change.

The following item from the North Conway (N.H.) Mountain Ear was pasted into the writer’s journal, marked April 12th, 1988:

For at least 10 years, the White Mountains have resounded with tales of “Walk-Ins,” creatures who may be aliens from space, time travelers, or even “beings from another dimension.” In a lively lecture last night at the North Conway Public Library, local sociologist Henry K. Verdon, author of Peer Groups and Myth-Making, used the Walk-In phenomenon as an illustration of just how myths are created and how they grow. He said that the “Walk-Ins” were probably originally created by teenagers in the border towns between Maine and New Hampshire. He also speculated that sightings of illegal aliens who cross over the northern border from Canada and then into the New England states may have played a part in kindling this myth, which has become so prevalent. “I think we all know,” Professor Verdon said, “that there is no Santa Claus, no Tooth Fairy, and no actual beings called Walk-Ins. Yet these tales

(Continued on P. 8)

The rest of the article is missing. Nor is there any explanation as to why King may have included it in his journal.

June 19th, 1989

I just got back from my one-year Alcoholix Anonymous “anniversary.” An entire year w/o drugs or booze! I can hardly believe it. No regrets; sobering up undoubtedly saved my life (and probably my marriage), but I wish it wasn’t so hard to write stories in the aftermath. People in “the Program” say don’t push it, it’ll come, but there’s another voice (I think of it as the Voice of the Turtle) telling me to hurry up and get going, time is short and I have to sharpen my tools. For what? For The Dark Tower, of course, and not just because letters keep coming in from people who read The Drawing of the Three and want to know what happens next. Something in me wants to go back to work on the story, but I’ll be damned if I know how to get back.

July 12th, 1989

There are some amazing treasures on the bookshelves down here in Lovell. Know what I found this morning, while I was looking for something to read? Shardik, by Richard Adams. Not the story about the rabbits but the one about the giant mythological bear. I think I’ll read it over again.

Am still not writing much of interest…

September 21, 1989

Okay, this is relatively weird, so prepare yourself.

Around 10 A.M… while I was writing (while I was staring at the word processor and dreaming about how great it would be to have an ice-cold keg of Bud, at least), the doorbell rang. It was a guy from Bangor House of Flowers, with a dozen roses. Not for Tab, either, but for me. The card read Happy Birthday from the Mansfields-Dave, Sandy, and Megan.

I had totally forgotten, but today I’m the Big Four-Two. Anyway, I took one of the roses out, and I kind of got lost in it. I know how strange that sounds, believe me, but I did. I seemed to hear this sweet humming, and I just went down amp; down, following the curves of the rose, kind of splashing thru these drops of dew that seemed as big as ponds. And all the time that humming sound got louder amp; sweeter, and the rose got… well, rosier. And I found myself thinking of Jake from the first Dark Tower story, and Eddie Dean, and a bookstore. I even remember the name: The Manhattan Restaurant of the Mind.

Then, boom! I feel a hand on my shoulder, I turn around, and it’s Tabby. She wanted to know who sent me the roses. She also wanted to know if I’d fallen asleep. I said no, but I kind of did, right there in the kitchen.

You know what it was like? That scene at the Way Station in the The Gunslinger, where Roland hypnotizes Jake with a bullet. I’m immune to hypnosis, myself. A guy got me up on stage at the Topsham Fair when I was a kid and tried it on me, but it didn’t work. As I remember, my brother Dave was quite disappointed. He wanted me to cluck like a chicken.

Anyway, I think I want to go back to work on The Dark Tower. I don’t know if I’m ready for anything that complex-after some of the failures of the last couple of years let’s say I’m dubious-but I want to give it a shot, just the same. I hear those make-believe people calling to me. And who knows? There might even be a place in this one for a giant bear, like Shardik in the Richard Adams novel!

October 7th, 1989

I started the next Dark Tower book today, and-as with The Drawing of the Three-I finished my first session wondering why in God’s name I waited so long. Being with Roland, Eddie, and Susannah is like a drink of cool water. Or meeting old friends after a long absence. And, once again, there is a sense that I’m not telling the story but only providing a conduit for it. And you know what? That’s okie-fine with me. I sat at the word processor for four hours this morning and did not once think of a drink or any sort of mind-altering drug. I think I’ll call this one The Wastelands

October 9th,1989

No-Waste Lands. 2 words, as in the T. S. Eliot poem (his is actually “The Waste Land,” I think).

January 19th, 1990

Finished The Waste Lands tonight, after a marathon 5-hour session. People are going to hate the way it ends, w/ no conclusion to the riddle contest, and I thought the story would go on longer myself, but I can’t help it. I heard a voice speak up clearly in my head (as always it sounds like Roland’s) saying, “You’re done for now-close thy book, wordslinger.”

Cliffhanger ending aside, the story seems fine to me, but, as always, not much like the other ones I write. The manuscript is a brick, over 800 pages long, and I created said brick in just a little over three months.

Un-fucking-real.

Once again, hardly any strike-overs or re-takes. There are a few continuity glitches, but considering the length of the book, I can hardly believe how few. Nor can I believe how, when I needed some sort of inspiration, the right book seemed to fly into my hand time after time. Like The Quincunx, by Charles Palliser, with all the wonderful, growly 17th-century slang: “Aye, so ye do” and “So ye will” and “my cully.” That argot sounded perfect coming out of Gasher’s mouth (to me, at least). And how cool it was to have Jake come back into the story the way he did!

Only thing that worries me is what’s going to happen to Susannah Dean (who used to be Detta/Odetta). She’s pregnant, and I’m afraid of who or what the father might be. Some demon? I don’t think so, exactly. Maybe I won’t have to deal w/ that until a couple of books further down the line. In any case, my experience is that, in a long book, whenever a woman gets pregnant and nobody knows who the father is, that story is headed down the tubes. Dunno why, but as a plot-thickener, pregnancy just naturally seems to suck!

Oh well, maybe it doesn’t matter. For the time being I’m tired of Roland and his ka-tet. I think it may be awhile before I get back to them again, although the fans are going to howl their heads off about that cliffhanger ending on the train out of Lud. Mark my words.

I’m glad I wrote it, tho, and to me the ending seems just right. In many ways Waste Lands feels like the high point of my “make-believe life.”

Even better than The Stand, maybe.

November 27th, 1991

Remember me saying that I’d get bitched at about the ending of Waste Lands? Look at this!

Letter follows from John T. Spier, of Lawrence, Kansas:

November 16, 91

Dear Mr King,

Or should I just cut to the chase and say “Dear Asshole"?

I can’t believe I paid such big bucks for a Donald Grant Edition of your GUNSLINGER book The Waste Lands and this is what I got. It had the right title anyway, for it was “a true WASTE.”

I mean the story was all right don’t get me wrong, great in fact, but how could you “tack on” an ending like that? It wasn’t an ending at all but just a case of you getting tired and saying “Oh well, what the fuck, I don’t need to strain my brain to write an ending, those slobs who buy my books will swallow anything”

I was going to send it back but will keep it because I at least liked the pictures (especially Oy). But the story was a cheat.

Can you spell CHEAT Mr. King? M-O-O-N, that spells CHEAT.

Sincerely yours in criticism,

John T. Spier

Lawrence, Kansas

March 23, 1992

In a way, this one makes me feel even worse.

Letter follows from Mrs. Coretta Vele, of Stowe, Vermont:

March 6th, 1992

Dear Stephen King,

I don’t know if this letter will actually reach you but one can always hope. I have read most of your books and have loved them all. I am a 76-yrs-young “gramma” from your “sister state” of Vermont, and I especially like your Dark Tower stories. Well, to the point. Last month I went to see a team of Oncologists at Mass General, and they tell me that the brain tumor I have looks to be malignant after all (at 1st they said “Don’t worry Coretta its benine”). Now I know you have to do what you have to do, Mr. King, and “follow your muse,” but what they’re saying is that I will be fortunate to see the 4th of July this year. I guess I’ve read my last “Dark Tower yarn.” So what I’m wondering is, Can you tell me how the Dark Tower story comes out, at least if Roland and his “Ka-Tet” actually get to the Dark Tower? And if so what they find there? I promise not to tell a soul and you will be making a dying woman very happy.

Sincerely,

Coretta Vele

Stowe, Vt.

I feel like such a shit when I think of how blithe I was concerning the ending of Waste Lands. I gotta answer Coretta Vele’s letter, but I don’t know how to. Could I make her believe I don’t know any more than she does about how Roland’s story finishes? I doubt it, and yet “that is the truth,” as Jake sez in his Final Essay. I have no more idea what’s inside that damned Tower than… well, than Oy does! I didn’t even know it was in a field of roses until it came off my fingertips and showed up on the screen of my new Macintosh computer! Would Coretta buy that? What would she say if I told her, “Cory, listen: The wind blows and the story comes. Then it stops blowing, and all I can do is wait, same as you.”

They think I’m in charge, every one of them from the smartest of the critics to the most mentally challenged reader. And that’s a real hoot.

Because I’m not.

September 22, 1992

The Grant edition of The Waste Lands is sold out, and the paperback edition is doing very well. I should be happy and guess I am, but I’m still getting a ton of letters about the cliffhanger ending. They fall into 3 major categories: People who are pissed off, people who want to know when the next book in the series is coming out, and pissed-off people who want to know when the next book in the series is coming out.

But I’m stuck. The wind from that quarter just isn’t blowing. Not just now, anyway.

Meanwhile, I have an idea for a novel about a lady who buys a picture in a pawnshop and then kind of falls into it. Hey, maybe it’ll be Mid-World she falls into, and she’ll meet Roland!

July 9th, 1994

Tabby and I don’t fight much since I quit drinking, but oboy, this morning we had a dilly. We’re at the Lovell house, of course, and as I was getting ready to leave on my morning walk, she showed me a story from today’s Lewiston Sun. It seems that a Stoneham man, Charles “Chip” McCaus-land, was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver while walking on Route 7. Which is the road I walk on, of course. Tabby tried to persuade me to stay on Turtleback Lane, I tried to persuade her that I had as much right to use Route 7 as anyone else (and honest to God, I only do half a mile on the blacktop), and things went downhill from there. Finally she asked me to at least stop walking on Slab City Hill, where the sightlines are so short and there’s nowhere to jump if someone happens to get off the road and onto the shoulder. I told her I’d think about it (it would have been noon before I got out of the house if we kept on talking), but in truth I’ll be damned if I’ll live my life in fear that way. Besides, it seems to me that this poor guy from Stoneham has made the odds of me getting hit while out walking about a million to one. I told this to Tabby and she said, “The odds of you ever being as successful at writing as you have been are even higher. You’ve said so yourself.” To that I’m afraid I had no comeback.

June 19th, 1995 (Bangor)

Tabby and I just got back from the Bangor Auditorium where our youngest (and about four hundred of his classmates) finally got a diploma. He’s now officially a high school graduate. Bangor High and the Bangor Rams are behind him. He’ll be starting college in the fall and then Tab and I will have to start dealing w/ the ever-popular Empty Nest Syndrome. Everybody sez it all goes by in the wink of an eye and you say yeah yeah yeah… and then it does.

Fuck, I’m sad.

Feel lost. What’s it all for, anyway? (What’s it all about, Alfie, ha-ha?) What, just a big scramble from the cradle to the grave? “The clearing at the end of the path"? Jesus, that’s grim.

Meantime, we’re headed down to Lovell and the house on Turtleback Lane this afternoon-Owen will join us in a day or two, he sez. Tabby knows I want to write by the lake, and boy, she’s so intuitive it’s scary. When we were coming back from the graduation exercises, she asked me if the wind was blowing again.

In fact it is, and this time it’s blowing a gale. I can’t wait to start the next volume of the DT series. Time to find out what happens in the riddling contest (that Eddie blows Blaine’s computerized mind with “silly questions"-i.e… riddles-is something I’ve known for several months now), but I don’t think that’s the major story I have to tell this time. I want to write about Susan, Roland’s first love, and I want to set their “cowboy romance” in a fictional part of Mid-World called Mejis (i.e… Mexico).

Time to saddle up and take another ride w/ the Wild Bunch.

Meantime, the other kids are doing well, although Naomi had some kind of allergic reaction, maybe to shell fish…

July 19th, 1995 (Turtleback Lane. Lovell)

As on my previous expeditions to Mid-World, I feel like somebody who’s just spent a month on a jet-propelled rocket-sled. While stoned on hallucinatory happygas. I thought this book would be tougher to get into, much, but in fact it was once more as easy as slipping into a pair of comfortable old shoes, or those Western-style short-boots I got from Bally’s in New York 3 or 4 years ago and cannot bear to give up.

I’ve already got over 200 pages, and was delighted to find Roland and his friends investigating the remains of the superflu; seeing evidence of both Randall Flagg and Mother Abagail.

I think Flagg may turn out to be Walter, Roland’s old nemesis. His real name is Walter o’dim, and he was just a country boy to start with. It makes perfect sense, in a way. I can see now how, to a greater or lesser degree, every story I’ve ever written is about this story. And you know, I don’t have a problem with that. Writing this story is the one that always feels like coming home.

Why does it always feel dangerous, as well? Why should I be so convinced that if I’m ever found slumped over my desk, dead of a heart attack (or wiped out on my Harley, probably on Route 7), it will be while working on one of these Weird Westerns? I guess because I know so many people are depending on me to finish the cycle. And I want to finish it! God, yes! No Canterbury Tales or Mystery of Edwin Drood in my portfolio if I can help it, thank you very much. And yet I always feel as if some anti-creative force is looking around for me, and that I am easier to see when I’m working on these stories.

Well, enough w/ the heebiejeebies. I’m off on my walk.

September 2, 1995

I’m expecting the book to be done in another five weeks. This one has been more challenging, but still the story comes to me in wonderful rich details. Watched Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai last nite, and wonder if that might not be the right direction for Vol. #6, The Werewolves of End-World (or some such). I probably ought to see if any of the little side-o’-the-road video rental places around here have got The Magnificent Seven, which is the Americanized version of the Kurosawa film.

Speaking of side-o’-the-road, I almost had to dive into the ditch this afternoon to avoid a guy in a van-swerving from side to side, pretty obviously drunk-on the last part of Route 7 before I turn back into the relatively sheltered environs of Turtleback Lane. I don’t think I’ll mention this to Tabby; she’d go nuclear. Anyway, I’ve had my one “pedestrian scare,” and I’m just glad it didn’t happen on the Slab City Hill portion of the road.

October 19th, 1995

Took me a little longer than I thought, but I finished Wizard and Glass tonight…

August 19th, 1997

Tabby and I just said goodbye to Joe and his good wife; they’re on their way back to New York. I was glad I could give them a copy of Wizard and Glass. The first bunch of finished books came today. What looks amp; smells better than a new book, especially one w/ your name on the title page? This is the world’s best job I’ve got; real people pay me real money to hang out in my imagination. Where, I should add, the only ones who feel completely real to me are Roland and his ka-tet.

I think the CRs* are really going to like this one, and not just because it finishes the story of Blaine the Mono. I wonder if the Vermont Gramma with the brain tumor is still alive? I’s’poze not, but if she was, I’d be happy to send her a copy…

*Constant Readers

July 6th, 1998

Tabby, Owen, Joe, and I went to Oxford tonight to see the film Armageddon. I liked it more than I expected, in part because I had my family w/ me. The movie is sfx-driven end-of-the-world stuff. Got me thinking about the Dark Tower and the Crimson King. Probably not surprising.

I wrote for awhile this morning on my Vietnam story, switching over from longhand to my PowerBook, so I guess I’m serious about it. I like the way Sully John reappeared. Question: Will Roland Deschain and his friends ever meet Bobby Garfield’s pal, Ted Brautigan? And just who are those low men chasing the old Tedster, anyway? More and more my work feels like a slanted trough where everything eventually drains into Mid-World and End-World.

The Dark Tower is my uberstory, no question about that. When it’s done, I plan to ease back. Maybe retire completely.

August 7, 1998

Took my usual walk this afternoon, and tonight I took Fred Hauser with me to the AA meeting in Fryeburg. On the way home he asked me to sponsor him and I said yes; I think he’s finally getting serious about sobering up. Good for him. Anyhow, he got talking about the so-called “Walk-Ins.” He says there are more of them around the Seven Towns than ever, and all sorts of folks are gossiping about them.

“How come I never hear anything, then?” I asked him. To which I got no answer but an extremely funny look. I kept prodding, and finally Fred sez,

“People don’t like to talk about them around you, Steve, because there have been two dozen reported on Turtle-back Lane in the last 8 months and you claim not to have seen a single one.”

To me this seemed like a non sequitur and I made no reply. It wasn’t until after the meeting-and after I’d dropped my new pigeon off-that I realized what he was saying: people don’t talk about the “Walk-Ins” around me because they think that in some crazy way I’M RESPONSIBLE.

I thought I was pretty well used to being “America’s boogey-man,” but this is actually sort of outrageous…

January 2, 1999 (Boston)

Owen and I are at the Hyatt Harborside tonight, and head off to Florida tomorrow. (Tabby and I are talking about buying a place there but haven’t told the kids. I mean, they’re only 27, 25 and 21-maybe when they’re old enough to understand such things, ha-ha.) Earlier we met Joe and saw a film called Hurlyburly, from the play by David Rabe. Very odd. Speaking of odd, I had some sort of New Year’s Night nightmare before leaving Maine. Can’t remember exactly what it was, but when I woke up this morning I’d written two things in my dreambook. One was Baby Mordred,like something out of a Chas Addams cartoon. That I sort of understand; it must refer to Susannah’s baby in the Dark Tower stories. It’s the other thing that puzzles me. It says 6/19/99. O Discordia.

Discordia also sounds like something out of the DT stories, but it’s not anything I have invented. As for 6/19/99, that’s a date, right? Meaning what? June 19th of this year. Tabby and I should be back at the Turtleback Lane house by then, but so far as I can remember it’s not anybody’s birthday.

Maybe it’s the date I’m going to meet my first walk-in!

June 12, 1999

It’s wonderful to be back at the lake!

I’ve decided to take 10 days off, then finally return to work on the how-to-write book. I’m curious about Hearts in Atlantis; will folks want to know if Bobby Garfield’s friend Ted Brautigan plays a part in the Tower saga? The truth is I really don’t know the answer to that. In any case, readership of the Tower stories has fallen off a lot lately-the figures are really disappointing, compared to that of my other books (except for Rose Madder, which was a real tankjob, at least in the sales sense). But it doesn’t matter, at least to me, and if the series ever gets done, sales may go up.

Tabby and I had another argument about my walking route; she asked me again to quit going out on the main road. Also she asked me “Is the wind blowing yet?” Meaning am I thinking about the next Dark Tower story. I said no, commala-come-come, the tale has not begun. But it will, and there’s a dance called the commala in it. That’s the one thing I see clearly: Roland dancing. Why, or for whom, I don’t know.

Anyway, I asked T. why she wanted to know about the Dark Tower and she said, “You’re safer when you’re with the gunslingers.”

Joking I suppose, but an odd joke for T. Not much like her.

June 17, 1999

Talked with Rand Holsten and Mark Carliner tonight. They both sounded excited about moving on from Storm of the Century to Rose Red (or Kingdom Hospital), but either one would fill my plate up again.

I dreamed of my walk last night amp; wike up crying. The Tower will fall, I thought. O Discordia, the world grows dark.

????

Headline from thePortland Press-Herald, June 18, 1999:

June 19, 1999

This is like one of those times when all the planets line up, except in this case it’s my family all lined up here on Turtleback Lane. Joe and his family arrived around noon; their little boy is really cute. Say true! Sometimes I look in the mirror and say, “You are a grandfather.” And the Steve in the mirror just laughs, because the idea is so ridiculous. The Steve in the mirror knows I’m still a college sophomore, going to classes and protesting the war in Viet Nam by day, drinking beer down at Pat’s Pizza with Flip Thompson and George McLeod by night. As for my grandson, the beautiful Ethan? He just tugs on the balloon tied to his toe and laughs.

Daughter Naomi and son Owen got here late last night. We had a great Father’s Day dinner; people saying things to me that were so nice I had to check to make sure I wasn’t dead! God, I’m lucky to have family, lucky to have more stories to tell, lucky to still be alive. The worst thing to happen this week, 1 hope, will be my wife’s bed collapsing under the weight of our son and daughter-in-law-the idiots were wrestling on it.

You know what? I’ve been thinking of going back to Roland’s story after all. As soon as I finish the book on writing (On Writing would actually not be a bad title-it’s simple and to the point). But right now the sun is shining, the day is beautiful, and what I’m going to do is take a walk.

More later, maybe.

From the Portland Sunday Telegram, June 20, 1999:

By Ray Routhier

lovell, me. (Exclusive) Maine’s most popular author was struck and killed by a van while walking near his summer home yesterday afternoon. The van was driven by Bryan Smith of Fryeburg. According to sources close to the case, Smith has admitted that he “took his eyes off the road” when one of his Rottweilers got out of the back of the van and began nosing into a cooler behind the driver’s seat.

“I never even saw him,” Smith is reported to have said shortly after the collision, which took place on what locals call Slab City Hill.

King, author of such popular novels as It, ’salem’s Lot, The Shining, and The Stand, was taken to Northern Cumberland Memorial Hospital in Bridgton, where he was pronounced dead at 6:02 PM Saturday evening. He was 52 years old.

A hospital source said the cause of death was extensive head injuries. King’s family, which had gathered in part to celebrate Father’s Day, is in seculusion tonight…

Commala-come-come,

The battle’s now begun!

And all the foes of men and rose

Rise with the setting sun.