Stephen King - Song of Susannah

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 Gunslingeras 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 longnovel 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 Towerstory. 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 seeRoland 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 haveto, but I still can’t. I have written !!300!! PAGESin the last month, and the copy is so clean it’s positively squeaky. I’ve neverfelt 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 littlework 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 dreamabout 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 Threeis 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 Drawingfrom Donald Grant today. It’s a beautiful package. I’ve also decided to let NAL go ahead and do both Dark Towerbooks 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 noneof 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