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