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 & 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&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:
LOCAL SOCIOLOGIST DISMISSES “WALK-IN” TALES
By Logan Merrill
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 & 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 & 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