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 & I & 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, I 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&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.