A scifi-horror piece called "I Am The Doorway".

Written for his college literary journal. I know because two of my sisters were pals of his at UMO (University of Maine, Orono) and my brother in law was a one-time roommate. I think my family has a copy of that kicking around somewhere. Also, the other one from NIGHT SHIFT that was a sort-of dry run of The Stand (Night Tide, maybe? My copy of Night Shift is buried in my book collection so I can't get to it easily), was published there too.

I also knew about the Bachman psuedonym about 5 years before anybody else. Rage is still a favorite of mine. It was a VERY adolescent acting out novel, but I was in high school when I read it and it hit SO many of the right buttons for me.

The ending of "Strawberry Spring" creeped me right. the fuck. out. Brr. Not to mention the one with the rats, and the one that read like a dry run for Salem's Lot.

The ending of "Strawberry Spring" creeped me right. the fuck. out. Brr. Not to mention the one with the rats, and the one that read like a dry run for Salem's Lot.

NIGHT SHIFT is a pretty much perfect collection of creep-you-the-fuck-out horror stories. As a novelist, with a few exceptions (Pet Sematary especially), King got to like his characters too much to do horrible things to ALL of them. But in short stories he's a merciless bastard.

The not doing awful things to his characters wouldn't bother me if it weren't dragged out over 1200 pages. Man needs a ruthless editor like most people need water.

I wonder how much of the trend of guaranteed bestselling authors like King not getting severely edited is the fault of their publisher's greed vs. that of the writer's ego. If the publishing house forgoes the usual editiong process, they are able to get the book out on the market that much sooner, and they don't have to apply as much of the editing cost to the production cost of the book.

I wonder how much of the trend of guaranteed bestselling authors like King not getting severely edited is the fault of their publisher's greed vs. that of the writer's ego.

Ego. It takes months to not only prep a book for publication, but there's also a promotion campaign, and you have to list it in catalogs and build interest (even for a big name like King) and handle the orders. There's plenty of time to edit it.

Yup. Mostly ego.

Two words: Anne. Rice.

Two more: Thomas. Harris.

Thanks.

Hmm. I can't imagine getting to a place where I wouldn't be willing to let someone telling me how to make my stuff better.

I can't imagine getting to a place where I wouldn't be willing to let someone telling me how to make my stuff better.

Word, sister. Big ole word.

And if I thought somebody was humoring me, I'd trip out. I hate being humored, especially if somebody was going around saying "She's really lost her game." Assuming I ever find it, that is.