I finally finished the sixth Dark Tower book, Song of Susannah.
At the end of the book, King fills the coda with nuggets from his personal journal over a 30-or-so year span. And boy, reading this section—a fellow wordslinger’s journey, if it does ya—was more addicting than perhaps any other “moment” throughout the entire series thus far.
If you don’t know King’s Dark Tower origin story, here’s a quick summary:
King had a dream where Roland Deschain, the gunslinger from Gilead, visited him. This happened about 15 years after King wrote the first draft, then lost it. This dream made King search for it again—and found it under a yuge pile of junk in his garage.
King originally wanted to publish chapters as episodic installments in fantasy and sci-fi magazines. And he did, but he did not plan it as his magnum opus.
After publishing The Gunslinger (and after it sat and collected dust for 15 years), King never thought he’d return to Roland’s world. He writes so many and many-a time in his journal. And yet… King couldn’t resist. Something bigger called him. Something scarier too: O Discordia!
Fans loved The Gunslinger. And so, they’d often write to King demanding he continue the story. (My inner wordslinger cringes at the thought of having millions and millions of “clients.”) Though, King bears some responsibility as he slapped The Gunslinger in the ad slot on one of his books — even though the 10,000 copies he had produced at the time had long sold out, and he had no plans, at the time, to publish more copies or to dive back into Mid-World with Roland and his ka-tet.
But eventually, King returned.
He had too. He was drawn to it by an unknown force. An unknown force of good. But there was also an unknown force of evil and procrastination: O Discordia!
King knocked out the second and third books of the series at breakneck speed, including writing 800-some pages in as little as three months. King would give all credit to that unknown force of good which visited him whenever he sat down to write The Dark Tower. You can call it flow, fate, ka, destiny, Gan, purpose, The White does it please ya?
Then King stopped.
He couldn’t have stopped at a worse time: Dark Tower III (The Waste Lands) ended on an unsatisfying cliffhanger. And he didn’t dive back into Roland’s world for decades, pissing off many and many-a of his fans.
After a 10 or maybe even 15 year period, King sobered up (literally) and returned to Roland’s world.
By this time, O Discordia—also known as Resistance in some circles—realized what King also realized:
The Dark Tower was his magnum opus.
And Resistance pulled no punches when King tried working on it:
There was the aforementioned decades-long time off when “the wind didn’t blow” (to put King’s self-described writer’s block—for lack of a better term—in his own words.
There was King’s mental block with The Dark Tower: Whenever he sat down and worked on it, it oozed out of his body as if it came from Gan, the creative overforce in King’s multiverse of books, himself. (King would admit he did not write any of his books, especially The Dark Tower ones). But he couldn’t muster up the courage to work on it as often as mayhap he oughta.
As for the cherry on top: King was struck by a car while taking his daily walk and almost died before finishing The Dark Tower. Not to mention, he also battled an alcohol and drug addiction throughout his early career, which could’ve snuffed him at a moment’s notice.
Anyway, here’s the simplified point of all this:
Whenever you’re working on your “magnum opus” or at least making moves to grow as a person, as a business owner, and as a force of goodness in this world…
O Discordia will be waiting for you. (King always said O Discordia found him easier when he worked on The Dark Tower.)
O Discordia will try anything in her supreme power to stop you — up to and including death.
And yes, my cully, O Discordia hath crucified many and many-a wordslingers, gunslingers, and bizslingers alike.
But heed this:
You possess the power to stop O Discordia, fellow wordslinger. And you—and the world itself—will be better off if’n you stop her.
Remember the face of your father.
Or in other words:
Keep pushing hard through the storm, for your father’s sake.
Who knows, you could just wind up saving The Dark Tower and sending O Discordia back into the abyss.
Anywho:
Fictional stories aside… like King, I harness the magic of words to make businesses like yours more sales than you ever could have dreamed.
Don’t let Discordia stop you from booking a call, and seeing if we’re a good match—a ka-tet, if it pleases ya, say thank ya—to partner and repel the black magic of Discordia with good ol’ cashola and unrivaled freedom.
Ball’s in your court.
The wordslinger has said his piece.
John
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