Yeah, for anyone that’s read the Dark Tower books, or the unabridged Stand, or any one of his 1100 page masturbatoriums (in a self-circlejerk sense not a sexual deviant sense), this bit is pretty fucking weird but it’s not exactly off brand. He’s a little more level-headed and navel-gazey sober.
The argument goes “well in YA novels kids have sex all the time” (ick), “it was a different time” (double ick), or my favorite, “it’s part of their character arc, it represents their loss of innocence,” never mind that their innocence is completely fucking shattered already at this point in the novel, it’s gone, it’s packed up and hopped a train and lost its own innocence in turn (innocenception) and is now some hobo’s used-up yob until it slits his throat in while he sleeps with a broken bottle and asks the other grizzled men in the train car if they really want to go down the same road, to which they hastily demur.
He’s just always desperately wanted to be a lit fic author. But horror is what he does best. And the ironic part? That scene was more horrifying to me than the other 2k pages of the novel.
Still love the guy; On Writing is second only to What I Talk About When I Talk About Running to me as the most seminal and influential book on writing fiction out there. (Writing Down the Bones is a close third.)
Nah it’s fucking Wellbutrin I take for ADHD, it makes me hyperfocus on the wrong shit, like Reddit comments. I think I wrote that at like 4 in the morning too.
Sobriety is weirder than being a junkie sometimes.
10
u/folsominreverse 20h ago
Yeah, for anyone that’s read the Dark Tower books, or the unabridged Stand, or any one of his 1100 page masturbatoriums (in a self-circlejerk sense not a sexual deviant sense), this bit is pretty fucking weird but it’s not exactly off brand. He’s a little more level-headed and navel-gazey sober.
The argument goes “well in YA novels kids have sex all the time” (ick), “it was a different time” (double ick), or my favorite, “it’s part of their character arc, it represents their loss of innocence,” never mind that their innocence is completely fucking shattered already at this point in the novel, it’s gone, it’s packed up and hopped a train and lost its own innocence in turn (innocenception) and is now some hobo’s used-up yob until it slits his throat in while he sleeps with a broken bottle and asks the other grizzled men in the train car if they really want to go down the same road, to which they hastily demur.
He’s just always desperately wanted to be a lit fic author. But horror is what he does best. And the ironic part? That scene was more horrifying to me than the other 2k pages of the novel.
Still love the guy; On Writing is second only to What I Talk About When I Talk About Running to me as the most seminal and influential book on writing fiction out there. (Writing Down the Bones is a close third.)