Ka Is A Wheel….

Any Dark Tower fans out there?  Stephen King describes this epic series of his as a mash up of The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly and The Lord Of The Rings.  It’s an epic-fantasy-western, if you can even wrap your mind around all of those genres in one story, & it’s not for everybody.  But I love a good hero, & the Dark Tower provided.

Heroes are very important to us romance novelists (and romance readers!), after all.  We love men.  Love figuring those stubborn souls out.  We want to know what they think, how they feel, and what matters to them.  We want to know what’s on that mental landscape they keep so private, & we really hope it’s us.  We’re not really surprised to find that it isn’t, though.  Or–if we are on there–that we don’t take up nearly as much geography as we’d hoped.

But Roland from the Dark Tower was my kind of hero.  The last gunslinger, he was born to a mission.  The world was under seige & he was the last of the heroes.  It was his job to get to the Dark Tower (wherever/whatever that may be) and do what must be done (whatever that may be) to restore balance.  This would involve great sacrifice, as all good quests do, but he didn’t question that.  He was a world saver, & there was a world to be saved.  Game on.

That said?  There are, like, eight books in this series, & it took Stephen King most of his career to write them all.  So he wrote book one as a young man, very certain of  the world & his role within it.  He wrote the last book in his mid-sixties, with grown kids & a marriage that had endured despite a great deal of physical & emotional trauma.  (Car wrecks, addictions, & world-wide fame, oh my.)  In other words, the man’s lived a full life.  He has perspective now.  He knows what pain is, what joy is, & what family is worth.  He knows what sacrifice is–his own & others’ on his behalf.  He knows what success costs.

Which means that Roland does as well.

I don’t want to spoil the ending for anybody so I’ll just say this–by the time Roland got to the Dark Tower, he was no longer nearly so sure of himself.  He’d sacrificed so much, broken so much, lost so much, killed so much in single-minded service to the quest.  Did he win?  Was it ultimately worth what he paid for it?

The grown-up Stephen King is remarkably opaque on this.  He doesn’t provide answers.  But the fact that he asks the questions is growth enough for me.  Because young Roland didn’t even ask.  The questions never even occurred to him.  But they occur to older, wiser Roland.  He’s changed.  He sees things that were previously invisible, places value on things that he once sacrificed without a second thought.  So was he successful?  Hard to say.  Is success completing the original quest?  Or do we get the chance to revise our definition of success as we get older & wiser?

I’ve been thinking about this as the Romance Bandits wrap up this, what, eight year run of daily blogging?  I’ve been thinking about where I started this journey & where I’m ending it.  I’ve been thinking about the Then Susan, so certain of her place & her plans.  I’ve been thinking about how different she is from the Now Susan.  Goodness knows my definition of success has certainly changed.  I was supposed to be the unholy love child of Nora Roberts, Jennifer Crusie & Susan Elizabeth Phillips by now, with a major publisher behind me, & a shelf full of RITAs behind my computer.

I think it’s safe to say that didn’t happen.

But I’m still writing.  I’m putting out books I love on a schedule that allows me to stay sane & be the mom I want to be.   I have relationships with other writers that I cherish, & that make any small success I’ve eked out possible.  (And yes, my dear Romance Bandits, I’m talking about you. )

And I have you.  You faithful bandit buddies who make writing worth it.   Who love the stories, who love the lair, who even love the Rooster Of Questionable Morals.  Your support, your confidence and your friendship have meant the world to me.  To us.  Thank you for taking this journey with us.

But, as Roland himself would say, Ka is a wheel.  Its only purpose is to turn, which means that there aren’t really any endings or beginnings, just the world rolling along.  So this isn’t goodbye.  I’ll catch you all on the next turn of the wheel–or of Twitter or of Facebook or whatever–because the world is small & people who love stories the way we do will always find each other.

So I’ll see you soon.  Looking forward!