The Bazaar of Bad Dreams

by Stephen King

And, yes, when my stories are collected, I always feel like a street vendor, one who sells only at midnight.

Easy reading is the product of hard writing,

Every day spent writing is a learning experience, and a battle to do something new.

Then the pain bloomed large and all thought ceased. There was time for one scream. Only one.

Wayland doesn’t believe a word of it, but like many fantasies, this one has its own internal logic.

Climbing the hill, she thinks that their lifelong efforts to make beauty out of words are an illusion. Either that or a joke played on children who have selfishly refused to grow up. Yes, probably that. Stupid selfish children like that, she thinks, deserve to be pranked.

sometimes think a book of short stories is actually a kind of oneiric diary, a way of catching subconscious images before they can fade away.

I hate the assumption that you can’t write about something because you haven’t experienced it, and not just because it assumes a limit on the human imagination, which is basically limitless.

She’s ten years from a hundred and still thinks she deserves perfection, Dave thought. Some people have remarkably sturdy illusions.

Like several other stories in this book, “The Little Green God of Agony” is a search for closure. But, like all the stories in this book, its principal purpose is to entertain. Although life experiences are the basis of all stories, I’m not in the business of confessional fiction.

Usually the marks get partial relief. Why wouldn’t they, when half the pain is in their heads, manufactured by lazy minds that only understand it will hurt to get better?”

Writing is hard, okay? At least it is for me. And yes, I know that most working stiffs talk about how hard their jobs are, it doesn’t matter if they’re butchers, bakers, candlestick makers, or obituary writers. Only sometimes the work is not hard. Sometimes it’s easy. When that happens you feel like you do at the bowling alley, watching your ball as it rolls over just the right diamond and you know you threw a strike.

“I know you,” she said. “You’re Stephen King. You write those scary stories. That’s all right, some people like them, but not me. I like uplifting stories, like that Shawshank Redemption.” “I wrote that too,” I said. “No you didn’t,” she said, and went on her way.

I also like to read and write stories that strike me funny, and that should surprise nobody, because humor and horror are Siamese twins.