At least, I hope I do. I am in the middle of re-reading Steven King’s Dark Tower book series. It is an epic story (split in to 7 books) centered around the world’s last gunslinger, his quest to find the Dark Tower (the binding force of the universe and all of the worlds contained in it) and the adventures that happen as he tries to get there. Every time I read it I get this hankering to write my own epic story, and hopefully this time I will actually follow thru with this desire. I have grandiose dreams of making a fortune off of the story, but I think I would still be happy if I did write it and no one else even knew it existed.
Unlike the last times I had this hankering, I am actually taking steps towards making it a reality. I searched all of my old hard drives for my old creative writing works from high school and college. I am going to read thru these, try to figure out where my strengths and weaknesses in writing are and go from there. Mayhap I will start writing new short stories and poems (Mr. King was greatly influenced by the poem “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came” by Robert Browning) and post them here to get some feedback from you readers. I think I might also take another creative writing class at the community college to keep my creative juices flowing. If any of you know of a website I can submit my stories/poems to in order to get feedback on them, please let me know by leaving a comment here.
In the preface to one of the books, Mr. King writes that he was first smitten to write his own epic story after reading The Lord of the Rings by J.R. Tolkein (another series that after I finish it I get the urge to write epically-although not as strong of an urge as during and after the Dark Tower), but he forced himself to wait a few years after the last time he read them so that his own epic story wasn’t completely infused with LOTR. I think I will need to follow in his footsteps, so don’t expect the first draft of book 1 anytime soon, but rest assured ye fans of epic stories, I will write it and mayhap one day you can say “I started reading that guy before he became famous.”
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