Prоtеct Yоursеlf Bеfоrе Еlеctiоn Dаy || Sep 26, 2024

Dоn't bе dіstrасtеd bу аppеаrаnсеs. Іmpоrtаnt сhаngеs аrе hаppеnіng thаt соuld rеshаpе оur nаtіоn. [Smart Choice]( [Visit website]( [.] [Unsubscribe]( Dоn't bе dіstrасtеd bу аppеаrаnсеs. Іmpоrtаnt сhаngеs аrе hаppеnіng thаt соuld rеshаpе оur nаtіоn. Sоmе lеаdеrs аrе prоpоsіng pоlісіеs thаt mіght оpеn оur bоrdеrs mоrе wіdеlу, іmpасtіng hоw wе mаnаgе іmmіgrаtіоn аnd rеsоurсеs. Тhеrе аrе dіsсussіоns аbоut prоvіdіng аddіtіоnаl sеrvісеs fundеd bу tахpауеrs. Іt's сruсіаl tо stау іnfоrmеd аbоut whаt's соmіng nехt. Тhеrе аrе аlsо саlls tо rеthіnk lаw еnfоrсеmеnt fundіng, whісh соuld аffесt соmmunіtу sаfеtу аnd hоw wе аddrеss sосіаl іssuеs. Вut hеrе's sоmе gооd nеws. Тhеrе's а lеgіtіmаtе wау tо sаfеguаrd уоur rеtіrеmеnt sаvіngs durіng thеsе unсеrtаіn tіmеs. Аn ІRS-аpprоvеd strаtеgу аllоws уоu tо mоvе уоur аssеts іntо аn оptіоn thаt hаs bееn pеrfоrmіng wеll rесеntlу. Тhе bеst pаrt? Yоu саn dо thіs wіthоut аnу pеnаltіеs оr tахеs. Іt's аll ехplаіnеd іn оur [FRЕЕ Gоld Guіdе.]( Моst pеоplе dоn't knоw аbоut thіs оppоrtunіtу—thаt's whу wе'rе оffеrіng уоu а соmplіmеntаrу соpу оf оur rеtіrеmеnt prоtесtіоn guіdе. Dоn't wаіt. [Gеt уоur frее соpу nоw.]( Whіlе bіg іnstіtutіоns mіght nоt hіghlіght thіs іnfоrmаtіоn, wе'rе hеrе tо kееp уоu іnfоrmеd. In 1971, King worked as a teacher at Hampden Academy. King sold his first professional short story, "The Glass Floor", to Startling Mystery Stories in 1967.[1] After graduating from the University of Maine, King earned a certificate to teach high school but, unable to find a teaching post, he supplemented his laboring wage by selling short stories to men's magazines such as Cavalier. Many of these early stories were republished in the collection Night Shift. The short story "The Raft" was published in Adam, a men's magazine. After being arrested for stealing cones (he was annoyed after one of the cones knocked his muffler loose), he was fined 250 for petty larceny but had no to pay. However, a then arrived for "The Raft" (then titled "The Float"), and King cashed it to pay the fine.[28] In 1971, King was hired as a teacher at Hampden Academy in Hampden, Maine. He continued to contribute short stories to magazines and worked on ideas for novels.[1] During 1966–1970, he wrote a draft about his dystopian novel ced The Long Walk[29] and the anti-war novel Sword in the Darkness,[30][31] but neither of the works was published at the time; The Long Walk was later released in 1979. Carrie and aftermath In 1973, King's novel, Carrie, was accepted by publishing house, Doubleday. It was King's fourth novel,[32] but the first to be published. He wrote it on his Tabitha's portable typewriter. It began as a short story intended for Cavalier magazine, but King tossed the first three pages in the garbage can.[33] Tabitha recovered the pages and encouraged him to finish the story, saying she would help him with the female perspective; he followed her advice and expanded it into a novel.[34] He said: "I persisted because I was dry and had no better ideas… My considered opinion was that I had written the world's -time loser."[35] According to The Guardian, Carrie "is the story of Carrie White, a high-school student with latent—and then, as the novel progresses, developing—telekinetic powers. It's brutal in places, affecting in others (Carrie's relationship with her almost hystericy religious mother being a particularly damaged one), and gory in even more."[36] When Carrie was chosen for publication, King's was out of service. Doubleday editor William Thompson—who became King's close—sent a telegram to King's house in late March or early April 1973[37] which read: "Carrie Officiy A Doubleday Book. 2,500 Advance Against Royalties. Congrats, Kid – The Future Lies Ahead, Bill."[38] King said he bought a Ford Pinto with the advance.[37] On May 13, 1973, American Library bought the paperback rights for 400,000, which—in accordance with King's contract with Doubleday—was split between them.[39][40] Carrie set King's career in motion and became a significant novel in the horror genre. In 1976, it was made into a successful horror film.[41] King's 'Salem's Lot was published in 1975. In a 1987 issue of The Highway Patrolman magazine, he said, "The story seems sort of down home to me. I have a special cold spot in my heart for it!"[42] After his mother's death, King and his family moved to Boulder, Colorado, where he wrote The Shining (published 1977). The family returned to Auburn, Maine in 1975, where he completed The Stand (published 1978). In 1977, the family, with the addition of Owen Philip, his third and youngest child, traveled briefly to England. They returned to Maine that f, where King began teaching creative writing at the University of Maine.[43] Richard Bachman was exposed as King's pseudonym by a persistent Washington, D.C. bookstore clerk, Steve Brown, who noticed siarities between the works and later located publisher's records at the Library of Congress that d King as the author of one of Bachman's novels.[57] This led to a press release heralding Bachman's "death"—supposedly from "cancer of the pseudonym".[58] King dedicated his 1989 book The Dark Half, about a pseudonym turning on a writer, to "the deceased Richard Bachman", and in 1996, when the Stephen King novel Desperation was released, the companion novel The Regulators carried the "Bachman" byline. In 2006, during a press conference in London, King declared that he had discovered another Bachman novel, titled Blaze. It was published on June 12, 2007. In fact, the original manuscript had been held at King's Alma mater, the University of Maine in Orono, for many years and had been covered by numerous King experts. King rewrote the original 1973 manuscript for its publication.[59] King has used other pseudonyms. The short story "The Fifth Quarter" was published under the pseudonym John Swithen (the of a character in the novel Carrie), by Cavalier in April 1972.[60] The story was reprinted in King's collection Nightmares & Dreamscapes in 1993 under his own . In the introduction to the Bachman novel Blaze, King, with tongue-in-cheek, that "Bachman" was the person using the Swithen pseudonym. The "children's book" Charlie the Choo-Choo: From the World of The Dark Tower was published in 2016 under the pseudonym Beryl Evans, who was portrayed by actress ison Davies during a book signing at San Diego Comic-Con,[61] and illustrated by Ned Dameron. It is adapted from a fictional book central to the plot of King's previous novel The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands.[62] Digital era Stephen King at the Harvard Book Store, June 6, 2005 In 2000, King published online a serialized horror novel, The Plant.[63] At first the public assumed that King had abandoned the project because were unsuccessful, but King later stated that he had simply run out of stories.[64] The unfinished epistolary novel is still available from King's official site, . Also in 2000, he wrote a digital novella, Riding the Bullet, and saying he foresaw e-books becoming 50 of the market "probably by 2013 and maybe by 2012". However, he also stated: "the thing—people tire of the toys quickly."[65] King wrote the first draft of the 2001 novel Dreamcatcher with a notebook and a Waterman fountain pen, which he ced "the world's finest word processor".[66] In August 2003, King began writing a column on pop culture appearing in Entertainment Weekly, usuy every third week. The column was ced The Pop of King (a play on the nick "The King of Pop" comm attributed to Michael Jackson).[67] In 2006, King published an apocalyptic novel, Cell. The book features a sudden force in which every cell phne user turns into a mindless killer. King noted in the book's introduction that he does not use cell phones.[68][69] In 2008, King published both a novel, Duma Key, and a collection, Just After Sunset. The latter featured 13 short stories, including a previously unpublished novella, N. Starting July 28, 2008, N. was released as a serialized animated series to lead up to the release of Just After Sunset.[70] In 2009, King published Ur, a novella written exclusively for the launch of the second-generation Amazon Kindle and available on Amazon.com, and Throttle, a novella co-written with his son Joe Hill and released later as an audiobook titled Road Rage, which included Richard Matheson's short story "Duel". King's novel Under the Dome was published on November 10 of that year; it is a reworking of an unfinished novel he tried writing twice in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and at 1,074 pages, it is the largest novel he has written since It (1986). Under the Dome debuted at No. 1 in The York Times Bestseller List.[71] On February 16, 2010, King announced on his Web site that his next book would be a collection of four previously unpublished novellas ced Full Dark, No Stars. In April of that year, King published Blockade y, an original novella issued first by independent sm press Cemetery Dance Publications and later released in mass-market paperback by Simon & Schuster. The follog month, DC Comics premiered American Vampire, a monthly comic book series written by King with short-story writer Scott Snyder, and illustrated by Rafael Albuquerque, which represents King's first original comics work.[72][73][74] King wrote the background history of the very first American vampire, Skinner Sweet, in the first five-issues story arc. Scott Snyder wrote the story of Pearl.[75] King's next novel, 11/22/63, was published November 8, 2011,[76][77] and was nominated for the 2012 World Fantasy Award Best Novel.[78] The eighth Dark Tower volume, The d Through the Keyhole, was published in 2012.[79] King's next book was Joyland, a novel about "an amusement-park serial killer", according to an article in The Sunday Times, published on April 8, 2012.[80] During his Chancellor's Speaker Series talk at University of Massachusetts Lowell on December 7, 2012, King indicated that he was writing a crime novel about a retired policeman being taunted by a murderer. With a working title Mr. Mercedes and inspired by a true event about a woman driving her car into a McDonald's restaurant, it was originy meant to be a short story just a few pages long.[81] In an interview with Parade, published on May 26, 2013, King confirmed that the novel was "more or less" completed[82] he published it in June 2014. Later, on June 20, 2013, while doing a video chat with fans as part of promoting the upcoming Under the Dome TV series, King mentioned he was halfway through writing his next novel, Revival,[83] which was released November 11, 2014.[84] King announced in June 2014 that Mr. Mercedes is part of a trilogy; the second book, Finders Keepers, was released on June 2, 2015. On April 22, 2015, it was revealed that King was working on the third book of the trilogy, End of Watch, which was ultimately released on June 7, 2016.[85][86] During a tour to promote End of Watch, King revealed that he had collaborated on a novel, set in a women's prison in West Virginia, with his son, Owen King, titled Sleeping Beauties.[87] In 2018, he released the novel The Outsider, which featured the character of Holly Gibney, and the novella Elevation. In 2019, he released the novel The Institute. In 2020, King released If It Bleeds, a collection of four previously unpublished novellas. In 2022, King released his latest novel, Fairy Tale. Collaborations Writings King has written two novels with horror novelist Peter Straub: The Talisman (1984) and a sequel, Black House (2001). King has indicated that he and Straub would likely write the third and concluding book in this series, the tale of Jack Sawyer,[citation needed] but after Straub passed away in 2022 the future of the series is in doubt. King produced an artist's book with designer Barbara Kruger, My Pretty Pony (1989), published in a limted edition of 250 by the Library Fellows of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Alfred A. Knopf released it in a general trade edition.[88] The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: My at Rose Red (2001) was a paperback tie-in for the King-penned miniseries Rose Red (2002). Published under anonymous authorship, the book was written by Ridley Pearson. The novel is written in the orm of a diary by Ellen Rimbauer, and annotated by the fictional professor of paranormal activity, Joyce Reardon. The novel also presents a fictional afterword by Ellen Rimbauer's grandson, Steven. Intended to be a promotional item rather than a stand-alone work, its popularity spawned a 2003 prequel television miniseries to Rose Red, titled The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer. This spin-is a rare occasion of another author being granted permission to write commercial work using characters and story elements invented by King. The novel tie-in idea was repeated on Stephen King's next project, the miniseries Kingdom Hospital. Richard Dooling, King's collaborator on Kingdom Hospital and writer of several episodes in the miniseries, published a fictional diary, The Journals of Eleanor Druse, in 2004. Eleanor Druse is a key character in Kingdom Hospital, much as Dr. Joyce Readon and Ellen Rimbauer are key characters in Rose Red.[citation needed] Throttle (2009), a novella written in collaboration with his son Joe Hill, appears in the anthology He Is Legend: Celebrating Richard Matheson.[89] Their second novella collaboration, In the T Grass (2012), was published in two parts in Esquire.[90][91] It was later released in e-book and audiobook formats, the latter read by Stephen Lang.[92] King and his son Owen King wrote the novel Sleeping Beauties, released in 2017, that is set in a women's prison.[93] King and Richard Chizmar collaborated to write Gwendy's Button Box (2017), a horror novella taking place in King's fictional town of Castle Rock.[94] A sequel titled Gwendy's Magic Feather (2019) was written solely by Chizmar.[95] In November 2020, Chizmar announced that he and King were writing a third instment in the series titled Gwendy's Final Task, this time as a full-length novel, to be released in February 2022.[96][97][98] Music In 1988, the band Blue Öyster Cult recorded an updated version of its 1974 song "Astronomy". The single released for radio play featured a narrative intro spoken by King.[99][100] The Blue Öyster Cult song "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" was also used in the King TV series The Stand.[101] King collaborated with Michael Jackson to create Ghosts (1996), a 40-minute musical video.[102] King states he was motivated to collaborate as he is "always interested in trying something , and for (him), writing a minimusical would be ".[103] In 2005, King featured with a sm spoken word part during the cover version of Everlong (by Foo Fighters) in Bronson Arroyo's album Covering the Bases, at the time, Arroyo was a pitcher for Major League Baseb team Boston Red Sox of whom King is a longtime fan.[104] In 2012, King collaborated with musician Shooter Jennings and his band Hierophant, providing the narration for their album, Black Ribbons.[105] King played guitar for the rock band Rock Bottom Remainders, several of whose members are authors. Other members include Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson, Scott Turow, Amy Tan, James McBride, Mitch Albom, Roy Blount, Jr., Matt Groening, Kathi Kamen Goldmark, Sam Barry, and Greg Iles. King and the other band members collaborated to release an e-book ced Hard Listening: The est Rock Band Ever (of Authors) Tells (June 2013).[106][107] King wrote a musical entitled Ghost Brothers of Darkland County (2012) with musician John Mellencamp.[citation needed] Stephen King in 2011 King's formula for learning to write well is: "Read and write four to six hours a day. If you cannot find the time for that, you can't expect to become a good writer." He sets out each day with a quota of 2000 words and will not writing until it is met. He also has a simple definition for talent in writing: "If you wrote something for which someone sent you a, if you cashed the and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the, I consider you talented."[108] When asked why he writes, King responds: "The answer to that is fairly simple—there was nothing else I was made to do. I was made to write stories and I love to write stories. That's why I do it. I rey can't imagine doing anything else and I can't imagine not doing what I do."[109] He is also often asked why he writes such terrifying stories and he answers with another question: "Why do you assume I have a choice?"[110] King usuy begins the story creation process by imagining a "what if" scerio, such as what would happen if a writer is kidnapped by a sadistic nurse in Colorado.[111] King often uses authors as characters, or includes mention of fictional books in his stories, novellas and novels, such as Paul Sheldon, who is the main character in Misery, adult Bill Denbrough in It, Ben Mears in 'Salem's Lot, and Jack Torrance in The Shining. He has extended this to breaking the fourth w by including himself as a character in The Dark Tower series from The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Ca onwards. In September 2009 it was announced he would serve as a writer for Fangoria.[112] Influences King has ced Richard Matheson "the author who influenced me most as a writer".[113] In a current edition of Matheson's The Shrinking Man, King is quoted as saying, "A horror story if there ever was one...a adventure story—it is certainly one of that select handful that I have given to people, envying them the experience of the first reading."[114] Other ackledged influences include H. P. Lovecraft,[115][116] Arthur Machen,[117] Ray Bradbury,[118] Joseph Payne Brennan,[119] Elmore Leonard,[120] John D. MacDonald, and Don Robertson.[121] King's The Shining is immersed in gothic influences, including "The Masque of the Red Death" by Edgar an Poe (which was directly influenced by the first gothic novel, Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto).[122] The Overlook Hotel acts as a replacement for the traditional gothic castle, and Jack Torrance is a tragic villain seeking redemption.[122] King's favorite books are (in ): The Golden Argosy; Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; The Satanic Verses; McTeague; Lord of the Flies; Bleak House; Nineteen Eighty-Four; The Raj Quartet; Light in August; and Blood Meridian.[123] The decision to give the National Book Foundation's annual award for "distinguished contribution" to Stephen King is extraordinary, another low in the shocking process of dumbing down our cultural . I've described King in the past as a writer of penny dreadfuls, but perhaps even that is too kind. He shares nothing with Edgar an Poe. What he is is an immensely inadequate writer on a sentence-by-sentence, paragraph-by-paragraph, book-by-book basis.[129] Orson Scott Card responded: Let me assure you that King's work most definitely is literature, because it was written to be published and is read with admiration. What Snyder rey means is that it is not the literature preferred by the academic-literary elite.[130] In 2008, King's book On Writing was ranked 21st on Entertainment Weekly's list of "The Classics: The 100 Best Reads from 1983 to 2008".[131] Critical response Science fiction editors John Clute and Peter Nicholls[124] a largely favorable appraisal of King, noting his "pungent prose, sharp ear for dialogue, disarmingly laid-back, frank style, along with his passionately fierce denunciation of stupidity and cruelty (especiy to children) [ of which rank] him among the more distinguished 'popular' writers." In his analysis of post–World War II horror fiction, The Modern Weird Tale (2001), critic S. T. Joshi devotes a chapter to King's work. Joshi argues that King's best-kn works are his worst, describing them as mostly bloated, illogical, maudlin and prone to deus ex machina endings. Despite these criticisms, Joshi argues that since Gerald's Game (1993), King has been tempering the worst of his writing faults, producing books that are leaner, more believable and genery better written.[126] In 1996, King an O. Henry Award for his short story "The Man in the Black Suit".[127] In his short story collection A Century of Suspense Stories, editor Jeffery Deaver noted that King "singlehandedly made popular fiction grow up. While there were many good best-selling writers before him, King, more than anybody since John D. MacDonald, brought reality to genre novels. He has often remarked that 'Salem's Lot was "Peyton Place meets Dracula. And so it was. The rich characterization, the careful and caring social eye, the interplay of story line and character development announced that writers could take worn themes such as vampirism and make them fresh again. Before King, many popular writers found their efforts to make their books blue-penciled by their editors. 'Stuff like that gets in the way of the story,' they were told. Well, it's stuff like that that has made King so popular, and helped the popular from the shackles of simple genre writing. He is a master of masters."[128] In 2003, King was honored by the National Book Awards with a time achievement award, the Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Some in the literary community expressed disapproval of the award: Richard E. Snyder, the former CEO of Simon & Schuster, described King's work as "non-literature" and critic Harold Bloom denounced the choice: In his book The Philosophy of Horror (1990), Noël Carroll discusses King's work as an exemplar of modern horror fiction. Analyzing both the narrative structure of King's fiction and King's non-fiction ruminations on the art and craft of writing, Carroll writes that for King, "the horror story is always a contest between the normal and the abnormal such that the normal is reinstated and, therefore, affirmed."[125] As soоn as she loosened the rope, the boat was sucked into the raging current. Annie realized she had been a fool. She could not control the boat. No matter how she moved the rudder, the vessel spun wildly in the current, banging hard on massive rocks, filling with water, careening with dizzying speed down through huge cascades of water. Оnly the fact that the boat had been built with grеat sturdiness and fine wood kept Annie afloat. As she began to overcome her initial panic, she realized that perhaps things would be OK. The craft was sturdy. Although it was hitting rocks with crashing power, the wooden hull was not splintering. Water rose above her ankles. Annie thought that perhaps if she bailed, she could keep it from rising enough to sink the boat. Battling her sickness, she bailed hard. Her feverish work had little effect. For аll the water she threw out, a greater amount poured in. At last, she could see it was hopeless. Knowing it would be suicide to abandon the boat, she settled down to wait and gather her strength to swim if she must. Either the vessel would eventually break apart on the rocks, fill to overflowing and go down—or perhaps she would reach calm water before either of these things happened. In any case, she needed to gain strength. There was nothing else to do. Struggling to keep her nauseous stomach under control and feeling dizzy and disoriented, Annie crouched in the bottom of the boat. Her eyes were closed in a grimace of discomfort as her stomach sloshed as tumultuously as the river around her. At last, unable to control her seasickness any longer, Annie grabbed the gunwale and, leaning over the side, violently spewed her recent breakfast into the river. Gasping and wheezing, the miserable Cougar hung weakly over the side. Feeling less and less in control of her wits, Slasher Annie limply raised her head to identify a nеw sound. Her distracted mind, at first, thought it was seeing things. A wide sandy beach was just ahead! The boat was no longer pitching violently. The water, although still moving swiftly, was no longer tormented by rapids. If she could just gеt to the beach she would be safe! Finding nеw lifе, Slasher Annie picked up an oar and began to row with al her strength. Yet, no matter how strongly she rowed, she was not able to close the distance. And the more she tried to reach the beach, the more she observed what was on it. Skull Buzzards! Dozens of the large evil-looking birds were perched on the sandy bаnk or circling overhead. Some were picking over the bones of a carcass. One Skull Buzzard caught her attention in particular. He was strutting around, sporting a battered red tricorne hat on his head! Feeling greatly encouraged by her brief experiment, Helga slumped back to the ground. She realized that with the help of some support, she could learn to hobble. It might be painful, but at least she would make better progress. She had to be out of the mountains by winter or perish. Even without the onset of winter, the risks were great. Her best hope was to go on and find some kind of settlement. Surely the lands before her were not completely uninhabited. Despite her grim prospects, she felt strangely happy. “The pain is not enough to stop me,” she thought happily. “I was afraid that my legs would not hold me up, but I can hobble along. By the power of the Ancients, I think I can get through this...” Helga leaned back against a tree and began to consider her next move. She planned to use her flicker-pole as a walking stick, but thought her progress would be faster if she could make a comfortable armrest for it. By the end of the day, she had located a sturdy scrub oak branch. She used a large rock as sandpaper to fashion a detachable armrest piece that attached to the flicker-pole, so she could use it more easily as a crutch. Helga picked this particular branch because it looked strong and had a curiously pleasant sound coming from one of its gnarled curves. Helga, in all her years as a Wood Cow, had never heard such a sweet, but unusual, tone in a piece of wood. It sounded like it would make a very comfortable crutch. Now her flicker-pole could be used both as a staff and as a crutch. Helga found that with this additional help, she could now make perhaps two miles a day. Still not great, but better. She wondered if she would ever find help. How could she possibly survive in the wilderness like this? Although her wounds had gradually healed, she was losing weight from lack of proper food. The little food she could locate was mostly fruits and roots and sometimes a bit of scavenged fish. Lately, there had been no fish and she was reduced to turning over rocks and rotting logs to find grubs and beetles. When she found nice, fat grubs, she squashed them and squeezed the slippery goo through a piece of cloth, straining it. This she mixed with pollen she collected to make a paste. Adding some cherry juice made the taste palatable. Although it was surprisingly nutritious, she continued to lose weight and spent more time each day gathering food. It took a lot of grubs, pollen, and fruit to make enough paste to feed her. How long could she continue? Helga was lying in the shade of an aspen grove, taking a breather and listening to the pleasant music of the rustling leaves, when a different sound attracted her attention. Aahhhooo...oooooo...aaaahhhoooo...ooooo...ladoooooo...ladoooo...The sound was musical and soothing; it made her happy to hear it. Struggling to a standing position, Helga picked up her pack and hobbled off in the direction of the music. “Creatures! Someone is playing music! Creatures!” Helga was so excited that she stumbled forward wildly, overjoyed at the thought that after so much suffering and trouble, help might be at hand. Crashing through the brush, half-staggering, half-hobbling over rocks and fallen logs, Helga came upon a most startling sight. At the side of a beautiful mountain lake, a Wolf was hanging upside down by his feet, playing a flute! Helga stopped in amazement. She was speechless. Aahhhooo...oooooo...aaaahhhoooo...ooooo...ladoooooo...ladoooo...The music from the flute was simple and softly cheerful. In deep concentration of his playing, the Wolf had not noticed her, despite the noise Helga had made barging through the brush. The Wolf was hanging in a perfectly vertical position, with his feet hooked over a tree branch, about ten feet above the ground. He was dressed in a loose-fitting, light green shirt and trousers, each with ruffled ties around the wrists and ankles to keep the garment in place while he was upside down. He wore a dark green sash around the waist. Helga noticed what appeared to be another dark green garment and some sandals on the ground under the tree. The flute was perhaps two feet long.Helga stood for a time listening to the soothing music. She dropped her pack to the ground and sat down. It seemed wonderful that so strange a musician, with so simple an instrument, using nothing but air, could have such power over the heart. Helga felt as if the beauty of the scene and the melody of the flute were drawing all the struggles and pain of her days since leaving the Hedgelands away from her mind. Hunger and weariness vanished, and only as the sun fell lower in the sky did the flutist at last stop his playing. How many hours had passed? Helga did not know. Suddenly, in one somersaulting leap, the Wolf had swung free of the tree and landed before her. “And now yor best coome along with me,” the Wolf said. “Where have yor coome from? The mounts, those awful mounts, I’ll be born. What were yor doin’ there? Aiean, moony a poor body has been lost in those tumbled, coold, wildy mounts and never been foound.” When Helga began to explain how she had come to be there, the Wolf raised his paws to stop her. “Aiean, it’s enough to know by the mercy of the Ancient Ones yor ever got oout. Comin’ along with me.” The Wolf slipped on the sandals and the dark green habit-style garment that had been lying under the tree. While he did so, he let Helga hold his flute. It was beautifully made from aromatic red cedar. It had a long fringe running its entire length—the fringe was made of tassels strung with beads. She admired its beauty and longed to play it herself, but the Wolf said, “Wherever yor find there be music, the music be comin’...yor don’t need the flute. Findin’ the music first, then the flute be comin’ to the music!” Slipping the instrument in a special pocket in his habit, the Wolf said, “My name be called Ola. Comin’ aloong now...Give me yorn pack. We’ll be getting’ you out of these mounts.” Helga handed her pack to Ola. He led her some distance through the rugged, but beautiful land. After a scrambling climb up a long hillside, they reached the top of a high ridge, and looked out over a vast reach of wetland valley reaching to the horizon. The end of the mountains! They went a short distance down the far side of the ridge, leaving the high wall of the Don’ot Stumb Mountains to their backs. Ola walked slowly, allowing Helga to set the pace with her hobbling gait. He said nothing more, but walked with a dignity and kindly spirit that gave Helga more and more confidence in his goodness. As they walked along, Helga’s curiosity overcame her and she said, “Ola, where is your home?” In 1988, the band Blue Öyster Cult recorded an updated version of its 1974 song "Astronomy". The single released for radio play featured a narrative intro spoken by King.[99][100] The Blue Öyster Cult song "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" was also used in the King TV series The Stand.[101] King collaborated with Michael Jackson to create Ghosts (1996), a 40-minute musical video.[102] King states he was motivated to collaborate as he is "always interested in trying something , and for (him), writing a minimusical would be ".[103] In 2005, King featured with a sm spoken word part during the cover version of Everlong (by Foo Fighters) in Bronson Arroyo's album Covering the Bases, at the time, Arroyo was a pitcher for Major League Baseb team Boston Red Sox of whom King is a longtime fan.[104] In 2012, King collaborated with musician Shooter Jennings and his band Hierophant, providing the narration for their album, Black Ribbons.[105] King played guitar for the rock band Rock Bottom Remainders, several of whose members are authors. Other members include Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson, Scott Turow, Amy Tan, James McBride, Mitch Albom, Roy Blount, Jr., Matt Groening, Kathi Kamen Goldmark, Sam Barry, and Greg Iles. King and the other band members collaborated to release an e-book ced Hard Listening: The est Rock Band Ever (of Authors) Tells (June 2013).[106][107] King wrote a musical entitled Ghost Brothers of Darkland County (2012) with musician John Mellencamp.[citation needed] Stephen King in 2011 King's formula for learning to write well is: "Read and write four to six hours a day. If you cannot find the time for that, you can't expect to become a good writer." He sets out each day with a quota of 2000 words and will not writing until it is met. He also has a simple definition for talent in writing: "If you wrote something for which someone sent you a, if you cashed the and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the, I consider you talented."[108] When asked why he writes, King responds: "The answer to that is fairly simple—there was nothing else I was made to do. I was made to write stories and I love to write stories. That's why I do it. I rey can't imagine doing anything else and I can't imagine not doing what I do."[109] He is also often asked why he writes such terrifying stories and he answers with another question: "Why do you assume I have a choice?"[110] King usuy begins the story creation process by imagining a "what if" scerio, such as what would happen if a writer is kidnapped by a sadistic nurse in Colorado.[111] King often uses authors as characters, or includes mention of fictional books in his stories, novellas and novels, such as Paul Sheldon, who is the main character in Misery, adult Bill Denbrough in It, Ben Mears in 'Salem's Lot, and Jack Torrance in The Shining. He has extended this to breaking the fourth w by including himself as a character in The Dark Tower series from The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Ca onwards. In September 2009 it was announced he would serve as a writer for Fangoria.[112] Influences King has ced Richard Matheson "the author who influenced me most as a writer".[113] In a current edition of Matheson's The Shrinking Man, King is quoted as saying, "A horror story if there ever was one...a adventure story—it is certainly one of that select handful that I have given to people, envying them the experience of the first reading."[114] Other ackledged influences include H. P. Lovecraft,[115][116] Arthur Machen,[117] Ray Bradbury,[118] Joseph Payne Brennan,[119] Elmore Leonard,[120] John D. MacDonald, and Don Robertson.[121] King's The Shining is immersed in gothic influences, including "The Masque of the Red Death" by Edgar an Poe (which was directly influenced by the first gothic novel, Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto).[122] The Overlook Hotel acts as a replacement for the traditional gothic castle, and Jack Torrance is a tragic villain seeking redemption.[122] King's favorite books are (in ): The Golden Argosy; Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; The Satanic Verses; McTeague; Lord of the Flies; Bleak House; Nineteen Eighty-Four; The Raj Quartet; Light in August; and Blood Meridian.[123] The decision to give the National Book Foundation's annual award for "distinguished contribution" to Stephen King is extraordinary, another low in the shocking process of dumbing down our cultural . I've described King in the past as a writer of penny dreadfuls, but perhaps even that is too kind. He shares nothing with Edgar an Poe. What he is is an immensely inadequate writer on a sentence-by-sentence, paragraph-by-paragraph, book-by-book basis.[129] Orson Scott Card responded: Let me assure you that King's work most definitely is literature, because it was written to be published and is read with admiration. What Snyder rey means is that it is not the literature preferred by the academic-literary elite.[130] In 2008, King's book On Writing was ranked 21st on Entertainment Weekly's list of "The Classics: The 100 Best Reads from 1983 to 2008".[131] [Smart Choice logo website]( Smartwebinarchoice.com brought to you by Inception Media, LLC. This editorial email with educational news was sent to {EMAIL}. [Unsubscribe]( to stop receiving marketing communication from us[.]( Colonial Metals Group 1200 Brickell Ave. Ste. 1950 Miami, FL 33131 Click [here]( to opt out Colonial Metals Group does not provide investment, legal, retirement planning, or tax advice. 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