(5 of 10)
He was not greased, Tabitha stopped smelling like an overgrown cruller, and the six-figure earnings soon became seven. "People think the muse is a literary character," says King, "some cute little pudgy devil who floats around the head of the creative person sprinkling fairy dust. Well, mine's a guy with a flattop in coveralls who looks like Jack Webb and says, 'All right, you son of a bitch, time to get to work.' " The ultimate workaholic obeyed the figure in coveralls every day, except for his birthday, the Fourth of July and Christmas. His work reflected more than the normal number of fears and superstitions. King was unnerved by spiders, elevators, closed-in places, the dark, sewers, funerals, the idea of being buried alive, cancer, heart attacks, the number 13, black cats and walking under ladders. In the process of merchandising his own terrors, he developed an infallible formula: "First you create people that you want to live, then you put them into the cooker." Carrie, the paranormal adolescent, was succeeded by the vampires of 'Salem's Lot (1975), the haunted hotel of The Shining (1977), the deadly superflu of The Stand (1978). The clairvoyant young man of The Dead Zone (1979) placed King on the best-seller list for more than six months, replaced by Firestarter (1980), Cujo (1981), a nonfiction investigation of horror called Danse Macabre (1981), and a collection of novellas, Different Seasons (1982). In his spare time he turned out Christine and Pet Sematary (both 1983) by himself, and The Talisman (1984) in collaboration with Peter Straub, author of Ghost Story. Another collection of short stories appeared in 1985. And still that did not exhaust King. Because publishers were wary of overkill, he submitted five other novels under another name. When Richard Bachman's cover was blown, after Thinner climbed aboard the best-seller list, the pretense was shelved. "It should have been in TIME's Milestones," King grumbles. "Died. Richard Bachman, of cancer of the pseudonym."