smile. It's Rocket J. Squirrel, wearing his blue aviator's hat and with his arms bravely outstretched. I put that figure on my manuscript as it grew (and grew … and grew), hoping some of the love that came with it would kind of fertilize the work. It must have worked, at least to a degree; the book is here, after all. I don't know if it's good or bad—I lost all sense of perspective around page four hundred—but it's here. That alone seems like a miracle. And I have started to believe I might actually live to complete this cycle of stories. (Knock on wood.)
There are three more to be told, I think, two set chiefly in Mid-World and one almost entirely in our world —that's the one dealing with the vacant lot on the comer of Second and Forty-sixth, and the rose that grows there. That rose, I must tell you, is in terrible danger.
In the end; Roland's ka-tet will come to the nightscape which is Thunderclap . . . and to what lies beyond it. All may not live to reach the Tower, but I believe that those who do reach it will stand and be true.
—Stephen King
Lovell, Maine, October 27, 1996
