Can you predict the end of your writing career? Stephen King on retiring (at least for a couple of years):

That's it. I'm done writing books… You get to a point where you get to the edges of a room, and you can go back and go where you've been, and basically recycle stuff. I've seen it in my own work. People when they read BUICK EIGHT are going to think CHRISTINE. It's about a car that's not normal, OK? You say, 'I've said the things that I have to say, that are new and fresh and interesting to people.' Then you have a choice. You can either continue to go on, or say I left when I was still on top of my game. I left when I was still holding the ball, instead of it holding me.”

Uh-huh. I say he'll use the three years to recharge, then it's back to writing stuff along the lines of Hearts in Atlantis or something. Stephen King has written several mighty heart-stopping books, but I'm not a big fan of his novels. I rather like his four-novella collection Different Seasons. All the novellas (except Breathing Lessons) in that collection have been turned into films: The Body was made into Stand By Me (with my long dead spiritual honey-bunny River Phoenix); Apt Pupil with Brad Renfro; Shawshank Redemption. I also like the stories in Night Shift, and his meditation on the craft (witches! hehe) in On Writing. As for the others, they all sound the same to me.