（外文电子版资料）SK.EverythingsEventual.doc

PAGE PAGE 142 CONTENTS What I did was take all the spades out of a deck of cards plus a joker. Ace to King = 1–13. Joker = 14. I shuffled the cards and dealt them. The order in which they came out of the deck became the order of the stories, based on their position in the list my publisher sent me. And it actually created a very nice balance between the literary stories and the all-out screamers. I also added an explanatory note before or after each story, depending on which seemed the more fitting position. Next collection: selected by Tarot. Introduction: Practicing the (Almost) Lost Art Autopsy Room Four The Man in the Black Suit All That You Love Will Be Carried Away The Death of Jack Hamilton In the Deathroom The Little Sisters of Eluria Everything’s Eventual L.T.’s Theory of Pets The Road Virus Heads North Lunch at the Gotham Café That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French 1408 Riding the Bullet Luckey Quarter PRACTICING THE (ALMOST) LOST ART Ive written more than once about the joy of writing and see no need to reheat that particular skillet of hash at this late date, but heres a confession: I also take an amateurs slightly crazed pleasure in the business side of what I do. I like to goof widdit, do a little media cross-pollination and envelope-pushing. Ive tried doing visual novels (Storm of the Century, Rose Red), serial novels (The Green Mile), and serial novels on the Internet (The Plant). Its not about making more money or even precisely about creating new markets; its about trying to see the act, art, and craft of writing in different ways, thereby refreshing the process and keeping the resulting artifacts—the stories, in other words—as bright as possible. I started to write keeping [the stories] new in the line above, then deleted the phrase in the interest of honesty. I mean, come on here, ladies and gentlemen, whom can I possibly kid at this late date, except maybe myself? I sold my first story when I was twenty-one and a junior in colle