Geekstalt
Outside Room 217
This is the corridor outside room 217. The door to 217 is on the right. Room 217 is the room that Stephen King stayed in when he was inspired to write the book, The Shining.
On October 30, 1974 King and his wife Tabitha arrived at the hotel on an “adult’s vacation” from their young family. Friends of Tabitha’s had suggested the hotel. They arrived at the end of the season and where the only guests in the hotel. The staff checked them into the most luxurious room they had, room 217, which they later learned was haunted. "When we arrived, they were just getting ready to close for the season, and we found ourselves the only guests in the place — with all those long, empty corridors . . ."
That night the couple dined completely alone in the grand dining room to taped orchestral music. "Except for our table all the chairs were up on the tables. So the music is echoing down the hall, and, I mean, it was like God had put me there to hear that and see those things. And by the time I went to bed that night, I had the whole book in my mind"
Tabitha turned in early, but King stayed up, wandering the empty corridors absorbing the atmosphere of the place. Eventually he arrived at the bar where he was served drinks by a bartender named Grady - a name he would use in his novel.
A few months earlier King had put together an outline for a novel he called, Darkshine. It was about a psychic boy in a haunted amusement park that comes to life. He abandoned the book after his editor’s reacted badly to the images of a young boy being chased by living roller coasters; basically they felt the concept was unsellable.
"That night I dreamed of my three-year-old son running through the corridors, looking back over his shoulder, eyes wide, screaming. He was being chased by a fire-hose. I woke up with a tremendous jerk, sweating all over, within an inch of falling out of bed. I got up, lit a cigarette, sat in a chair looking out the window at the Rockies, and by the time the cigarette was done, I had the bones of the book firmly set in my mind."
Outside Room 217
This is the corridor outside room 217. The door to 217 is on the right. Room 217 is the room that Stephen King stayed in when he was inspired to write the book, The Shining.
On October 30, 1974 King and his wife Tabitha arrived at the hotel on an “adult’s vacation” from their young family. Friends of Tabitha’s had suggested the hotel. They arrived at the end of the season and where the only guests in the hotel. The staff checked them into the most luxurious room they had, room 217, which they later learned was haunted. "When we arrived, they were just getting ready to close for the season, and we found ourselves the only guests in the place — with all those long, empty corridors . . ."
That night the couple dined completely alone in the grand dining room to taped orchestral music. "Except for our table all the chairs were up on the tables. So the music is echoing down the hall, and, I mean, it was like God had put me there to hear that and see those things. And by the time I went to bed that night, I had the whole book in my mind"
Tabitha turned in early, but King stayed up, wandering the empty corridors absorbing the atmosphere of the place. Eventually he arrived at the bar where he was served drinks by a bartender named Grady - a name he would use in his novel.
A few months earlier King had put together an outline for a novel he called, Darkshine. It was about a psychic boy in a haunted amusement park that comes to life. He abandoned the book after his editor’s reacted badly to the images of a young boy being chased by living roller coasters; basically they felt the concept was unsellable.
"That night I dreamed of my three-year-old son running through the corridors, looking back over his shoulder, eyes wide, screaming. He was being chased by a fire-hose. I woke up with a tremendous jerk, sweating all over, within an inch of falling out of bed. I got up, lit a cigarette, sat in a chair looking out the window at the Rockies, and by the time the cigarette was done, I had the bones of the book firmly set in my mind."