As well as writing under my own name I also write under the alias name Stormy. I have always thought of Stormy as separate from me, mainly because Stormy writes about my past and I can pretend that what I went through did not happen to me, it happened to Stormy. But also Stormy can talk about the extreme emotions that are associated with a troubled past. With my own personal experiences, I have also found Stephen King’s The Dark Half interesting.

The book I read several years ago, but I recently watched the film so I thought I would talk about these and connect it to my own experiences. The main character is Thad Beaumont who is a writer, who has had a more successful career writing as George Stark, who writes trashy “gangster” style thrillers. When Thad is blackmailed to hide the fact that he is George Stark, he decides to out himself and “kills” off the alias, including a fake funeral. From the staged grave rises George Stark bent on revenge starting by beating up a local man who sparks the interest of Sheriff Alan Pang-Born. King’s novel is full of psychological tropes from whether or not Thad and George are telepathically linked, and the psychopomp in the form of sparrows. The book is slick and scary but King has written better books, especially if you compare it to Misery, which also has a writer as the main character, dealing with a nightmare scenario

The film stick closely to the novel, although we are not show the violence that is described in the novel. Research has shown that film was plagued with problems. Tim Hutton who plays Thad/George did not get on with George A Romeo. Overall I found the book better than the film.

This is partially an auto-biography for King who had written under the alias Richard Bachman, who was going to be outed as this writer and so he did it first. I am not sure that King was as disturbed by what he wrote as Bachman as Thad is about George’s novels. It may have also been a metaphor about King’s own demons. It is common knowledge that King’s writing has been fuelled by cigarettes, alcohol and cocaine, to the point that King has spoken about not remembering writing certain novels. This is highlighted in the fact that George will drink and smoke when writing but Thad does not.

I suffer from depression, anxiety and OCD’s which has got worse over the years, especially after a particular terrible relationship. After this relationship Stormy was born. While King was worried that he could not write without the additions, I am worried that I can not write while taking the pills I probably should for my mental health. So do I want Stormy dead? Not at the moment. I am in a happy relationship but I still want Stormy to be a part of my life. A remainder that life can be bad and that it is ok to not being ok, and while Stormy exists, she can still talk about the pain, while I can write about monsters.