What is your "Green Mile"?

[Matthew.Degnan]

After I finished the Green Mile I was sat holding the book for about 5 minutes and thinking about those last few lines. "oh god, The Green Mile is so long". This has real meaning to me because it is the novel that inspired me to be a novelist. The Green Mile is long to me because the emotion and feelings I felt when reading it will stay with me forever.

As you read this story you feel as if these characters are becoming your friends and when bad things happen to them you feel how they would feel and when this happen as you read something you know that it will stay with you forever. Never before have I experienced such a thing in any novel, let alone a 400 page one. To me it feels like an epic rather than an average length piece.

As it happened I finished reading The Green Mile during a few months of depression, and when I read them last words suddenly it went away and I was left with a genuine lust for life and I was instantly saturated in this great desire to write. I wrote three short stories in the hours that followed. All about friendship and heartache and the loss of something close to you- in the Green Mile it was John Coffey, but not only did the Green Mile lose him, I lost him as well.

My Green Mile is my novels to come, and my children to come and my wife to come. My Green Mile is the rest of my life. Is this what it feels like to be truely inspired by something?

Thank You Stephen King for bringing me through these terrible times and showing me the light at the end of the tunnel. I will find my own way now. I love you for that. :smile2:

[youngfibre]

Green Mile is my very best SK. I am happy it had such an impact on someone else.

Me not alone.

[BTRNYC]

"We each owe a death, there are no exceptions; but, Oh God, sometimes the green mile is so long."

My favorite King last line!!

I love the quote because you can interpret it many different ways.

[marew1]

I'm glad you were inspired by SK's The Green Mile. I wish you the best in all your endeavors.

[Bluey Lunger]

hi matthew. you are not alone. met someone the other day who was inspired by something from the green mile and this someone also writes. my green mile is the unwavering support of my community, the impossible dream, and i can't figure out why.

[nevermind]

This book was the only book that made me cry, I don't know if the reason was the book or just me :) It's my favorite, I love it!

[Charms7]

Every time I find I must reinvent myself, that is probably my Green Mile. But change is good, right? That's what they keep telling me anyway.

[bio_chem06]

I'm reading The Green Mile now for the 1st time. I read during my lunch break and find it hard to return to work...lol.

[thymeoperator]

the ending to that book surprised me because it didn't go in the direction i expected and instead threw in that twist, and i just thought it was one of the best books i'd ever read. i'm really surprised there are only 2 threads for this book!!

[catnoel]

I feel ya on that one. Uncle Steve has helped me through some very difficult times too.

[The Outsider]

My Green Mile is my novels to come, and my children to come and my wife to come. My Green Mile is the rest of my life. Is this what it feels like to be truely inspired by something?

Thank You Stephen King for bringing me through these terrible times and showing me the light at the end of the tunnel. I will find my own way now. I love you for that. :smile2:

Very well said, a quote in it self. My Green Mile is what lies ahead. All that is to come: relationships to build and break, stress that seems unending, a career that seems all but impossible, and a life ahead that seems filled with uncertainty. Everything ahead of me is what my Mile is. And as I walk it, I can't help but to look back on what I've walked. And to reflect. As I grow closer to my goals, they seem farther away. Because in everything I do, I seem to feel so inadequate. I can just barely see the end in sight, I can just barely make out the horizon, but oh its so awful, this walk of life.

"Because, oh God, the Green Mile is so long."

[Raine]

I agree, this book is probably one of my favourites of all time. It is very inspiring. My green mile is like many others I guess. A long road ahead but many directions, at times it seems to go on forever with no conclusion, at times my green mile takes me right back to the start. Questions of career, family and the everending quest of being happy always pop up along the way, god knows if I will ever make the right decision, but for me the green mile is worth the walk.

[Shoshonni]

I find much truth buried within the 'fiction' Mr. King writes.

I often pause in my reading and wonder if he KNOWS that he puts a piece of himself into those stories.. and then I realize how dumb I'm being. Of course he knows. They're all a part of him.

Sometimes he makes vague references and sometimes he's all out, guns blazing. He's been berated by critics for years because his writing is so ... vulgarly honest.

...if you can't write the truth then don't write at all. Sometimes truth is beautiful and sometimes, it's very ugly.

You are most definitely NOT alone.

[vinividivicci]

"We each owe a death, there are no exceptions; but, Oh God, sometimes the green mile is so long."

My favorite King last line!!

I love the quote because you can interpret it many different ways.

I agree. I think this was the most cathartic ending to any of the SK books I have read.

Because he is elderly in a "home" sometimes it seems to say waiting for death is like watching water boil, and he is tired of waiting. As if he finally understands how exhausted Coffey was and how he welcomed death.

Sometimes, it makes me think of Robert Frost's "Stopping by Wood on a Snowy Evening" at the end:
"The woods are lovely dark and deep
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep
And miles to go before I sleep"
Reflecting on the manner in which I should live

My own green mile is a little of both

[Crawfman123]

Thought the book was great, except I saw the movie first so I knew what was going to happen!! Very well done thought, the ending had a little bit of a twist from the movie. One of my favourites!:grinning:

[Dances_in_Underwear]

I cried while reading this novel. I have never cried while reading anything, except for a poem I wrote about my fiancee at his funeral. I weeped during the part when his wife died in his arms and he screams out to Coffey to help her. He helped Melinda, why not his Jan? God, just thinking of it makes me tear up again.

Anyway, I think my Green Mile has something to do with envy and want. I want so bad to write like Stephen King. But I'm not as good as he is, even with practice, I could never be as good as he is.