Turning Short Stories into Novels

Dear Stephen King,

I am excited about the work I have been doing. I have been working on a series of short stories that will eventually come together to form a full length novel. There are several reasons I am doing this. First; I can't seem to finish writing a novel.

I have been able to get 40-50,000 words into a story and either get bored, or jump to another idea. These short stories will allow my short attention span to hang on long enough to get done with a short story before moving on to the next one.

The second reason I am doing this is to have something finished so I can post it on the amazon kindle store. I am writing each of the stories so they can stand alone if the need to. Then if the reader wants to know more about the story or the world, they can go read my other short stories. Also, If for some reason I decide to abandon the novel, the short stories can stand on their own.

I was wondering if you have done anything like this. I remember when you released "The Green Mile" as a 6 part serial. I loved it. I had a coworker who was reading it at the same time. Since we had to wait for each episode to come out, we could discuss the part we had just finished. Then we could talk about what we thought was going to happen next. I kept those paperbacks for a while, then when you released it as a Hardback, I bought it to go with my collection.

Sometimes I wonder if some of the Dark Tower series was written as short stories. Then assembled at a later date. Maybe you can let me know about that one day.

Have a great day,
Robert T Gasperson