Journalists have been having a field day using a variety of metaphors and popular expressions to write about Stephen King's venture into Internet publishing with his e-serial, "The Plant".

A couple of months ago, in October 2000, he was expected to nurture "The Plant" or, in other words, to carry on writing as long as readers who downloaded each installment continued to pay the nominal fee of $1. At the time, part three of the horror story about a vampire vine taking over a publishing company had been released and just over 75% of fans were apparently still paying.

Then, in December, Stephen King announced on his website that he had decided to suspend the novel after six installments. He wrote "Don't despair. The last time The Plant furled its leaves, the story remained dormant for 19 years. If it could survive that, I'm sure it can survive a year or two while I work on other projects."

Journalists suggested that he was pulling the plug on "The Plant", or possibly just putting it on ice.

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