I wrote for awhile this morning on my Vietnam story, switching over from longhand to my PowerBook, so I guess I’m serious about it. I like the way Sully John reappeared. Question: Will Roland Deschain and his friends ever meet Bobby Garfield’s pal, Ted Brautigan? And just who are those low men chasing the old Tedster, anyway? More and more my work feels like a slanted trough where everything eventually drains into Mid-World and End-World.

The Dark Tower is my uberstory, no question about that. When it’s done, I plan to ease back. Maybe retire completely.

August 7, 1998

Took my usual walk this afternoon, and tonight I took Fred Hauser with me to the AA meeting in Fryeburg. On the way home he asked me to sponsor him and I said yes; I think he’s finally getting serious about sobering up. Good for him. Anyhow, he got talking about the so-called “Walk-Ins.” He says there are more of them around the Seven Towns than ever, and all sorts of folks are gossiping about them.

“How come I never hear anything, then?” I asked him. To which I got no answer but an extremely funny look. I kept prodding, and finally Fred sez,

“People don’t like to talk about them around you, Steve, because there have been two dozen reported on Turtleback Lane in the last 8 months and you claim not to have seen a single one.”

To me this seemed like a non sequitur and I made no reply. It wasn’t until after the meeting—and after I’d dropped my new pigeon off—that I realized what he was saying: people don’t talk about the “Walk-Ins” around me because they think that in some crazy way I’M RESPONSIBLE. I thought I was pretty well used to being “America’s boogeyman,” but this is actually sort of outrageous …

January 2, 1999 (Boston)

Owen and I are at the Hyatt Harborside tonight, and head off to Florida tomorrow. (Tabby and I are talking about buying a place there but haven’t told the kids. I mean, they’re only 27, 25 and 21—maybe when they’re old enough to understand such things, ha-ha.) Earlier we met Joe and saw a film called Hurlyburly, from the play by David Rabe. Very odd. Speaking of odd, I had some sort of New Year’s Night nightmare before leaving Maine. Can’t remember exactly what it was, but when I woke up this morning I’d written two things in my dreambook. One was Baby Mordred, like something out of a Chas Addams cartoon. That I sort of understand; it must refer to Susannah’s baby in the Dark Tower stories. It’s the other thing that puzzles me. It says 6/19/99, O Discordia.

Discordia also sounds like something out of the DT stories, but it’s not anything I have invented. As for 6/19/99, that’s a date, right? Meaning what? June 19th of this year. Tabby and I should be back at the Turtleback Lane house by then, but so far as I can remember it’s not anybody’s birthday.