The Making of a Writer

by Gail Godwin

  DECEMBER 20, 1961–JANUARY 30, 1962

  Gail was living very much on the edge—obviously alone among men whom she had not known two months earlier—protected mainly by the shield that her writing intensity a forded her. To make matters worse, she had little money and no definite prospects. Her journal notes sometimes reflect on how she has eaten little or gotten through a day without any expenses.

  In her dark and “companionable” Denmark months, Gail found herself in a rather remarkable and dangerous mise-en-scène, where individuals acted out their demons while claiming lovability. She was a part of it, yet she strove to treat it as a waking dream, analyzing and making fictional use of her initiation into a foreign existence.

  In order to gain the kind of experience that would serve as meaningful material for many years, she had to allow herself to plumb the depths of the dramas she encountered. Whereas a normally functioning person shuns the irrational, Gail, as a writer, had to be keen to it, drawing the world out from behind its guises.

  The subjective, risk-taking approach to a writer’s education involves not only personal dangers but also literary traps. Imposing one’s preconceptions and conceits upon experiences threatens to invalidate the journey. In her journals, Gail counsels herself to be honest, knowing that her own needs and tendencies alter reality and cloud understanding.

  Gail’s approach also depended upon faith in a reward—becoming a writer rather than a defeated person, fictionalizing drama rather than simply being dramatic, as her stepfather might have characterized her.

  In the following pages, you will see how Gail’s attempts to assure herself of a successful writing career become increasingly intense and various as the window of her opportunity begins to close. Despite the rough and exerting ride, Gail holds on. She does not go home, although she contemplates doing so. And when she finds her lifeline, it does not come from a publisher or a patron, but from an employer.

  The office job in London comes through. It is more like a safe house than like a field of dreams. Yet a safe house can be an outpost with doorways to new truths.

  DECEMBER 20, 1961

  Copenhagen, Denmark . . . the season of interminable nights and unfathomable thoughts. And much good fun.

  I have come here to hear myself.96 The trouble is: I have no system. I want to get it all down, but fly in all directions at once. I am starting The Alexandria Quartet for the second time. It has been almost a year since I last began it and then I was primarily interested in the plot and driven crazy by his references to things that had not happened yet. This time, I shall savor it and, at the same time, study it. I think Thomas Wolfe is the best Southern American writer. Tolstoy, the most lasting. Durrell, the best writer in the English-speaking world at present. Who knows who may transcend him tomorrow or the next day? Brother, when one finally decides to write a book, how the branches stem, the crosscurrents flow & mingle, the memories fuse and then bear new memories. I can’t get it down as fast as my thoughts go. THE THING I MUST WATCH, I have discovered in rereading myself, is KNOWING WHEN TO STOP. Eureka! I just devised a system to get down all the images and keep them organized. At the back of this journal I will keep pages on each character, plus several on my word-picture of this city. God only knows what I shall end up with. It will be either a book or a mess. First, dammit, before I do another thing, I have got to get down some things I don’t want to forget. For the first time in my life I have had all the time in the world to read. I have read all the best sellers I never cared to read at home, Advise & Consent, The Ugly American, Steinbeck’s new one, The Winter of Our Discontent. I have discovered Steinbeck at his best in The Wayward Bus and Cannery Row.

  I thought today: What I am building inside now I can take anywhere.

  DECEMBER 21

  A Dollar’s Worth of “Hygge”97

  Notes on the city: It is Christmastime in Copenhagen. On the corner at Øesterport—street of the embassies—a woman in wooden shoes sells straw reindeer and jule wreaths from her stall, and a blind man, wearing the yellow armband, which identifies him as one of Denmark’s sight-less, sits outside Øesterport station on a little wooden stool. He is playing Christmas carols on an old-fashioned phonograph that has to be wound. He stops grinding away to change records or to pocket some charity.

  I wonder what would happen if someone gave him a 100 Kr note. Would he feel its value by running his fingers along the edges? Would he then pick up his stool and go home to some bare attic room and warm his hands?

  I am sitting on the train, reading (it is no longer a novelty to look out the window at the scenery because I know it by heart). Vesterport, Norregade, Øesterport, Nordhaven, Svanemollen, Hellerup, Charlottenlund, Ordrup & Klampenborg, clackety clackety . . . screech . . . stop—a rush of cold air comes in with the new passengers. It seems only boring people sit in the cars marked “Til Ikke-Rygere.”98 It is only the old ladies and the very young who do not smoke.

  Tonight I was caught in an act as shameful as picking one’s nose. I was reading as the train sped along. It was a depressing story about a poor man in Paris and his affair with his haggish old janitress so the rent would come down. I grew bored and flipped through the pages to read the end, then sighed and closed the book. I looked up to see a man sitting opposite me and chuckling silently. I looked at him and he looked at me and we both laughed out loud. All the old women turned to stare. He got off at the next stop, and I felt sad for a minute because I knew he understood me better than anyone else on that train.

  For me, sooner or later, every city turns into a man. In this particular time, my city was Christian.

  September 25, 1961, Regi Friedmann’s controversial letter about Copenhagen from Tel Aviv. It appeared in Life magazine.

  The apparent gaiety and hygge of Copenhagen cover an unspeakable self-torture which must be rooted in complete emptiness. There is an extraordinary loneliness about these people, a colossal misanthropy and every second Dane, when asked at the right moment, will tell you that he is fed up. When one describes Copenhagen, one should not refrain from representing this Kaleidoscopic truth: the Tivoli99 versus the Mal de Vivre.

  The last train shuttles back to Copenhagen . . . the moon is full . . . and it’s just me and Frowsy and our big blue pitcher of grapefruit juice. One must ever be warding off the scurvy.

  THE OLDEST MONARCHY IN EUROPE

  has the houses Christian IV built & the names of the streets.100

  DECEMBER 23

  Hark the Herald Tribune. Tomorrow & Monday I shall finish “Roxanne.” I must, for my own good. I remember sitting in Bar-Dot with Niels drinking Hof and looking out at the wooly-capped shoppers on Strøget.101 I had a flash of insight. I knew I was in Denmark and knew why. I could, as Lorraine would say, place myself. Writing is a process of refining. It is also a painful process of introspection demanding complete honesty. Tonight I want to get down the two faces of Copenhagen.

  On one side—the Paris of the North—playground of the grizzly trolls, blond blue-eyed descendants of the Vikings screaming with glee on the merry-go-round at Tivoli. A pale tall flaxen-haired goddess walking, arms linked, with a black man in an American sport jacket . . . A thousand ways of saying thank you.

  DECEMBER 24

  Funny, the way things suddenly come to you. I know exactly what I am going to do next and I have almost a whole God-given month.

  The two stories. One “Roxanne,” the other a sort of mood piece on Copenhagen with the Aarhus102 home as the center.

  Then inquire about Spain.103 I must work without thinking ahead.

  She gave me the Nothing look and disappeared into the entrails of the long silver car followed by a porter carrying her white leather luggage.

  There goes Roxanne O’Day, down another set of shining rails, across continents, over mountains. Who knows, just over that next ridge, the other side of that ocean—or maybe just around the corner—she will find a stopping place.

  I have done twenty-four pages and, in my heavy-headed ec
stasy, I think I finally captured it. Interesting. The longer I write, the easier it becomes to say just what I mean. I am at the basement scene now and will save this for a clear head & a new day.

  Then the retyping, the mailing off, and the horrible suspense.

  At least I have had this winter to find out if I’m any good.

  Last year I was under a heap of covers with my new husband. His skin was always smooth & warm and smelled freshly scrubbed. He was gentle and proud in Canada before I began tormenting him. I remember him saying huskily in the dark bedroom in his parents’ home, “I’m doing all right by you, aren’t I?”

  The whole episode was so pointless. But am I really sorry?

  Christmas 1961. I must say in all honesty that last year, smothered in Canada Kennedys, I could not even imagine being in Copenhagen a year from then. My imagination never stretched farther than Paris.

  No, I’m not sorry. I only hope he’s not lying alone tonight in that big bed in Windsor, reviewing the dreams that went up in smoke and remembering a sweet, gentle me that never existed.

  DECEMBER 29

  The three blasts of the foghorn are the loneliest sounds in the world. I am marking off the hours. I could even go to Barcelona and stay a week or two and then decide what to do next. I am sure of one thing. I am learning to write. I don’t even know when or how it happened. And it is all that matters. I think Spain will be fun—if I can just do it right for once in my life. But to stay here any longer would be warming up cold soup. October 21 to January 21—funny, three months to the day. Don’t think in extremes about the short story. It is neither good nor bad. It is an unborn child. Do not fret over imagined monstrosities.

  Called Niels, not out of love but curiosity. There is nothing between us anymore. I only want to dissect him now and study him like a rare cold fish. Maybe I can learn something more. He is in trouble. His father [stepfather] was at the hotel at midnight when I called. “He has some problems with me,” said my mad youth.104

  DECEMBER 30

  I love these Saturdays, but it is time to move on. The foghorn. A good breakfast. The short story half typed. Balthazar delivered to my door105 & Bradbury’s “Fog Horn”106 to read. Tomorrow I must hem up the black dress, wash my hair. New Year’s party at Sven’s.107 His sister just married an American & there will be friends from Paris. Sven came by this morning, all pink & fresh from a bath. I will miss the blondes.

  Now that I know I am leaving, I relish each moment. Who knows, I may be doing this or that for the last time. Frowsy and his explosives!108

  Copenhagen—a certain sterility. The very thing that cleansed it of its slums also cleansed it of its extremes.

  Isak Dinesen said antiseptic, antibiotic, cleansed her of her extremes like a mouthwash destroys bacteria. It never occurred to her that cleanness sometimes means sterility.109

  Their king is tattooed and they love it; they don’t love people lying on HCA’s bed!110

  There ought to be some way, sufficiently descriptive, to get down on paper the sound of Høiaas skarking up his tons of phlegm. It is maddening, inconsiderate, unsanitary, sticky, and disgusting. And in between, he whistles “Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen.” Well. Poor old man. He is old, bitter, lonely, frightened. I will be hell at sixty.

  JANUARY 1, 1962

  Hartley took advantage of me tonight by inviting Frowsy and then making me pay—29 Kr!111 I wanted only to spend 6! With Høiaas, it is easier. I have only two rooms to keep out of trouble in: bathroom & living room. Tomorrow I shall entirely clean out the objects of mine in the bathroom. Then, all I have to worry about is washing out the tub and not dripping or tracking things. That leaves the kitchen. Wash up and empty my garbage. It will drive him batty. Then, all he can do is to start taking things out of this room. That should be interesting.

  JANUARY 2

  The feeling is mainly curiosity at this time. A small group of phantom people have completely vanished from me and it is interesting to speculate. There are Lorraine & Niels, Palle and Gaert, Sven, Klaus, 112 the people at the embassy, the Old Tyrant. All enveloped in a quiet, white silence. Lorraine has gone to Spain. Niels has fled like a mad hare. I might have asked him for something, and I was the kind of person who made him uneasy. He had other facets, too. Only I was so busy trying to squeeze all his traits into a chapter that I lost the third dimension. Palle and Gaert can be coupled into one. There was a twisting of the wills. The turning point came when G. called querulously from the studio-bedroom.113 I’m twenty-four. Klaus? He owes me money.

  JANUARY 3

  I have read too much SF. Høiaas wouldn’t answer the phone. Niels hasn’t called. I am so unsure tonight. All I lack is money.

  JANUARY 4

  I am really proud of my story. Tomorrow I shall buy twenty more sheets of paper, finish copying (it will run about twenty-six pages), and polish, polish, polish. I can send the story away with pride and the assurance that I have done my best. If it fails to be appreciated by others, it will not hurt too much because I have learned much from it.

  I have worked on “Roxanne” so long that I can’t think straight about it tonight. I decided it was awful. Things I must learn: Avoid the obvious. The intelligent reader looks forward to a little gambol with his mind.

  The damn thing is over ten thousand words long. In other words, on a European typewriter a short story should be about thirteen pages! Niels has vanished into the earth.

  IT WOULD BE CHILDISH, AFRAID, and unadventurous to go home now. I can always take a Spanish freighter home. It would be nice to get a Mediterranean brown. I need faith in myself, like the girl said. “After all, you can always get fifteen kroner an hour scrubbing the dead bodies in Sweden.”

  After “Roxanne” is finished, I start “Walk, Don’t Run.” A short story, mostly about Frowsy’s capacity for enjoying life. “We will come a little salt in it” . . . “I will come on my clotheses” . . . his hat on the train . . . his love of animals . . . fine slides of his travels . . . the Bach prelude . . . the automobiles & oranges in Greenland . . . watching him cook a dinner. This cannot be written till I’m away. Must be warm & humorous . . . fireworks & Mrs. Kaufman’s dog . . . the policemen on the beach . . . the feeling I derived from it . . . Gudrun makes a story all by herself . . . These journals are so important . . . stay away from the sophisticated stories for a while . . . make simple line drawings, clean astringent word-pictures.

  If I had contemplated any . . . (for, being a Southerner, this was, needless to say, the first time I had ever met a Negro on equal footing at a cocktail party) . . . After that night Roxanne dominated me.

  Not only was I forced away from any overflow of Sisterhood, etc., but I was literally forced to hold on for dear life to any personality I had in the presence of this Creature of Assurance.

  Roxanne had read more than I had, gone to a better college, spoke better English, dressed with more chic, and conversed with more freedom & greater choice of words.

  JANUARY 8

  This room114 —the old chest 1783 from Bornholm with “L.O.S.” & a parrot— Nefertiti’s head on top with a bullet hole through her right cheek. The desk with explosives. The old laughing Buddha, the Norwegian landscape, the art closet115 with the orange, tan & black horizontal striped curtain, the leather wine pouch from Spain, the thing swimming in formaldehyde—the green bottle—a forgotten shrunken sea monster. Some ornery plant that stands over the radiator and has not been watered during my entire time. And the books! A bibliophile’s dream. “This is the room where you may ask stupid questions in,” says Frowsy.

  “The squid copulates more gentlemanly than any other animal. He makes a neat little package of his sperm and hands it over to his lady in a special tentacle. She, in turn, pockets it, to use whenever the mood strikes her.”

  JANUARY 10

  Finished Roxanne’s last nadir. Tomorrow it only remains to transcribe it [the story] mindlessly and emotionlessly.

  I am rather disgusted with everyone tonight. I am mor
e displeased with myself because I depend on people and perhaps expect them to act like saints.

  Big news. Høiaas called through the stillness: Gail? Do you want to talk to me?

  He apologized for being a “stupid old fool.”

  He said he never wanted me to leave his house thinking he didn’t like me.

  He made no effort to defend himself except to say he was worried about Frowsy’s exams.

  Of course there followed a blubbery scene. I fell on his neck, he told me I shouldn’t be so casual about my affairs, and then he said over & over again, “I wish I had a daughter” (about six times). “I need someone to console.” Then he made me a pot of tea and we talked about the German occupation of Denmark.

  This would make a good story, only I must know where to begin & where to end. This will be a process of sifting events. There is much flotsam & jetsam.

  Funny. Yesterday, the sound of his coughing or flushing the toilet sent hostile quivers through me; now, they are simply reassuring sounds. And yet: Nobody has really changed. We are forever turning in our orbits, exposing new sides to one another, but we are still the same inside. Is my luck changing for the better?

  (I think the thing that bothered him most was that I preferred Frowsy to him.)

  JANUARY 12

  Got through an entire day without spending money. Monday I must buy ticket to Barcelona. Should be interesting trip. I am going home on a freighter. Am retyping “Roxanne.” Hemmed MOST of my raincoat.

  I really shouldn’t have such a defeatist attitude toward rejections. The only stories I have ever submitted were the following: “I Broke the Code” to a “Confessions” magazine (they said it was well written, but not enough action); “Exposition” ( Atlantic Monthly, for God’s sake); “New Year’s Eve” to Male (they said it was sloppily written and it was); “The Raising of Lazarus.” The ending was wrong; rejected by three magazines. The last man sent back a note: Well done, but not our kind of ending. Then I have sent two queries, one to Glamour & one to McCall’s. Glamour said to submit the finished manuscript. So that wasn’t a flat no. Of course there was “The Otherwise Virgins,” but that was sent only to two agents. Actually, “Roxanne” is the first thing into which I put any effort. I am going to type it impeccably, shorten it as much as possible, and send it to Mademoiselle with a short introductory letter.