April 30, Monday
Well, I pulled a complete bust on Thursday, and Friday Kazan came to work. So I lost two days last week. This is why I give myself the leeway of time. I do not know what happened Thursday. I just went completely to pieces. I suppose it can and does happen to everyone. Last night we went to two parties—one at Faye Emerson’s and the other at the Stork Club for Joan Craw-ford. But it was all right. I didn’t drink anything and we were home by 11 o’clock. Not much sleep but that doesn’t matter. I got plenty of rest.
Maybe it was the new section that frightened me off. Like starting a new book or a sequel to an old one. I think I’ll get it going today. Must do it. Among the other misfortunes last week two inlays fell out, and until I can get them replaced there is a constant minor-key headache and toothache but not bad enough to stop work. Did I tell you that I went down to look at a piano—beautiful instrument—and bought it. It won’t be ready for a month but when it is, Pascal can play for us if he will. And the piano is far my favorite instrument in the world. So maybe he will.
Tom’s winning the prize33 was a fine thing. He pretended he didn’t care about it but when they called out his name he cried “Here I am!”
Now the day progresses and I haven’t put down a word yet but it is coming and I am almost ready. Almost! I have the tone now. And an amazing number of pretty girls are passing by my window. I like pretty girls very much but I am old enough now so that I don’t have to associate with them. And that’s a relief.
Of course—that’s the way it has to go. So simple when it finally comes to you. That’s the way it is. You fight a story week after week and day by day and then it arranges itself in your hands. I’m going to allow myself 20 more minutes before I lash into it. I’m trying to figure how to finish your box and I think finally I know. I just figured it out. And it should be very pretty. And I know how I am going to line it too. That was giving me trouble. There was no reason for it but I am naive and I never learn—I guess I never will. In a way I am glad for it keeps me learning all the time—even if it is the same thing over and over. Now I have taken the black off my desk again, clear down to the wood, and have put a green blotter down. I am never satisfied with my writing surface.
And now my lazy time is over—really over I think—and my allotted time for dawdling is over too.
There—that’s done and I think the rhythm re-established. Anyway the bloc is broken.
May 1, Tuesday
Up very early today. I want to get into it and also I want to get finished. I have many projects. Many. And tonight guests. Frank and Lynn Loesser and Fred and Portland Allen. Frank goes away tomorrow. That is why it has to be tonight. I’m going to call you pretty soon about a project that should appeal to you. Got to thinking so hard last night that I could not stop. New relationshipbut a supplementary one. I want to go a little into Cathy today and also into Lee the Chinese. I have known so many of them. Remarkable people the California Chinese. Also I want to bring Samuel into the picture and relate him to the house. This I can do I think. I will work very hard today. The images are back disturbing the clear water of my thinking and it seems good to me. There won’t be a great deal of dawdling today. I may even go over my quota so that I can go and look at dining-room tables tomorrow. We are eating on a serving table that bumps my knees pretty badly. And we stick up card tables too. I’m just about to start now. Maybe I should phone and ask your advice about the Ritz stuff.34 You can always find out things. And I’ll bet you will for me too. Now you are going to like Lee. He is a philosopher. And also he is a kind and thoughtful man. And beyond all this he is going to go in the book because I need him. The book needs his eye and his criticism which is more detached than mine. I have a fine early start today so I shall get to it soon. Starts with Cathy, goes to Lee, brings in Samuel. And then Samuel’s relationship with Lee, and Lee’s relationship to Adam and to Cathy. Lee’s attitudes will if anything be clearer than mine. Also Lee has to raise the boys. And now I am ready to go to work.
May 2, Wednesday
Well today I will get rid of Samuel’s ride to the Trask place. Since Lee is going to be with the book for quite a long time, I thought it was a good time to get to know him. I am at work very early so I can go down and look at dining-room tables today. And then to the dentist. I like to go to the dentist after work. The usual dull ache that follows is hard to work through.
I wonder what you found out about the things from the Ritz Carlton. Maybe you will phone me about it today. Also I want to phone John O’Hara about the tip of Long Island. We might want to go there for the summer. It is a warm day—very summery. Time to open the windows.
I should reach page 100 this week and that will be about between one quarter and one third of the book. I just worked it out. It is running about 800 words to the page or a little over. So it will not be far from 80,000 words this week. And now I must get to it.
May 3, Thursday
Fine rest last night and I feel wonderful. We are going to join that library you mentioned.35 Yesterday on my walk home I went to look at a beautiful car, a Jaguar Speedster, one of the handsomest cars in the world. I may get one for the European trip. 36 It has no luggage space but perhaps a trunk can be devised or is made. If I could have one delivered in Rome, it would be fine. Then either sell it or bring it home. I must start getting passports next week. I like to do things in advance. I already have a man looking into routes, etc. And I just had a brilliant idea about the ear—how it could be done, I mean. I will investigate. I am so full of plans today but I guess I always am. This is no change. I just had a fine idea. And maybe all of this may seem to you to be thinking away from the book—but it is not, because the book never leaves me now. Oh! Lord, I feel good! It scares me a little. As though it could not last. Well, it does last a little. Do you remember the critic, I think it was Sterling North, who gave me hell in a review because I was working in an air-conditioned office? I’ll bet he would hate me for feeling good too. He would think I am not suffering enough. And maybe I am not.
I have brought the nightingale up to my workroom to be with me while I work. This bird was wilting away for lack of company. He pretends to be frightened but he loves company. And now to the book. Today I am going into plans for the Salinas Valley. I am going to set down Adam’s plans for his life. The fact that he isn’t going to get even one of them has no emphasis whatever. Plans are real things and not experience. A rich life is rich in plans. If they don’t come off, they are still a little bit realized. If they do, they may be disappointing. That’s why a trip described becomes better the greater the time between the trip and the telling. I believe too that if you can know a man’s plans, you know more about him than you can in any other way. Plans are daydreaming and this is an absolute measure of a man. Thus if I dwell heavily on plans, it is because I am trying to put down the whole man. What a strange life it is. Inspecting it for the purpose of setting it down on paper only illuminates its strangeness. There are strange things in people. I guess one of the things that sets us apart from other animals is our dreams and our plans. Now that is enough of that.
The day is lovely and sunny. And I am sunny but not lovely. Time is creeping upon me while I sit and put down my wayward words. I suppose by this means I put off the discipline of the book but I can do that no longer. So here I go.
May 4, Friday
The week is ending now and it has been such a full one. Many things have happened and had to be taken care of. I do believe that it will grow worse for a time now. There are lots of details having nothing to do with work that must be solved every day. And with my single-track mind that is difficult. But I believe I can do it. If a little raddled tone creeps in, that will be the reason for it. Going to the country tomorrow to look for a summer place up around Quogue. I have never been there. You will come over today and I will have two weeks lacking two days of work for you. I think it is fitting to come to page 100 on the week end, don’t you. I wish I could have kept up my record of n
ever missing a day but maybe that was a ridiculous hope.
I do not want to dawdle today because I have so many things to do. Got to my desk before 8 o’clock which is good for me. And I’ll work as hard as I can at it. The flower carts are going by in the street today and they are very beautiful. Every week they get more colorful. Really beautiful.
Now it is time for me to try to get to work. Maybe I can add another note to this week afterwards but somehow I doubt it.
May 7, Monday
And now, dear Pat, we come to the second hundred mss. pages. It is a kind of minor milestone but not very important. The third hundred pages will be very important. Then I will have to be bending in toward my finish.
First let me say that we went the length of Long Island Saturday, slept twelve hours at Montauk and drove back yesterday and slept very long. I feel completely rested. We saw enough of Long Island to know we do not want to spend the summer there. It is just wrong. Some time this week we may go up to the Cape to look there. In our quest we have discovered that some people dislike every place we start for—but dislike with intensity. It is possible that we will fly up to Martha’s Vineyard this week end and if we do, I will work next week end so there will be no loss of time in work. I’ll just have to do it that way. I am well and healthy I guess and prepared to start the new 80,000. And the story holds my interest as I hope it holds yours. It is a strange thing, a story. It changes so much all the time. And there is no way to stop that.
I was so glad that Dorothy came over the other afternoon. We have been lax about inviting her but that has been so with everyone. From week to week we thought the furniture for our library would be here. We wanted the room furnished before we invited people and now we know that it won’t be ready before the end of the summer or the fall so we have had the spring of waiting for nothing.
It is a lovely day. If New York could stay this way no one would ever leave it.
I guess I should start work on your present. It is going to take a very long time to do. And I hope it is going to be beautiful and that you will like it. Surely it will be made with care but it is in a material new to me so I will have to learn as I go. And that is difficult and may have a number of failures as you very well know. However, I am going to try it. Never let it be said that I was afraid to try something just because I didn’t know anything about it. By trial and error I will finish it, believe me I will. And it will be unique also. I can promise you that.
Now to the book. This is a brooding time in the book—a time of waiting and a time in which dangers poke up their heads. Why doesn’t Adam listen when Cathy says she will be going away? I don’t know. Men don’t listen to what they don’t want to hear. I know I didn’t and every man I think is somewhat the same—every man. I must point that out very clearly. Adam has a picture of his life and he will continue to maintain his picture against every influence until his world comes down. I know that this is true. But I must make it convincing. And I guess now the time has come to put my thesis into action. I hope I have a good week. I really hope so. You can breathe a little prayer for it if you wish. Also, this week I must go back on a rigid diet to break the plateau I am on. I really want to lose 10-15 more pounds. Then I will be about right I think. Discipline—discipline!
May 7, continued
Now, Pat, when you have read 101-102 you should have some quality of my grandfather’s mind, put in on purpose. As you said the other day—he would know. But what you didn’t say is that he would doubt his knowledge. I think most people doubt their instinctive knowledge. And I hope you will find this home ride effective. I meant it to be a matter largely of mood. And perhaps it is. I hope so. And that will be just about all for today.
May 8, Tuesday
I think yesterday’s work had a kind of energy in the design. I went to the dentist afterwards. Now I only need a cleaning. Waverly is sick this morning. She has a bug that has hung on for a long time. Today is going to be slower but who cares. I have all day to do it. This is the kind of a day I like. I can do a few sentences, then stop and enjoy them. Most days there is something else that has to be done afterwards, but this Tuesday, if I don’t finish until evening, it doesn’t make a bit of difference. And how nice that is.
I am singularly without nerves today. Marshall seems to have answered MacArthur at every point but without rhetoric or heat and I don’t know if you can convince some congressmen this way. His statement does seem to promise that Bradley will have some pungent detail to present. It seems to me personally that MacArthur is a traitor to his country.
What a beautiful day it is—the sun is bright and my little bird is singing. And when you come right down to it, I should be singing a little myself on paper.
You know it is about time for me to throw out a flock of pencils. They are getting short and I detest short pencils. I think I will discard the short ones today as I finish with each one. I take them to Tom who uses them to draw with. To him they are not short pencils. I am really dawdling today when what I want to write is in my head. It is said that many writers talk their books out and so do not write them. I think I am guilty of this to a large extent. I really talk too much about my work and to anyone who will listen. If I would limit my talk to inventions and keep my big mouth shut about work, there would probably be a good deal more work done. The discussions here in the notes are not included in the interdict, for these notes serve me as a kind of arguing ground for the story. For instance, where do I go from the night ride of Samuel. I know what material must go in but the arrangement of it, where one thing starts and where another and their relationships. And even as I write it I know how it is going to go. I must go to the Hamilton place now to balance one family against another and also to show relationships I have only spoken about. I was wrong about the price per foot for digging a well. Samuel would have charged about fifty cents a foot. The price now is $3.25 without casing and $4.25 with casing. Fifty cents would be about right for his time. When you consider that wages were ordinarily a dollar a day, then you can see that fifty cents a foot would be good pay. A well rig man today gets fifteen to 18 dollars a day and uses machinery. So the price is less per man hour than it was then and probably one could buy for 50 cents in 1898 just about what he can for $3.25 now. Well, there’s enough.
And I go to work.
May 9, Wednesday
Today is going to be a violently busy day. It is early but I have to break at 10:30 and go to Waverly’s school to see her play Queen Elizabeth to Judy Erwin’s37 Mary. They have been practicing a long time.
The callus on my writing finger is very sore today. I may have to sandpaper it down. It is getting too big.
I shall phone you this but will put it down here also. I have paper for a little less than two weeks’ work. If I run out I will howl like a wolf. So it is time for you to get me another book. This one went faster than I thought it would. If I did not waste these pages, of course, I could probably get the whole novel in one book. But I love the prodigality of it. The violent Willy Nilly. Sometimes the old franticness comes back and has to be resisted. There’s no hurry. All the time and all the story in the world. I’ve never been happier so why should I ever finish this book. It can go on and on, maybe never be done.
Gwyn called yesterday to say that Tom had been exposed to mumps and probably has them. I have never had them and am naturally a little timid about them. I started on your present yesterday and made good progress but it will take a long time to do. I hope you will like it. If you do not—there isn’t a thing in the world you can do about it because you can’t burn it and no one else would have it. I guess that is all of day’s occupation. Tonight I really should write some letters. I am very behind even to my family. I don’t do anything but the book now.
So we come to our day’s inspection of the book and we stand it up and take a look at it. Yesterday I did the scene in the Hamilton kitchen which I hope you will enjoy. It was done for color contrast. I think—and I thought very long in bed about it last nig
ht—that I had better begin to terminate this section. It would be easy to hold it off indefinitely but my form seems to be calling for a finish. And it seems to me that since the end differs a great deal from the beginning, perhaps it would be well to set the next part in a chapter of its own, lead into it discursively and then pick up the story and carry it through with great simplicity.
I just had a letter from Beth38 with lots of details about the family. So much is forgotten and only a little bit peeks through. And what I want this great sprawling book to do is to be like an experience to the reader, so that perhaps after a little while he will not know whether he read it or whether it happened to him.
Yes, I think it is time to wind in the Cathy section. How strange it is and so must be, the animal anomaly.
I have now reached a time of concertioning in this book so that the words seem to almost come of themselves. I will start today with a groping in Cathy’s mind again for her possible native reason and ends. The inspection of the strange and the worship of the unearthly. It is time I think for the book to pause for discussion. It has not done that for a long time. I think that is the way I will do it. That way—first a kind of possible analysis and then quick narrative right to the end, explain it first and then do it. And a whole new thing is coming in. Dam it, this book gets longer, not shorter. Everything has pups. I never saw anything like the way it grows. And when this section is finished I am going to jump a few years—about ten years. That will make our first knowledge of the twins at ten. And the story will start all over again just as it did before.
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