Now sweetly or sadly, good or bad—the day’s work is done. It was a discursive day just as I knew it would be. But there was another reason too. This is a personal book and every now and then I have to yank it back to the personal. I want the illusion of time past [passed?] between the happening and the story to keep it from the kind of immediacy I am trying to lose. And at the same time I want it to be believed as a record of a past truth. Does that make sense to you? I understand it but maybe I haven’t said it well. Maybe you won’t approve of the little tone of elegy that has crept in—as though I were anticipating tragedy for my audience. Well I am. There are no surprises in this book. But I’ll bet my reader can’t tell what is going to happen. It’s a surprising thing and I don’t think even you know what is going to happen. When it comes, it will be so methodical, so factual that it should happen under your nose. And all of it has been planted. Every lead is in. I don’t think you will be able to find fault with any of its form. But we’ll see.
You know the greatest fault finders will be in my family. None of them will agree that I was right about anything. And maybe I’m not. It’s as natural as rain that I should have a little pie-shaped piece of reality cut out of the circle of the past and my own.
We went to see Waverly and her friend perform and they did it very well. Waverly’s great grandmother died last night. She will be a sad kid when she hears because she loved that one better than the rest and so did Elaine.
I feel a little heady now. It’s been a day of super rest and super work. I called you about the pages being nearly gone and I am pretty sure you will bring them. It’s a petty thing, I know, but I am nervous without plenty of pages undirtied. And I would be restless without this kind of paper for the book. It would seem out of drawing and out of key.
May 10, Thursday
Pat, if I had the sense that is the natural right of little green turnips, I would not dawdle today but would rip into the book. Unfortunately I do not have that sense. I want to clean my room today and change my tool rack and generally get neat. A kind of anarchy has set in. My things are all over the floor and a general unneatness has taken the place of my ordinary immaculateness. In two hours I could fix this and probably will. Just then I had a really commercial idea—a real good one. But I’ll keep that to myself. That way I won’t get into trouble.
I had hoped to finish the first section of the book this week but there is just too much of it. However, I don’t think there is any doubt that I will finish it next week. And that will be the first volume or book or whatever you want to call it. Today’s little thing is a violent thing but a quietly violent thing. I don’t quite know how I am going to get over the struggle I have to. And the feeling of it is so revolting that I have to tone it down in open statement so that what happens is more or less in the reader’s mind. Sometimes I can do this. We’ll see if I can do it now. I’ll have to try. I want a real struggle, a demoniacal struggle in this. And right at this minute I don’t know how I am going to do it. Maybe that’s why I keep dawdling. Here for the first time I want the audience to see an open thing in Cathy—not covered, not concealed and not secret. Pat, this book is growing so fast that I can’t keep up with it. I don’t know what I am going to do. I told you that every part of it had pups. That’s the trouble. And here is another thing that is almost frightening—the story comes to me as though I were reading it but not in its final form. Then I must take the story I have heard in my ears and set it down. It is a very curious thing and one that is driving me. But meanwhile I don’t know that I will ever finish it. It gets larger all the time.
I want to tell you something and let it work in your mind. Maybe I’ll discuss it with you tomorrow. But I’ll put it down so you can think of it. Elaine has an ex-relative named Hagy,39 a very rich Texan. He is far from literary. On his way to the big oil conference in Europe he stopped by and stayed to dinner. Now I know we always get help from amateurs but I want you to think about this. He asked me what I was writing and I said a very long novel. He asked what it was called. I said Salinas Valley. He asked, “What’s it about?” I said it’s about my county for the last fifty years.
“I think your title’s wrong,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” he said, “nobody who doesn’t live there is interested in the Salinas Valley. You had the title yourself. Everybody is interested in my county. Call it that. Then they can connect it with their county.”
And you know—maybe he makes sense. But since it is not about the whole county—how would “My Valley” be. It’s a wonderful-looking title and it has things Hagy doesn’t know. It has the personal quality I am trying to put in the book. Think of it before you discard it. It is a wonderful jacket title too. MY VALLEY. The balance of letters, two y’s and two ll’s, and the M balances the V. And it has great warmth and simplicity too. I will like to hear what you think of this.
And now the time has come. To go to work Callou, Callaise.40
Yrs. very sincerely
Manuel Tiburcio Schmaltz (Spanish Prisoner)
Now you see, god dam it—I never got to the birth. I will do it tomorrow. That’s what I mean by the book’s growing ahead faster than I can keep up with it. But I must get the birth down because if you were as excited about this next scene as I am, and I hope to make you that excited, you would be angry if you couldn’t read it for another week. So I will finish it for you—and incidentally for myself. And now I’ll have to think all night about how I am going to do it although I think I already know. And it’s a technique I think I can use. But we will see whether I can or not. Lord I’m having fun with this book. Do you like the story of the meteor? And are these Hamiltons beginning to be alive for you? I do hope so.
And now I’m going to give my room a thorough turning out and by tomorrow when you see it, it will be beautiful beyond belief.
May 11, Friday
Another week complete after I do my day’s stint. A dark and rainy day and one I like. It is cool and the trees look very nice. When I finish I will take the stuff over to you and we will go to look at the doors you have tracked down in spite of the fact that they may not be right at all.
Last night there were strong symptoms of fatigue although I didn’t want to stop. And the story ran with me all night. The scene I have to write today and which I may not finish is rather terrible but in a very quiet way. It is a good day and I feel rested. And next week I think I will finish Book 1. 41 And such is the design of this work that it will be complete. If anything should happen, it could be printed as it is. This gives me a great deal of security satisfaction. It will be about 95,000 words which is long enough and its design is climactic. The three books will be much better but one will be done. Isn’t that a good thought? The ending is strange but it is a complete ending. Isn’t that good?
What a day it is, almost dark as night and raining very hard. There’s no hurry and still I feel I should hurry. If I don’t meet you at three, it doesn’t matter. In that case I will meet you at four. What difference does it make? None whatever. I must get over these little worries. I think the human thrives best when he is a little worried and unhappy and this is implemented with needles in the brain.
Now to the book and today’s piece. It is the birth of the twins. It will be recorded without thoughts, only in description and dialogue, like a black-and-white movie. I want it to be very convincing. Maybe I’ll finish it today and maybe I won’t. I am very independent. But the more I think of it—I am only independent in some ways. That’s funny, isn’t it. Maybe I have a little monster blood in me. I have been told that and sometimes I believe it.
Oh! what a day, so black, so damp and dour. It sets my stage although it was a sunny day when the twins were born; there were no portents unless the pleasantness of the day itself is a portent. I wish I would get to it now. I am ready and the words are beginning to well up and come crawling down my pencil and drip on the paper. And I am filled with excitement as though this were a real birth.<
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Now I warn you—in this section you will see and hear some strange things. And now I will get into it and may the words be very clean and sharp like good knives.
May 13, Sunday
No, I am not going to do any work today but it does seem strange not to be working. And if I am not careful I might do some of it.
May 14, Monday
There is in the air about a man a kind of congealed jealousy. Only let him say he will do something and that whole mechanism goes to work to stop him. The Greeks worked this out to their satisfaction. Jealous gods always present. I am at war with them today. A bug is working in my stomach and chest trying to stop me. I am fighting back because I have not time to enjoy the bug. Maybe I’ll win and maybe the bug will win. But he will have to be a strong bug because his natural allies the treacherous Psychos are remaining loyal to me. No fifth column for the bug.
Saturday night I wrote a poem. I’ll set it down and you can brush up the lines as you wish. “Gen MacArthur had a fathur two grades above human. In Heaven, he is a Seven Star Angel. And if we wait, Doug will have eight.” End of poem—end of era.
You know, Pat, there are times when our thoughts are large and good and full and then there are other times when our thoughts and feelings are small and mean and nervous. Or am I alone in this. This morning I am amazed at the utterly despicable quality of my thinking. And these are just as definitely a part of me as the thoughts of which I can approve. It doesn’t do any good to deny such thoughts. I think they turn to poison and sink in if we do. Better to think them through and so lose them. Who knows but what this is the bug’s method of making me sick. I hope my work can be good today. I know it will be hard and will take long because a part of my energy will have to be displayed in the battle of staying well. So I won’t be able to throw the whole weight on the paper. But I will try. That’s the best I can do.
Monday, Monday—the gateway of the week. I can remember Monday in Salinas. How I hated it! My will toward death was very great when I was growing up. I remember the screened window of my room looking out on grey fog and beyond that a grey school and a grey week—and I hated having to pass that gateway into the week. It is not so now. I look forward to Mondays. The death wish is not so strong as it used to be and maybe some time it will disappear entirely. Or maybe this is too much to hope for.
You know I think I am winning. A little shuddery surge of joy just ran over me like a chill. I think the bug is weakening. I think I will kick the shit out of him. Yes, I think I will.
The work today is stil! reporting and will continue to be all week. You see this is the week when I hope to bring the first book to a close. I think it will be this week. Maybe not because a great deal has to happen yet it will come as it comes. Oh! but I am sluggish and slow today. But I learned long ago that you cannot tell how you will end by how you start. I just glanced up this page for instance. Look at the writing at the top—ragged and angular with pencils breaking in every line, measured as a laboratory rat and torn with nerves and fear. And just half an hour later it has smoothed out and changed considerably for the better. I guess that is the best justification of these notes. They get all or most of the kinks out before I start with the book.
What do you think of the new title now? Do you think it would be injured by that other title, How Green Was My Valley? I don’t. But I want you to. Also I want you to review titles to see whether it has ever been used—but if I know you, you have done that already.
And now, finally I am ready for work.
May 15, Tuesday
Last night, we drank our coffee sedately. Talked, listened to a Rubenstein rendition of the Appassionata, went to bed. Read a while and turned out the light. Didn’t sleep a single moment. Got up at five, went down to the kitchen, made coffee and since six I have been at this desk. Now if you can tell me why I do that, I will be glad. I felt fine, was tired, even sleepy, no tension, don’t miss the sleep a bit. In fact I feel I have somehow found a day. But why this happens fairly often I don’t know. There’s no sense in it. Insomniacs are supposed to worry, so I can’t be one of those. In the very early dawn, I felt a fiendish desire to take my electric pencil sharpener apart. It has not been working very well and besides I have always wanted to look at the inside of it. So I did and found that certain misadjustments had been made at the factory. I corrected them, cleaned the machine, oiled it and now it works perfectly for the first time since I have it. There is one reward for not sleeping.
I am going to make one more attempt to get the other typescript from you. I will be kind and understanding and a little stupid as is expected of me, but if these approaches do not work I shall, by a metamorphosis so quick as to be invisible, turn into a scheming, conniving, murderous fiend. First, my kind side—as you bring the one copy, it must be turned over to Elizabeth because she is going over it with a view to first serial rights which I am told are exempt.42 Besides, she feels that a number of short complete sequences may be removed and sold. This means money and nearly two years before anything can be realized on the book. Money means food and security and presents and all of these are the foundation on which happiness may possibly pitch its tent. Now, since the script goes immediately, my dear wife Elaine has never had a chance to read it. So please—for sweet charity’s sake, bring me the other typescript. You don’t need it yet and I am going to have to have a correction copy. Now there you have my lovely and reasonable side, but if you think you are going to set your aesthetic ass on that copy, you are nuts. Fork it over! You will not have many more warnings and then—Whamo—the sky will fall on you—signed A Friend.
Now, although it is still very early, I shall get to the book. You don’t like the title MY VALLEY. I have never been a title man. I don’t give a dam what it is called. I would call it Valley to the Sea which is a quotation from absolutely nothing but has two great words and a direction. What do you think of that? And I’m not going to think about it any more.
Now yesterday’s work—the end of the birth is done. And I wonder if you will have noticed the incredible details about human birth. I wonder on the other hand whether you will have noticed that you furnished every one of those details yourself. I’ve given you only people and their reactions. But if I have done it well enough you have actually seen the double birth in your own mind. No detail is written. I think it is pretty good and I hope the sense of danger got into it. The real foreboding should rest on it like a crow on a fence. And I am going to have to change tempo now. Today it starts swinging into the end. It will move fast now. It has to reach its climax. And I don’t know why I fool around with this when I could be working on it and by god I will. I am peculiarly dangerous today.
May 16, Wednesday
I gabbed to you so much yesterday that I haven’t much to say today in the notes. Slept so hard last night that I find it very difficult to wake up this morning. But I will eventually. And I am tired today. Maybe the little change over the week end will be good for me.
I think the book is going to take two more days. I must say I don’t feel much up to it today but I will do it. Today’s work is mostly dialogue. And some very curious dialogue. I hope I can do it. I wonder where my energy has gone so suddenly. It just departed. But I am sure it will be back. It always is. But I just can’t seem to get awake. Then too there is excitement in the house because the new piano is coming this morning. Thank God I can’t play or I would never get back to work.
I think I had better forgo any notes today and simply get to my work.
Later. Well I finished my work and it is not going to be done tomorrow I don’t think. There’s a lot more questioning in the first interrogation and then a scene with the deputy and Samuel. Then a final scene with sheriff and deputy. Samuel and Adam. Maybe I can’t even finish it this week. The dam thing grows so much. And it has such subtleties.
May 17, Thursday
I am not going to finish the book today, Pat. There are three scenes and all of them are important and long. So I am afraid I
won’t be able to close the books on this one this week. I’ll talk to you about this later today since you will have to come over for the mss. on Friday and maybe about noon. Some little worries coming up. [...] Tom is in trouble in school again [...] I find it difficult to concentrate when this other thing is hanging. [...] It is a tough problem. And I had better get off it now. It can root out all the work and take over [...]. You see it has got me running my sentences.
Now I will force myself back to the book and see whether or not I have any self discipline. Maybe it’s the darkness before day—who knows.
Now do you wonder why I have all this questioning? Does it interest you? It has a very definite purpose, you know. I don’t think I will set down that purpose because you will surely be aware of it. I wish I could have it without other complications but apparently I can’t. And maybe I wouldn’t be any good at it if I could.
May 18, Friday
Another week going. And how they do go. 120 pages today. Little by little it builds and you can’t hardly tell how or when it does it. We go north tonight but not until late so I have plenty of time and I won’t have to rush at all. Grey and overcast today and the heat broken. And I am just a little weary. Some things have happened which I won’t even bother to put in these notes, but I have had to work with split attention this week and that is always hard for me. I’m not much good at it. I don’t do either well I guess, but on the other hand I think the work yesterday was good. It was dialogue which sounded like talk and every bit of it developed the story. I read it over and it is all right. Now today I have two scenes if I am to finish the section. I’m not going to talk about them here because both of them are pretty delicate and I would rather they went down straight. You can see whether you like them. But I don’t know whether I will get them both done today.
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