I wonder whether it will be as hard getting into the next part as it was in this. I hope not. The work rhythm is established anyway. But the book will have to change as the times change. Oh! it’s going to be fun—a veritable welter of virtuosity.
The weather has completely changed. The heat is gone for the time being anyway and it is delightfully cool. And now it is time for me to go to work while I can. I have wasted enough time and this morning I have really wasted it and no fooling—wasted it in kind of daydreaming, sometimes a profitable matter but not this time. So I think I had better just turn over the page and start to it.
Today’s work will start with a short description of the sheriff which I haven’t got yet. So I will leave a space for it.
Well, there is Part I finished. And I hope you like it. I don’t know what you’ll make of it or what mood it will leave you in. I know the one I want but I can’t tell whether this will do it. Anyway there it is. I’m not tired. But I’m very glad the book is not finished—I would hate to have it done. I don’t like to think of the time when it is done. That will be a bad day for me. A real bad day. Now I’ll spray this week’s work and do some little doodling.
May 22, Tuesday
Now, Pat, we come to the second part of the book. Yesterday I did not work. I had a sore left arm which gave me hell. Today it is gone. What strange aches we get, physical resentments against living I guess. You know, I like to think that I am general enough and common enough so that I have some empathetic approach to nearly every human emotion and feeling and thought. Of course it is only that I like to think this. It does not make it true but if it were true I would be a better writer for it. There is one field of feeling, however, in which either I am different from most people or they do not tell the truth—perhaps not knowing it or not daring to face it or perhaps feeling that it is a monstrous thing which should not be brought into the light. I don’t know that this is so, I simply offer these as reasons why people do not seem to feel as I do. I refer to the will to live. I have very little of it. This must not be confused with a death wish. I have no will to die but I can remember no time from earliest childhood until this morning when I would not have preferred never to have existed. No moment of joy or excitement or sharp experience of pain or sorrow has even made me want to be alive if the opposite were possible. You see it is no longing for death but a kind of hunger never to have lived. The few times I have stated this I have been attacked with everything from straight disbelief to a kind of hatred as though I were a traitor to life. And perhaps I am. But my feeling is not based on any thought whatever. It lies far below the lighted levels of thought, somewhere in the blackness from which impulses arise. This feeling has its corollary in another which is equally disbelieved and yet is equally true. Having little will to be alive I have also very little personal ego—some vanity but little ego. The two oldest and strongest children of ego are domination and possessiveness, and I have very little of either of these. And the youngest and stupidest child is desire for immortality and I have none of this whatever. Another offspring is competitiveness, which is I guess a desire to prove superiority, and I have none of this either. It is a kind of crippled quality I guess, or perhaps one human characteristic is left out. But what I say is true. To that extent I am a monster like Cathy. And it is strange that my trade is one which usually is chosen by people who have a will both for life and for immortality. That is a paradox I know. I truly do not care about a book once it is finished. Any money or fame that results has no connection in my feeling with the book. The book dies a real death for me when I write the last word. I have a little sorrow and then go on to a new book which is alive. The line of my books on the shelf are to me like very well embalmed corpses. They are neither alive nor mine. I have no sorrow for them because I have forgotten them, forgotten in its truest sense.
Now that I have set down part one of this book it is dead. But fortunately Part II is here to take its place so I do not have the usual quick sorrow. And this is one book during which I will have to resurrect the dead. It is very odd and a new experience to me. I am up early today and I have a whole full free day and many sharpened pencils. Only one thing must be done today and I don’t want to discuss that in these notes. But out of that thing must arise how I will feel for a long time to come. It concerns my boys and I think you know how, so I will not write it here lest they might some day read it and be saddened. And they will have sadness enough as they go along. Outside of that the day is made to start Part II. It is a lovely day, bright with sun and the beginning warmth of summer is in the air—so much so that I am thinking of bringing up my cooler and installing it. The time has almost come for that. It will be a frightful job getting it up, and I am not sure that I can do it alone. I can only try and call for help if I find it impossible. But I am immensely strong when I want to be and very, very weak when the will is not in me.
Yesterday I felt weak and frightened at the thought of Part II. But today all that is gone and only a good calmness has taken its place. Perhaps that is because yesterday I thought of it as an immense whole and today my mind is on its opening.
I thought about the book a great deal yesterday—what it is about and what its title should be. It is not local. It is not primarily about the Salinas Valley nor local people. Therefore it should have a general title. Now—its framework roots from that powerful, profound and perplexing story in Genesis of Cain and Abel. There is much of it that I don’t understand. Furthermore it is very short, but this story with its implications has made a deeper mark in people than any other save possibly the story of the Tree of Life and original sin. Now since this is indeed my frame—is there any reason to conceal it from my reader? Would it not be better to let him know even in the title what the story is about? With this in mind I went back to Genesis. I do not want a direct quotation but if I can find a symbol there which is understood on sight and which strikes deep, I will have my title. The punishment of Cain is a strange and perplexing one. Out of Eve’s sin came love and death. Cain invented murder and he is punished by life and protection. The mark put on him is not placed there to punish him but to protect him. Have you ever thought of that? And this is the best known mark in the world. So I suggest as a title for my book Cain Sign. It is not a direct quote, it is short, harsh, memorable and nearly everyone in the world knows what it means. And it is a pretty good-looking title too. What do you think of it?
And now I guess I have written enough notes for today and I will go to work on Part II
May 23, Wednesday
The joyful thought came to me this morning that you may be getting god dam sick of this endless soapbox and there is not a thing in the world you can do about it. You are sunk. The one thing you can do is not to read it and I think you are too curious for that so I have you and I can be as dull as I wish. Ho! Ho!
You will have noticed that this section is pretty beat up. It happened this way. Last night I took the day’s work to bed to read to Elaine and I spilled a glass of water on it. So I dried it off and I am going to use it. The last half of 123 is a little rocky but it is better than breaking the sequence. Now—I have sketched in the background history of the Valley in the 1900s. With so much to be written sometimes it is difficult to know where to put what. The matter of arrangement can be very important indeed. But I thought about it a good deal last night when I didn’t sleep much and I think I know what comes next. And it must be extremely well done and again underwritten. Summer being comen in and this morning I brought up my air conditioner and when I finish work today I will build the bracket to hold it and tomorrow morning I will mount it and then I will be fixed for the summer.
Now—I guess that is about enough. I think you will be delighted over the episode of the naming of the twins. I am. Now I’ll let you know and let you go.
May 24, Thursday
Another week pinching off. Today I have those meaningless apprehensions that come out of the ground, go nowhere, mean nothing and disappear—what I have call
ed Welsh rats in the book. We will have a fine time on the island this summer but sometimes I wish I didn’t have to move at all until my book is done. However, that is only some times. Yep! I’ve got the Welsh rats but I have all day to get my work done, barring a few accidents which might happen.
On Saturday and Sunday instead of stopping writing, I want to do a short story that is on my mind. Unless I write it I will be bothered by it. It is just as well to get such a thing out of my mind. So I will do it and get a lot of things said that should be said and should be said by me—The wind is howling in turret and tree.
It’s a wild day outside, Pat. A little of winter looking back. I love the winter. I must have had good winters—better than summers. This book is doing remarkable things to and for me. My memory is sharpened and tightened and sometimes the feel of words is like a round and warm emotion. It is impossible to describe the feeling but it is like a party feeling and good like afternoon feeling.
I should not dawdle too much today. It would be better to go directly to my work and trap my Welsh rats. Otherwise they may give me trouble. The day is still quite young and quite desirable. I should really go to work now. I read in the Saturday Review about how I am writing this book. It is called ambitious and I guess it is. Any long book is bound to be an ambitious book. Also in the same edition an article by Harold43—very clear and precise and not exactly happy in its conclusions. It makes me wonder whether anything has ever been happy while it was happening. Oh now to work—my god! To work.
May 25, Friday
Today the last day of the book week. The story is jumping along in my head. I could go on without stopping now. I worked and studied and made research until about 3 last night. I have my material all ready now and I must say it is one of the most devilish plans I have ever heard of. Absolutely devilish. And the awful thing is that it would work. That is the really terrible thing. Thank goodness I am not a criminal or am I just thinking it? I sometimes wonder if I must not be all the people I am writing about. And good lord there are so many I must be hundreds.
I will finish my work and then I think I will meet you at your office or somewhere near there. I want you to look at something. I think you would like to do that. Also I must get a rubber stamp made for forwarding mail this summer. It is a fine brilliant day today. Sun beautiful. I shall be anxious to hear how you like the opening of the second part. I think it is pretty good and so does Elaine. Trying to get Gwyn on the phone but it is always busy. [...] It is getting late and I haven’t started my work yet. Trying to get that call through before I go to work.
May 28, Monday
By some chicanery it has become Monday. You don’t dare turn your back anymore. I found it difficult to awaken this morning and am not yet awake completely. I worked over the week end and got no rest. Maybe that is the reason—worked on a short story. But maybe not—perhaps I am just lazy today. I think you enjoyed going out to see the surprise44—didn’t you? I still don’t know how I am going to swing it but I will—some way. I think it is a good investment. I’m sure of that.
A good morning. It is I who am not good. I am sluggish. Must shake that off because today’s work is very important. Oh the next few days are such careful work to do. It must be very ingeniously done. Kate is going to do an ingenious thing and I must underwrite it to make it convincing. I must do it with straight description so that one thing follows another. It is strange and good that I never come to this book with reluctance—often with terror, but I have never since I started writing it wished I were not writing it—not even for a second.
Today the air smells like Monday and the traffic in the street is like Monday. It is really a Monday kind of a day. I wish I had the last page of mss. I made a couple of notes at the top of the page but I would like to review a few lines of dialogue. But I guess it will be all right. I guess it will be all right. But it is such a delicate little scene that I want to make it very good and very very convincing. And it’s a pretty hellish scene. I think of nothing like it in literature. Surely I didn’t steal it. I wonder where I got it. Only a few time elements to work out. And exact minute-to-minute happenings.
I should get to it pretty soon. I can hear it and see it in my head just the way it happened. I know why I am making so much of it. This scene is going to balance the next. And it must have some pretty powerful matter in it to do that. The wind is blowing over me too much.
May 29, Tuesday
I did not wake up on time this morning. It was clock business. When I depend on a clock to ring I am in trouble. I awakened, saw it was not 7 and went back to sleep. Well the clock was not running. This makes me irritable. I hate such interference. And my work will take much longer today because I am irritable. A dark day clouded and brooding. Elizabeth Otis and I figured out my numbers of words yesterday and it is not nearly as many as I had thought. I am glad of that because I don’t want this book to be too bulky. It takes 400 typed pages to make a hundred thousand words and I haven’t even got that many yet. Now—let’s see where we have got—discipline! god damn it, discipline! I do hate these indisciplines which throw me back. Today I guess I must work very slowly. It is a frightening thing I have to write. Detailed and sharp but almost in a monotone. If I can write the next series of scenes and their culmination, I think I can write anything. But as I told you yesterday, I feel a little guilty for having thought the scenes at all. But that is the way it is. My god what a strange grey day. And having overslept I have a kind of a grey mind.
Tonight we are going to the second opening of Oklahoma. Nine years ago Elaine opened it the first time in New York. So we can’t afford not to go tonight. So many things to think and to do. It is requiring great will power to pull back to the book. Thank goodness it is not a dull book. I would never get back to it. It is time for me to go to work but first I will feed and water my bird.
There, he is fed with ground carrots and mockingbird food. And he has a bowl of water to bathe in. You would think he would be happy. But I suppose he is not. Who can tell. It is a preverse human attitude to imagine that birds sing when they are happy. Humans do not—humans sing most beautifully in pain and longing. And a bird usually sings for love but love wanted and expected. Give a male bird a female and he ceases to sing. I draw no conclusion whatever from this. And isn’t it odd. People very rarely sing for joy.
Now the time has come and I must go to work.
May 30, Wednesday, Memorial Day
I’m having one hell of a time today. I’m tired, so tired. It has come up like a wall. Nearly always I can fake it with simple will but I don’t know whether I can make it today or not. I know dammed well I will finish the episode today and then maybe I will go to bed. I’m just pooped. I have to get to it and see if I can operate. Two years ago last night I met Elaine for the first time. Memorial Day is our anniversary. And what changes there have been. I did not expect to survive then and I don’t think I would have. Every life force was shriveling. Work was non-existent. I remember it very well. The wounds were gangrenous and mostly I just didn’t give a dam. Now two years later I have a new life and a direction. Accidents can be benign. I am doing work I like.
It is a really beautiful day. And maybe I will awaken pretty soon. I don’t want not to work and yet I don’t seem to get to it. The method—it is the method that is so dreadful. There is one thing I eliminated and I think it has to go back. Maybe in the form of an inset. Yes, it has to go in. Otherwise there isn’t a real and understandable point. I could understand it myself and maybe you could but I wonder whether our general reader would have such a sense of the under thing unless it is seriously put down. So today I will have to write the inset.
Later. What a complicated animal a human is. I went down and sat in the garden for an hour trying to think myself out of the curious maze I am in. And I think the inset is the answer. Let me try to explain. I am dealing with a process which is part external reality and part mind and soul. In my mind I went over it and worked out every detail. One key detail
I threw out and went ahead. Then my engine grinds to a stop and I don’t know why. And I think it is because I left out that detail. I am limited here by not being able to go into Kate’s mind. I will do this. Therefore she must be made clear by her speech and her actions. And I have made her start a process activated by thought and I haven’t even given a hint of what that thought might be. Why did she start the process? I have not made that clear. I’m glad I caught it now because later I might only feel the lack without knowing what it is that is troubling me. And if I can get that in today I will be satisfied with my day’s contribution.
It is Memorial Day and people in their new shoes are walking by in the street very proud and jerky in the sun. And curiously enough the power and the glory is flowing back into me. And it’s because of the clarity I got in the garden. And the method of clarity.
Now the scene I have to write is not only a degenerate one but it is strong degeneracy feeding on weak degeneracy. It is almost a sickening thing but it has to go in or the rest of the scene or sequence does not make sense. Also the chapter which is to follow has great cleanness and purity but it will not appear so clean if it does not have a contrast.
Do you see what I mean? Well, all right then—I will write the inset.
Journal of a Novel Page 12