Journal of a Novel

by John Steinbeck

  Later. Now there is the end of my week’s work as far as you are concerned. But I will work tomorrow because the story is going to quicken now and I want to get into it.

  So long.

  July 14, Saturday

  Because I took Thursday off I am going to do some work today to make up for it. This is good for a number of reasons. First, it is good self-discipline, and second, if I do it, I will feel free some time in the middle of the week to take a day off and pick it up later. But I can only do this if I can prove to myself that I can do it. I have a kind of weariness from living three lives at once and now and then I get a little confused trying to keep them separate. And believe me this takes some doing. I wish I felt better today. And I do in everything but my mind and that is a little sick today. It is probably one of those curious cycles which in the female results in menstruation and in the male causes those depths of depression bordering on the maniac. It is probable that both have a rhythm printed some time on the species by some great impressive force of nature. But the fact that such a force is withdrawn does not make it any less. Maybe I will come out of it. Surely such a feeling changes the world around one.

  I am purposely avoiding more discussion of the word “timshel” until I see you and talk to you. Your last letter which suggests “thou canst” moves even closer to free will than “thou mayest.” And if there is still difference of opinions among scholars, my point is made.

  The day started dark and sullen and only gradually is the sun creeping through. And it may not be a dour day after all. I suppose it would be a good thing for me if I did not dawdle any more but went right to work.

  I had a letter from Harold, saying that he was going to be able to finish the mss. as so far typed this week end and he would report on it Monday. I gather from you that he has already read a good part of it.

  I do hope the clouds begin to drift away from my mind. I’ll add a note at the end of this to tell you whether or not they have.

  Well there’s the day’s work. I had to do this scene because Lee is important. And do you know what is going to happen now? I’ll bet you don’t. I’ll bet anything you don’t.

  And now, my sunburn permitting, I think I may go down to the beach and practice casting a little. That’s good fun.

  July 16, Monday

  Another week out of the deck. This year the weeks are padding along like ducks in line. And this one will be gone quicker than most. Saturday night Elaine and I sat up sedately drinking gin and tonic. And she read me some parts of E because I had never heard it except in my own voice and I was amazed at the charge of emotion in it. I hadn’t realized it carried so much but maybe that is only to us. Wouldn’t you think that on Saturday night I could get away from the book? But I couldn’t.

  Today is going to be slow but I can’t help it. Mondays are usually slow. But today I have a couple of new characters to develop. You have seen them before but I don’t think you have known them. Now I must make you know them. It is hard to open up a person and to look inside. There is even a touch of decent reluctance about privacy but writers and detectives cannot permit the luxury of privacy. In this book I have opened lots of people and some of them are going to be a little bit angry. But I can’t help that. Right now I can’t think of any work which requires concentration for so long a time as a big novel.

  I judge from the number of pages sent back now, 457 I think, that I must be well over five hundred by now. And I have little fear now, barring accidents, that I will have this book done and corrected and ready by Christmas. I have still my month of leeway I gave myself and I think I have used only three days of it. Two to move and one in New York when I just didn’t work. I’ve caught up the fishing day last week.

  I should now go to work because you must begin to know the twins and you must know them very very well because the next part of the book is going to be about them and one of them at least is going to dominate the last part of the book. It is my opinion that you should feel these twins and I am about to go to work on them. And naturally I am a little frightened at the assignment.

  Now there is the day’s work and I wonder whether in this little bit the qualities of the two boys begin to stick through. This is going to be the most careful development of character maybe of the whole book.

  July 17, Tuesday

  I am losing track of time. The weeks roll on and I am riding on their backs. In a very short time you will be here for a while and I must say I am looking forward to that time. I have much to talk about to you. Eden moves along. Last night E and I went over it generally to see whether it is fulfilling its purpose and staying within the banks of its design. And it is. Amazingly enough it has openness and it has not gone out of the path I set for it. I do not see how I have managed to do this but I have. Maybe the millions of words were not in vain after all. I like to think that anyway.

  A great and beautiful storm today—such lightning and rain—and this always stimulates me like a drug. I must have great violence in me because I react to violence in nature with great joy. And a good thunder roll makes me feel almost as though I could do it myself. Today it is not so good because it makes me hesitate in going to work because I might miss something. Very well, I’ll write it in. It is about time for something like that. And it is also about time for gaiety. The death of Samuel has removed gaiety from the world. And I have to put some back in. For Eden must be everything, not only the grim and terrible because that isn’t the way life is. Life is silly too sometimes and that must be in it. Everything I have seen or heard or thought must go in and I feel the necessity for release now. Maybe to rest my audience for the next thing that has to happen.

  My pencils are all short now and I think I will celebrate by getting out twelve new pencils. Sometimes the just pure luxury of long beautiful pencils charges me with energy and invention. We shall see. It means I will have to have more pencils before long though. Would you send me another box. They are Mongol 480 #2⅜ F round.

  Well, here they are and I just sharpened them and oh! lord, I think my pencil sharpener is burning up. And if it is I’ll be sick. I would have to have another one or have this repaired. When my work is done I will open it and see what is wrong. And if I can’t correct it, you are likely to get a long-distance call and a hurry up. However, I may be able to find what is wrong. It just suddenly began to smoke and throw sparks. And it should not go out like this. I deeply depend on it. And now to work.

  July 18, Wednesday

  Well it took me the rest of the afternoon to fix the motor of the pencil sharpener and lots of thought. I found one of the carbons split and had to improvise pretty much, but I did it and this is remarkable because I don’t know much about such things and I had to learn.

  I hate to admit it, but a little weariness is creeping over me. I argue to myself that it is not so but it is. I think this. You are coming in a week and a half. I think I will plan to take a couple of days off to recuperate and to get some kind of change of pace. I know it is more than probable that I will not do this but it is nice to contemplate and restful to think about anyway.

  Your notes on other versions of “thou canst” came yesterday and I can see that you, even as I am, are like a hound on the scent. And isn’t it interesting that this word has been a matter of such concern for so long. You are having fun, aren’t you? This is a time of great joy. It will never be so good again—never. A book finished, published, read—is always an anticlimax to me. The joy comes in the words going down and the rhythms crowding in the chest and pulsing to get out.

  July 18 [19], Thursday

  Very few notes today. Elizabeth Otis is coming this afternoon if the fog permits. She comes at 4 P.M. and I want to go to town and get some tools before that. So I am going to try to get done early with my work. It’s a big day and the boys are wildly excited. They are picking flowers for Elizabeth’s room. Tom has made her some paintings which he says she can take home and they are the best he has ever done.

  Very fortunately I sa
t up very late last night at my wood carving and while I was at it, I worked out today’s writing in detail. So it should not take very long.

  Letter from Harold yesterday. He has reservations but very wisely doesn’t tell me what they are now. On the whole he seems to like Eden. And it would be a startling thing to read for the first time.

  A busy morning. The fuses just blew out. Well that’s the way work must be done. Now let’s see whether I can do it—right now.

  July 20, Friday

  This is a very unlikely day. It is going to be hard I think, very hard. Elizabeth’s plane was very late last night, and we sat up late. I am going to make a real good try today and see if I can do it. I should like to get to page 50 today. That is fifty pages since we have moved. And that is pretty good I think. I haven’t heard from you this week, I think because the planes have not been able to get in. For two days we were isolated by air with storms. That’s what delayed Elizabeth.

  Now, to Eden or at least a little East. Yesterday the children’s scene, and I want to continue with it for a time today. I think I am making people of these children and this I must do. They must be real people. And this means that every word in every line of speech must be accurate and full of some kind of meaning which stretches not only forward in the book but stems from before in the book. And now, if I am going to do it, I think I had better get to it quickly. We shall see.

  There it is, Pat, 50 pages since I have been here. Today was hard, very hard close work. And I hope you like it. Monday begins a new chapter.

  And now I’ll get this ready to go.

  July 23, Monday

  Elizabeth came on Thursday. I worked Friday as usual. And Friday night read her the week’s work concerning the children which she and Elaine both liked. And I hope you will too. Next week end I will keep this mss. here because you will be here and perhaps I will read it to you. I have a nervousness today. Must have been very tired. Saturday night and last night I slept as though I had been drugged—long and deeply. Don’t know why because I have been sleeping little and lightly. I have no consistencies. I guess that is it. All violences. Elaine is very steady and it only makes my lack of consistency and evenness more apparent. And it is not enough to say or to persuade myself that out of my nature I can do work. How much better might I not do it if I did have some kind of even keel. I don’t have much introspection any more. Sometimes I observe tendencies with a certain alarm but I probe no more. Now that is enough of the personal. I am going to write you a letter at the end of the day embodying some of the silliest reasoning and thinking in the world. I am really very immature in many ways, perhaps in all ways.

  Now back to the book—as always. In general, I am something more than half finished with it. I figure I have somewhere near 135,000 words done. I think another 100,000 will finish it. In fact I am pretty sure of it. And I don’t even know how I know this except that I do. I think it is moving well now. One thing ends and another takes it up. I think the story keeps movement internally and externally but this is only my thought. I really don’t know much about it. I have been so long at it that I don’t know. Maybe I only hope it is going well. But that I surely do. Do you like Adam’s awakening? Does he come out of it convincingly? He should. He is a living man again. And now things are about to happen—things which will make a change. And there is going to be a large change pretty soon. I’m sure you are aware of that. You must be. I have been planting the book full of the restlessness which precedes change. Just as history seems to ride up a series of plateaus, so does it seem to me that a man’s life goes—up a little or down and then a flat place, and then another quick change and another plateau. In a book about a man, because of the restriction of space, the distance between the rises or falls is necessarily small and this must give a feeling of unreality. I am trying to overcome that by the use of techniques which indicate a longer time than that actual wordage would justify.

  Now as you well know, Adam and his family must move down river toward the mouth. They will stop in Salinas for this generation. The last part will be at Moss Landing where the river enters the sea. This was the plan from the beginning and it is going to be followed so that my physical design remains intact and clear. Then it will be considered an accident. I don’t know why writers are never given credit for knowing their craft. Years after I have finished a book, someone discovers my design and ascribes it either to a theft or an accident. And now I shall get back to my job.

  July 24, Tuesday

  If you are like me, you are getting very excited now about coming up here. I never lose the excitement. It strikes just as hard always. I am on the train or plane two or three days before it is due to start. This is hard on women because I am gone, in my mind at least, before they have begun to pack. How we are looking forward to your arrival. Today the wind shifted and started blowing in from Spain and I am told that means clear and lovely and warm weather.

  I am late getting to work this morning. I got up early and I am kind of luxuriating in contemplation of my day’s work. It is very funny. I sat with Elaine and told her the whole history of the Chinese in California as far as I knew it. And all of this as a background for the few paragraphs I am going to do today. Lord—if you put down all that went in back of a long book, it would be endless. And I must be careful not to overload this book—to keep the story straight and true when my impulse is to tell everything to this book. Well anyway, I tell nearly everything to these notes.

  I am going to work on the present I am making for you while you are here. I think you might like to watch the process of trial and error. You don’t love tools and working with your hands as much as I do but I think you like to watch it. So you shall and it will not interfere at all with conversation. Elaine asked whether you and Dorothy would want to go out to our few night clubs and I said that I was sure of few things but one of them is that you do not want to go to bars and night clubs. We have only been to one since we have been here and then for dinner.

  I think while you are here I will try to go to work even earlier than I ordinarily do so that I can get through earlier.

  And I think I will go to work now.

  July 25, Wednesday

  I sat up late last night, thinking and carving wood. I made a little whale, but from memory. Hadn’t anything to model from. And maybe that’s good. But I can’t remember exactly how the flukes of a sperm whale go. Yesterday the story of Lee’s parents ran over two pages so I finished it. Gave me one page up on the week. Today I have to write a letter, or at least have Adam write a letter, and I rather think that will be the day’s work. Got your card yesterday. I had no intention of sending the manuscript this week. The weather is beautiful. I hope it stays that way.

  Later. Well there’s the letter Adam wrote and I have tried to fill it with the reticences a man would feel together with the revealing things that creep through.

  July 26, Thursday

  Not much in the way of notes today because you will be here tomorrow. Also I am late today, very late. I didn’t sleep at all last night, planned work ahead and forgot the transition and have been all morning working it out. I know dialogue a month ahead and I didn’t know this morning’s transition. Also Catbird has a mild sunstroke, just enough to make him a little unhappy. And my neck aches from straining against work. And when I put the transition down that I have fought for all morning, it will sound so easy and so casual, I think. My nerves are a little jumpy. No sleep, I guess. I have very many things to talk to you about. Oh! very many and of course I will forget all of them. Tom is doing pictures for you, and I think very good ones. Everyone is preparing something and now I must really get to work. Or I won’t get it done and if there is any not to be done I would rather it would be next week.

  And now it is time.

  July 27, Friday

  Well today is the day you are coming. And I think you as I are probably up very early and generally in the way of that organism the “packing female.” You may have women of every appearance a
nd every temperament and every grade of intelligence but if you put a suitcase in front of them, they all become exactly alike. And have you noticed that when packing the female has a strong distaste for the male. She just doesn’t want him around.

  Well the notes next week will probably be pretty slim because we will have discussed everything in between but it will be fun and all a part of it.

  The kids are riotous with excitement over your coming. And they have started so early that they probably will be cranky and mean by the time you get here. And now to the book.