Working Days

by John Steinbeck

  July 26 [1940]—[Friday]

  This is a lazy day. Went to dinner with the Woods.* Got home early and sober. Carol in pain from Female Complaint. She is having a hard time this time. Went to sleep before twelve and slept until ten this morning without awakening. Disgraceful. I

  think I’ll start setting the clock for seven and going to work immediately. This play might benefit from the half sleep carry-over. Also then I would be free in the hot middle of the day. Worth trying anyway. Good letter from Duke—good and long and healthy. I’ll be glad to see him if he ever gets down this way. Must write him a decent letter* soon. Today is fine and as hot as it usually gets up here. I’m keeping myself in check with this manuscript so that the words do not tumble over one another in their hurry to get out. My fingers get a little sticky in this weather so I rub alcohol on them so the pen will be slick in my hand. That seems to be important to me. I don’t know why. But it does. The good feeling of the pen should be kept—should be dry and a smooth point and fine paper like this. There’s something very good about this kind of affair. My room is cool and lovely. Outside a blinding sun and I at a roll top desk*—I’ve always wanted one and they are perfect. I never had anything nice to work at. And a swivel chair that comes to the perfect height. I can see the greenhouse from here, and the perfect pen and the perfect paper and me working on work that pleases me and has no note for the critics. Indeed, I’m going to be very careful about submitting it for publication at all. But I will have had fun doing it and that is the most important thing—And it is fun. Well the time is now to go to work and I have a good feeling about it. It is nice to be this way. Don’t imagine it can go on for very long. I’m afraid of good luck more than bad.

  Entry #116

  July 29 [1940]—[Monday]

  The trouble with being too casual about a manuscript is that you don’t do it. In writing, habit seems to be a much stronger force than either willpower or inspiration. Consequently there must be some little quality of fierceness until the habit pattern of a certain number of words is established. There is no possibility, in me at least, of saying, “I’ll do it if I feel like it.” One never feels like awaking day after day. In fact, given the smallest excuse, one will not work at all. The rest is nonsense. Perhaps there are people who can work that way, but I cannot. I must get my words down every day whether they are any good or not. And I am a little afraid that they are not much good. However, down they go. The forced work is sometimes better than the easy, but there is no rule about it. Sometimes they come out better than at other times and that is all one can say. I am becoming very calm after the hectic quality of my recent life. Seems like a crazy dream, the other life, and the tone of it leaves slowly. But now I am feeling more slow and deliberate every day. That is a pace that seems most normal to me. I wish I could have it this way for a little while. But one can never be sure, not even for a week. So I go on with my daily stint, and if it is stopped in the middle some time—that will have to be that. I can’t think of any other way just now. The good slow life won’t last. Nothing to report. Swimming yesterday. It’s a good sunny but cool day today. Not hot enough to drive me to the pool until I am ready to go. It is really time to go to work, and I am nearly ready for it, too. Perhaps I write too much in these notes. No way of telling. I finish out a space visually any way. And that space is finished out for today. Second scene Act 1.

  Entry #117

  July 27 [1940]—[Saturday]

  This can’t be much of a note, for this is Saturday. I’m only going to do half a day’s work today and spend the rest of the time in riotous living or riotous resting. Letter from Joe [Ed.—Joseph Henry Jackson] yesterday. Gussie has been desperately ill. Hemorrhage, etc. Joe says that they just saved her. Some curious psychological features to this. It seems very clear to me. Perhaps it isn’t as simple as I think. Hard to tell. Clouds and some wind today. Perhaps the swimming will not be so good as it might be. I’ll get my one page done and find out. When I think how I am not following orders to do what people think I should do, I am scared, but then I think that it is my own work, if anything, that will be remembered. I can’t work for other people. I don’t do good work with their ideas. So I’ll go on with my own. I think probably the pipe play is lousy, but I’ll go on with it just the same. And I think now is a good time to get it going. As good a time as any. So here goes.

  Entry #118

  Sept[ember] 29 [19]40—[Sunday]

  The time goes and I live on in a mess of puzzlement—like every one else in the world. Took up flying [Ed.—at Palo Alto Airport]. Seven hours I had. Went to Washington with Knisely’s idea. I don’t know whether or not it will be used. It should. Then on to New York where for a week Carol and I did wild rioting in clubs and restaurants. Good worthless week. Came home tired and sad. Lack of work does it, I guess. Lorentz wants to make “Flight,” Milestone The Red Pony. I want to finish my play and the Sea of Cortez. Just got home when Nosler* called. Wants me to go to Hollywood for the opening of The Fight for Life on Tuesday. I may do it since there are other things I want to see about. I have trench mouth. Don’t know where I got it, but prosaically I’m sure. Have to go back to Mexico the 20th of October. Carol is in Monterey today. Idell and Paul* are back. Seem well but confused like everyone else. Joe [Ed.—Higashi] is worried about the Japanese situation* and so are we. It becomes very dangerous. May blow up any day. With so many things happening it is very hard to settle down. Emotionally I am pretty much messed up, too. The old trouble of restlessness. Pat wants me to finish God in the Pipes. Carol is feeling lone and lost. But so is every one. My own change of temperament seems pretty radical. Really feel different. But what is to happen? I don’t know. One thing I know is bad but I go on with it anyway. Curious feeling that I must not be a disappointment. And I am and I don’t even know whether the disappointment would be at all sharp. In fact, I am pretty sure it would not. The day is lonely today. And the world is crazy. I wonder whether it will ever be sane again. Probably not. Life for me is nearly over any way. And my head is good still and I can still write. Strange thing honor. The most sapping thing in the world. Oh! Lord, how good this paper feels under this pen. I can sit here writing and the words slipping out like grapes out of their skins and I feel so good doing it. Pat’s dream was a very real dream, but I think it had to do with him not me. The lonely sun and flowers. I’m too fat again. Must start taking it off. Seven pounds at least. Well, I can do that. What has been done can be done again. At first you drink coffee when you get hungry and in a while your stomach shrinks and you are not hungry any more.

  Here is a strange thing—almost like a secret. You start out putting words down and there are three things—you, the pen, and the page. Then gradually the three things merge until they are all one and you feel about the page as you do about your arm. Only you love it more than you love your arm. Some day I will be all alone and lonely—either dead and alone or alive and alone, and what will I do then? Then those things I have now and do not know will become so desperately dear that they will be aches. Then what? There will be no way to cure those aches, no way. In that coldness nothing will come. Things are leaving me now because they came too fast—too many of them—and being unable to receive them I threw them out and soon they will not come any more. This process is called life or living or any one of a number of things like that. In other words these are the soundless words, the words that have no being at all. The grey birds of loneliness hopping about. I thought that there might be a time or a condition different from that. But I know now—there isn’t any other way. But in a will toward holiness one goes on—and curiously—the holiness is often evil in a way, mischievous in a way, sometimes destructive. Must be some way. There must. If only this winter were a calm sweet time. If only. But it isn’t. It can’t be. The frog in the pool and the man who raises foxes. Four hundred dollars a pair. Curious man. Wants to train foxes to pull a little sled. The gay horrible life. And now I’ve done enough of this and I think I’ll move over to t
he other [Ed.—love poems to Gwyn].

  Entry #119

  December 12, 1940 [Thursday]

  My writing in this book is so irregular. A few entries and then six months with none. Back from Mexico again and this time I’m through there I hope. And back from Hollywood again and definitely not through there. I try to stay relaxed about that. It isn’t possible to be more than it is, and I know that. What a fiasco that would be. And I like it and keep at it and will continue. It seems the best thing to do and surely the pleasantest in many ways, but there are stomach pains in it, too. How will it end—tragically, I imagine, but that is part of it too. I won’t even run from that. I won’t do anything. The years fly away now and I am mostly glad. My forces, probably due to the relaxation, increase and may continue to do so for a time at least, and I will make the most of them, too. The year is turning. Mexican film [Ed.—The Forgotten Village] with the exception of commentary is done, too. Now comes* only the Red Pony with Milestone and the “Flight” with Pare and the introduction for Ed’s book second edition and the Sea of Cortez. I need to lose weight again. Last winter I lost 30 pounds in six weeks. Fifteen is all I need to lose now to be in good shape. I’m starting it now, too. I may not try to hit it so quickly. Depends on how hard it sticks.

  Much magic* in Mexico this last time, and of the very blackest kind. Probably some of my present difficulties are due to just that magic. Things are beginning to turn and twist in my head again. I must be sure to choose which is love and which sorryness. I’m not a very good person. Sometimes generous and good and kind and other times mean and short. I’m going to load myself with [Ed.—Vitamin] B for a few days and see what the effect is. Might be interesting. Ed is in pretty good shape now. He has a girl he likes. I feel pretty fine myself except for loneliness. Have been drinking more than usual. Maybe that is good. Can’t say. I’ll let it go as it goes. Have yet to drink for its own sake. But in the present world of cruelty and fierceness of expectancy and greed, drinking, even if practiced as a vice, seems a very little unoffensive one. And I get sick of it very quickly, too. Accounts in the big book of rains that may come. Joe is raking and burning leaves in the vegetable garden. And I have this whole sense of coming tragedy and am so conditioned that I do not even resent it. Carol has been having some quite bad dreams. Poor darling feels insecure, too. And insecurity is every where. She doesn’t know how much nor can conceive how much.

  This is a new pen. I bought it for the Sea of Cortez job. I wonder whether I can do anything of a job on that. The little bird in the black coffin is part of the magic and a very powerful part. Now the clouds are running in fast. Sometimes, I would like so much not to have this beautiful ranch, but a tight, small house built on piers over the water so I could hear it moving and breaking all the time. I am so restless. What will come of this restlessness? I don’t know.

  Entry #120

  Jan[uary] 20 [19]41 [Monday]

  Now back from Hollywood and the Mexican film done as far as I can do it. It isn’t anything I am going to be very proud of, but other people will probably like it. Stayed in the Aloha Arms two weeks. An apartment with four beds. Worked and came back to bed. Only thing to do. And had little quarrels with Herbert, * my own smallness mostly and being bored with the film. No open quarrels. The other, I think, might be over or nearly. [Ed.—affair with Gwyn] Just a feeling and I hope it is true, really, deeply, I hope so. Can’t really see anything good in it in any future. Now I am home for a few days. And Carol is feeling badly because it rains all the time. She lives on sun more than on food. I’ll try to get her to go get the southern sun, if she will. A boat trip would do her good if it went south. I am going to Pacific Grove to work on the gulf book and it will be pretty rainy there, too. I want her to be healthy and happy.

  Strange how the strangeness is. I’ll stay at Esther’s house* in the woods in Pacific Grove. It will give me the privacy to write at the same time as the work at Ed’s. Waiting, always for something. I’m going to look for a [indecipherable] to see within myself whether this is generalized or personal. Can’t tell except that the other urges do not come. I’ll try though—to see. I’ll fill this book this time I hope. There’s nothing else to do. And the world we know crumbles slowly and melts away, and the powerful voices of hysteria and terror are in the air.

  Entry #121

  Jan[uary] 28 [1941]—[Tuesday]

  I am down at P. G. at Esther’s house and just starting the gulf book. Last night Ed and Toby* and I drank too much and caroused about. Finally even got a little mischievous. But oddly enough no hang-over. [Indecipherable] child’s letter. No happiness there but still a fervent belief in it. Carol was to go to Santa Cruz yesterday. Don’t know whether or not she did. It is sunny and clear down here but I don’t know for how long. Now the old laziness but I don’t think it will hold me long. This is a comfortable house, with a rather good fireplace. I must not get into the difficulty of drinking as every one down here does. This is the uphill fight with no end but clarity and no reward except the feeling that a decent job has been done. I wonder whether I can do it. My back aches a little bit with that old ache that plagued me so and that is a little frightening, but if it is another focus of infection we can cure that. Shouldn’t be hard to locate this time. Writing the little daily journal is fun. I have set my usual two pages of writing as the day’s work. Don’t know whether I can keep this up from the beginning, but I will try. I must if I can.

  Lord! I forgot to wire Lon Stewart that I could not come to dinner in L.A. I must also write to Max and send him the article to give to Herb. And these things must be done today. I’m sitting here wallowing in beginnings. Hard things beginnings—very hard. But I must do them. And I can. It will be easy when once the start is made. And that start is going to be made, and that today. It should not be hard. I think I am going to enjoy just sitting here and writing. I’m pretty sure I am. It is comfortable and quiet. At night I can draw the curtains and it will be warm and nice. The inevitable thing happens. My busy little mind thinks up a hundred things I ought to do rather than the writing. I should think at my age it wouldn’t try to do that any more. Time is running out and at the end of this page I will go to the opening. And the opening should be good—very good.

  Entry #122

  Jan[uary] 29 [1941]—[Wednesday]

  And the opening was good, I think. Ed thinks so too. In fact, he thinks it is better than I do. Last night I went to bed by 9:30 and dreamed strangely. Woke up early. Still the back ache and stomach ache. Maybe I have the flu again, too, but I don’t think so. The pen writes a little thickly. I hope this isn’t a psychic pen. I’m having enough trouble with such things. Visitations so definite that I don’t see how I can imagine them. Perhaps I am just crazy. I’ve never been sure I am not. Called Carol last night. She is low and mourning. I wonder if she is ever going to be even reasonably happy. It isn’t fair that she has so much unhappiness. It is becoming almost her usual state of mind. She used to blame it on other things. Now she blames herself and that is worse and she mourns more. I just don’t know what to do. Poor darling, I want so much for her to be happy. No sun today. It is 10:30 and I feel the crowding of work and the urge to hurry. But why? I have all day. I can work as long or as little as I want. The work flows easily and is fun. Why should I hurry? I’ll stay relaxed if I can. I hope this can be a relaxed book. There are so few of them now and the world really needs them for the world is tight and knotted now. A good fire is burning in the fire place and the room is warm. And I can even work at night if I want to. I can do anything, but I usually wind up doing the same things every time. There isn’t very much variation in a given man. I haven’t been or felt so quiet in years. Of course, the birth of other peoples’ unease are in me but of myself I am at peace. Perhaps a kind of anaesthesia. I don’t know. But I seem to be aware at least. Back still hurts and stomach ache has come to join it nicely now. Maybe it really is the flu. Can’t tell, don’t even want to. I’ll just sit here by the fire and set down words.
Nothing wrong with that. I should be opening the page for the book work of today. There are so many things to go into this book. An astonishing number of things. But I’ll get them all in if I just relax and get them in day by day and only worry about the 2000 words of each day’s work. That’s the only way to do it, I have found. But damn it, I have to learn it over again every time. And that’s all for this section for today.

  Entry #123

  Jan[uary] 30 [19]41—[Thursday]

  Now the third day of writing. I don’t know how well, but rather imagine not too well. I am ill—ill in the mind. My head is a grey cloud in which colors drift about and images half-form. I’m bludgeoned and feel beaten by many little things. And I can’t figure answers to them. Maybe some people think clearly all the time and make nice decisions. I don’t know. But I feel very lost and lonesome. And no other way—for me, I mean. It is so curious. I think I use that word far too much, but it is I guess an indication of a staggered mind. The terrible thing to contemplate is that badly as I am thinking, so many others are thinking much more badly. Much more. And I am held in to this by a flogging head and increasing weight and everything like that. I don’t seem to have the knack of living any more. The clock is running down, my clock. This book has to be written. It should be good. I think it is my book. Maybe those people who say that I should never deal with thinking subjects are correct. I don’t know. It is impossible to say. Now the sun is gone again. Haven’t heard from Carol. I hope she isn’t feeling so lonely as she was. She was so low. I think I’ll leave this book now.

  Notes and Annotations:

  A Bibliographical Preface