Working Days (12 page)

Finished it [Ed.—beginning of Chapter 15]. By God and for a while I didn’t think I was going to. But I got the full day’s work done.

 

 

Today I have a leisurely feeling getting into the work whereas yesterday it was one of frantic rush. Today it will be 68 pages [Ed.—of handwritten manuscript]. According to the thousand words to the page gauge, that would be about 70,000 words, but it is more I think. And it is the 35th day. In other words, in 16 more days I’ll be half through. And I must get my people to California before then. By the first of August they should be there, come what may. I think all of today will be in the hamburger stand [Ed.—Chapter 15]. That is an important place. Carol going to San Jose today. That ranch sinks back now. Won’t have to think of it for awhile. It would be fine to finish the book before thinking of it. Then I could think of it all I want. But today I can take my time and what difference if I don’t finish until late? I don’t care. Must be sure not to drink too much and little but beer or short ones in Salinas. Poison on town. I’m going there in the same way that some people go to a slaughter house or a morgue. Anyway, I’m going. This day is good. Letter from Ed and all his teeth are out now. And now to work. On with the hamburger stand. Carol just left with Elsie [Ed.—Ray] and my time has come. No more nonsense. Well, I got her and the eating joint is through and I think pretty well. Now a week end.

 

 

Only a quarter page. Rodeo blues and weakness.

 

Now another week begins. Went to Salinas for the rodeo. Drank lots of whiskey and had a fair time. Empty feeling, empty show. Same enthusiasm circus had whips up. Taken to task by Arline. Sorry. That was the only example of their hatred. I make enemies and friends. And now home with a little stomach ache that doesn’t come from the stomach. Terrible feeling of lostness and loneliness. I don’t know. No word about the ranch. Nice letter from Pat. How nice he is. Trying to reassure me. I don’t need it. Now to the work. The families move on today. I’m in no hurry, so let them move slowly. Got this god damned nasty rodeo to get out of my system. Problems pile up so that this book moves like a Tide Pool snail with a shell and barnacles on its back. Well, I’ve got to get to it. The Joads and Wilsons move on [Ed.—beginning of Chapter 16]. Think I’ll take them quite a way this time before I stop them. Get my map
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going.

 

 

Yesterday was a bust and I’m sorry but I think today will be all right. I just can’t go on these week ends. Confusion lasts too long. Got to stay home and keep my nose down low to my story. Agreed to head a committee to gather funds for field workers’ organization. If it takes time or effort away from this work, I’ll resign. Warned them of that. I’ll have to turn back pages pretty soon to a new set for this diary. I’ll finish another section this week and that will be good. Cut it out and start a new one. That will be very good. I feel the book again today and I think it will go on now.

Done at last and it was a chore for some reason. Be glad to get them there.

 

 

Entry #40
July 20 [1938]—11:15 [Wednesday]

Well last night a wire that Pat is in trouble. I’ve been expecting it. I’m so sorry for him. Our two thousand dollars, our year’s royalties, are pretty important to us but we’re eating and working and that’s more than we have any right to expect. Being broke won’t kill us but it will wipe Pat out. And he is such a nice fellow. The irritations are increasing. I wonder whether I will ever finish this book. And of course I’ll finish it. Just work a certain length of time and it will get done poco a
poco.
Just do the day’s work. Some days I think I am getting sour but I don’t know. Then comes a good day and I am lifted up again. And I can’t tell from the opening. Often in writing these beginning lines I think it is going to be all right and then it isn’t. Just have to see. I hope it is all right today. It is hot today, but by powdering my arm and hand it seems to be all right. I hope the whole rest of the summer isn’t boiling, but if it is, it is, and that’s all there is to it. The work must go on day after day until one day it will be finished. In ten days I will be half done. 50 days of work. I hope we get to California by then because I would like half the time out here. That is the important part—out here. Today I must get the family split—perhaps Tom and Casy to Santa Rosa, or Tom at least for the part [Ed.—Chapter 16]. I think it may be all right. I hope so and I am going to sign this off now and try at it.

Finished, but at 7 PM.

 

 

Yesterday was a terrible day. Telegrams and phones and auspices. Pat is really in trouble. Today his creditors meet and if they force him into bankruptcy our whole year’s royalties go up the flue. I wish it worried me more but it doesn’t. Morrow [Ed.—William Morrow Publishing Company] wired and phoned. By three o’clock we should know how the meeting of the creditors comes out. That is one of the reasons for going to work a little earlier. Gets me done before hell breaks out. I don’t want to work until 7 tonight. Director of L.A. Federal Theatre came over last night. Nice fellow. I liked him. When I am through I must do some work for the theatre if I have it in me. I don’t know. I think, now that I’m tied down, that I will do lots of things, but I wonder if I will. We’ll see anyway. Now to the work. Note to be added concerning Pat when word comes through, if it does. Finished early and I’m glad.

 

 

This is Friday and the last day of a short week. I am ashamed of the short week but it must be put down to accident. Actually I am just about up to schedule on wordage. And I have to take a small loss. So far it is very small. Pat did not have the creditors’ meeting yesterday. I have a feeling he will pull out of this. He has an advance sale list of 8000 on the short stories a month before publication, which is phenomenal. I hope to goodness he can pull out. He is a plugger though. Letter from Burns Mantle for a reprint of M & M. * I hope everything will blow over and let me go on with this work. Only 8 days to finish half. And today I cut out another section. Record from Ford today. Jokes and very good. Startling effect hearing yourself addressed from the phonograph. No word from Pare. Have been expecting him. I won’t mind a rest after today. I’m taking my time now but the wordage continues. That’s the way it should be, too. Now I should be getting back to work. To the Rays’ tonight for dinner and I suppose I’ll get tight and I don’t much care. In a way it is good and in a way bad. But if I am to drink anything Friday night is the best night for it. I’m a bit addled but I can do it all right. If my self discipline will let me go on working while hell pops around my ears, I’ll be all right. I’ll know I am all right. I just hope the work isn’t suffering. And now to it. Must build some on this one-eyed man [Ed.—the junkyard scene in Chapter 16].

And now that’s done and I can rest and the Dodge is fixed and Monday the scene shifts to the first migrant camp [Ed.—final section of Chapter 16].

 

 

Lots of excitement. Carol went with Nellie [Ed.—her mother, who was vacationing in Santa Cruz] last night. Good for her, the change. Restless night for me on account of eating melon and strange and scary to be alone. Must write about this some time. It is a curious thing. Wind blew terribly. This morning lots of mail. Elizabeth writes everything that has been happening. I think Pat will get clear some way—letters from John [Ed.—Barry], from Henning,* and from the O’Brien guy.* Pleasant weekend but a little exhausting. Cerf
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wired some plan whereby he carries Pat. I don’t know. Wired Elizabeth. Mustn’t interfere with her in any way. They’re a fine bunch of people. I like Random House. Of course, I don’t know anything about them financially, but I like the books they print. And I like Cerf. Well, anyway I haven’t lost a minute of work on account of this difficulty. That’s good. That’s the fine discipline. If I can only keep that up this book will be finished in due course. Now I have all day to work and there is no need of hurrying. I can piddle out the two thousand words. Working in the main house because of telephone—so I won’t have to run in, I mean. It is a curious windy day with the weather changing and fallish and leaves falling. Probably be an early and mean winter. It is time for me to get to work. Got to. Even if I have plenty of time. I get assailed with old times. Last night particularly. The flies are in this house on my arms. Here I could have had only half a page of work done [Ed.—still on Chapter 16]. This diary is really valuable to me though. Keeps me from writing letters. And now to work. This pen writes thinner if it is steeper. This has been a good pen to me so far. Never had such a good one. To work now.

The following three days were lost.* Lost completely. Carol went to the hospital for her tonsils. This morning my neck is stiff.

 

 

Now I didn’t work then or all week. Carol had her tonsils out and has been so sick and miserable that I just can’t concentrate. Weakness maybe but can’t cut her pain out of my mind. Pat’s trouble piddles on and that interferes some. Just have to drop last week. It was out. Brod Crawford* came for the weekend. Nice fellow, but what a time to come. My nerves are very bad, awful in fact. I lust to get back into it. Maybe I was silly to think I could write so long a book without stopping. I can’t. Or rather I couldn’t. I’ll try to go on now. Hope to lose some of the frantic quality in my mind now. It’s just like slipping behind at Stanford.
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Panic sets in. Can’t organize. And everybody is taking a crack at me. Want time, want to use me. In aggregate it is terrible. And I don’t know where to run. Ought to go into the wild somewhere but I am needed here. Got to calm down. Simply must. I’m jumpy. And it is hot. Good for fog. Don’t know who will publish my book. Don’t know at all. No reason to let it slide though. Must keep at it. Necessary. Carol says I’m pampering myself. I guess I am. Wish I could control the jumping jitters though. Time to make the break and another try now. Time for it. I made it [Ed.—Chapter 16].

 

 

So many things are going on I’m nearly crazy. * I simply must keep my head. Pare is at last making headway and I wish to God I could jump in but this book comes first. I wonder if I am dramatizing myself. I wouldn’t be surprised. Let’s get down to earth. This book I’m working on is just a book like any other. Let’s work on it and not get wild. If it flops it flops, and that is that. I think I want it to be fine mainly because Carol does so much. But no reason to go nuts about it. Still no clarification of Pat’s business. It should clear up in the next little while. It has to. There must be some way but they’ll work that out. Now at last I am growing calm. This diary is a marvelous method of calming me down every day. Pretty soon I’ll have to turn back pages to continue it. I really should have word today how Pat comes out. Carol’s throat is better today. I’m going in and kiss her now. And then I’ll feel better. And then I can go to work. And this day is the real restoration of the technique of stogyness. Which is what I am. And now to work.

 

 

Well still we’re hung up in the matter of the east [Ed.—Covici’s situation]. No word today at all and this is Wednesday. Carol is improving in the throat now. She dreamed about the Biddle ranch last night. She wants it terribly. I must make every effort to get it for her. It is the most beautiful place I have ever seen. No doubt of that at all. There are now four things or five rather to write through—throat, bankruptcy, Pare, ranch, and the book. If I get this book done it will be remarkable. Well, two pages a day will do it in time. And the time slips by. Just a matter of doing the daily stint. Feel pretty good but am impatient about all the things hanging over me. Can’t help it. But I’ll get it done. I just hope it is some good. With this split attention I don’t know. I really don’t. Today I’ll finish this general chapter [Ed.—Chapter 17] of the change on the roads and the enemies, though maybe the enemies should wait until California. I think so. The end seems ages away and it is too ages away. It is hot now but not sufferingly so. Now the time has come to go to work and I only hope that I am worthy to work. Here goes.

Made her, by God.

Today is the last day before I turn back some pages of this diary. I had no idea I would keep at it or that I would write so much in it every day. But it is so, and it is good. Letter from E.O. My affairs are still mixed up. I wrote the threat to the printers.
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It may never be used. Don’t know but I want Elizabeth to have it. And that was all. No other mail of any note. Ranch business tied up yet, too. Can’t tell. Carol wants it terribly. Must get it for her. But how if we’re never [Ed.—financially] clear? Have moved my table to the shady side of the room. I hope to God this book isn’t suffering from all the inroads of other things. Now today I must move my family fast. I think I want to get them through the desert in this chapter [Ed.—Chapter 18] and to Bakersfield. Ten pages to this chapter will be 92 [Ed.—manuscript pages] and that isn’t far off my plan. Will be 108,000 words. So if the chapter is a little shorter it will still be well over a hundred. I’m 96,000 now. In [Ed.—typed] pages I am not far from 400 now. I think it will be about 800 or slightly under. Anyway, I am well along. And I don’t care much about anything. Gail and George* just came by and took Carol to the city for the day. It will probably be good for her. But I’ve got to go on and think of nothing but this book. I’m behind now and I want not to lose any more time, and so I simply must go on. It’s good to work even if the absolute drive isn’t in you. Here goes.