Of Steinbeck and Writer’s Block

John Steinbeck is my inspiration as a writer. In college, I read The Grapes of Wrath as part of a Freshman sociology class and I never looked back. Soon afterward I got hooked on Cannery Row and its sequel, Sweet Thursday; Tortilla Flat; the revealing road journal, Travels with Charley; The Wayward Bus; The Winter of Our Discontent; his compendium of short stories, The Long Valley; and on and on.

My John Steinbeck collection

As a Sophomore, I was privileged to take a Steinbeck course in which I specialized in the author’s epic semi-autobiographical novel, East of Eden. If you can only read one Steinbeck book in your lifetime, this is it. Set at the beginning of the 20^th century in the vast farmland of California’s Salinas Valley, the novel cleverly interweaves the story of two families: the Hamiltons (Steinbeck’s maternal family); and the Trasks, a fictional family whose travails are a modern-day retelling of Adam and Eve, and Cain and Abel. This story unfolds in Steinbeck’s inimitable prose which is direct and uncluttered, yet so masterful in the author’s understanding of the motivations that drive the human condition.

But the purpose of this blog is not to give an essay on John Steinbeck. I want to focus instead on the author’s modus operandi, his work ethic and the way he disciplined himself to write his novels. Make no mistake. Writing a book is one of the most daunting tasks anyone could wish to attempt. It took me more than six years to write my first book, Keep the Fire Burning. I am now reaching that same mark in the writing of my sequel, From Mountains High.

For the past six years, I have been working on and off on my second book – mostly off. The major difference between the first book and the second (besides the particular decades of each book’s story) is that I was a freelancer during the whole time I was writing Keep the Fire Burning. I had the luxury of creating my own schedule as the muse inspired me. It was not unusual for me to be writing well into the wee hours – sometimes until 3:00am – because I had no appointment or commitment the following morning. Oh, how I miss those days!

But now I am back on the OCP staff, working full-time as a Music Development Specialist. I cannot do my writing for From Mountains High during office hours; and I no longer have the freedom to stay up all night and write because I have to be at my desk by 9:00am. Since I come home tired from my nine-to-five job (who doesn’t?) I often do not have any motivation to work in the evening on my sequel.

That doesn’t mean work has not been happening. I have been doing research and interviewing composers all these years. The Internet and libraries are my friends! But the actual writing has been slow, although I am happy to report that I am already halfway through my projected twelve chapters.

So I need writer’s discipline, and that’s where John Steinbeck comes in. Several years ago, I discovered this gem of a little book: Journal of a Novel – The East of Eden Letters (©1969 by The Viking Press). 

It’s basically a written record of how Steinbeck wrote his epic novel. The Publisher’s Preface has inspired me:

Emerson has said that when his writing was blocked, he would sit down and write a long letter to a friend whom he loved. John Steinbeck, in writing East of Eden, unblocked himself for the daily stint ahead by writing a “letter” to his close friend and editor, Pascal Covici. It was written on the blue-ruled pages of a large notebook, size 10 ¾” x 14 “, which Covici had supplied. After the two opening letters, which filled the first few pages continuously, the letters appeared only on the left-hand pages; on the right, when Steinbeck felt ready, he proceeded to the text of the novel. He usually filled two pages of the text a day with a total of about fifteen hundred words. Both the letter and the text were written in black pencil in Steinbeck’s minute but clear longhand. The writing covered the period from January 29 through November 1, 1951. There was a letter for every working day until the first draft of the novel was finished.

Fifteen hundred words a day for nine months that resulted in a novel of 600 pages in the 2003 edition. That’s inspiring! So now I have a reason to go back to blogging: to get myself unstuck from writer’s block. Hopefully, my regular exercise of doing a blog will set me up to doing the actual writing of my book.

Thank you, John Steinbeck. You’re my hero!

More to come . . .