14. Revising, Revising!

Friday 10 January.  8:55 a.m.  The house had a nice smell when we returned from holiday.  I realized later it was not the candles but real hyacinths from the forced bulbs.

I have never really left law.  I dream about it all the time.  The night before last I dreamt of Bob D. and someone named Janie, or something like that, also a lawyer.  I went back to Las Vegas for a bar meeting.  This is 7 months after leaving!  I don't seem to make much progress.  Work on some essays, work on poems and not much to show but the precision of a few words.

Just recalled the sounds of the grandfather clock at Flintridge, Pasadena.

Saturday 11 January.  10 p.m.  The Bible and the U.S. Constitution are a lot the same: both designed to offer definitive answers, yet be flexible enough to last over the years.  Two works to do: Thanksgiving, in the future, some people dead.  Do a story I'd like to read, not just to write.

Big fiasco tonight about the walking group party.  Robert wanted to go, I thought Cathy and I should go.  Thomas started crying, he wanted cereal, hadn't eaten his dinner.  Robert was crying.  I genuinely felt with them both.  It just wasn't to be.  In the end we all stayed home.  I wanted to do something to stop the hurt, and almost panicked when I couldn't think of what to do.  Finally, I sent them both to bed, it was really the best thing.

Tuesday 14 January.  11:30 a.m.  My new resolve is to take writing much more seriously.  Indeed if I am to try and make a living at it, I must work harder, pulled by the twin desires to be faithful to what I must write (which is?) and to write something we can live off of.  Meanwhile I am also pursuing my ten poems for Peterloo.  I don't see I have any chance at all since it is an "open" competition.  Perhaps something will nevertheless come of it.  I am distressed by the fact that, when I think I have got the poem right, I find some flaw and make a change.  Seems to illustrate that I am a rank amateur who does not know what he is doing -- like bowling: I can occasionally bowl three strikes in a row, but my overall average is not very good.

Perhaps poetry offers the possibility, however, of isolating the three strikes, if I can just tell what they are!

Wednesday 15 January.  Worked on poems all day yesterday and felt quite good about it (by all day I mean all afternoon and late morning (11-5).  I could possibly do it again today, but I need to get on with the fiction, or so I think.  There is a short story contest open till the 31st, and I want to try and enter it, but in order to do so, I will have to work very hard and go beyond what I've done so far.

Thursday 16 January.  11:45 p.m.  At the typewriter all day, realizing that I have to at least get what I call Book 1 into shape for the literary agent, if nothing else.  As I go over this book, so much of it my life, I relive those parts of my life and the associated feelings.  I had forgotten how it all works when I get into it.

As I read my works, the feeling of power in all those words comes back.  Surely I should be able to do something with it!

I am determined to stop buying things this year.  We certainly spend enough in travelling, no sense in adding to the outflow.

It is a lovely feeling to sit here tonight, feeling that I have worked very hard and yet I have worked for myself.

What is it, after all, that I work for?  I used to want fame and riches.  I think now I would be more than satisfied if I could get some acknowledgement of an ounce of talent, something to keep me going; though as I get older I have fewer problems and more satisfaction in being known even in my own home as a poet and a writer: to be a king in your own house!

It reminds me of what I wrote, revised today, the days in Pasadena, when I was sort of the king around the home.  How alike, yet how much better now, where I am surrounded by Cathy and children, flesh of my flesh!

I have been thinking lately that I would make a good Victorian of sorts.  I don't admire the repression and the Janus face, but the values were wholesome for the most part (putting aside issues such as imperialism, etc.)

The Tablet contest deadline is Monday the 20th.  I certainly don't expect to win, but I can't help but feel a little excited that the possibility exists, merely because I entered.  The same holds true of the poetry contest, which I sent in on Tuesday or Wednesday.  A lot of possibilities are out there, and I haven't sent in a poem to face rejection in 20 years!

Now it is fun to sit here at the desk with nothing to do, no pressure but to hold pen in hand and wait for some words. . . . 12:15 a.m.

Friday 17 January.  7:35 a.m.  Maybe I am the flip side of Tara.  There are people who worry about things, think they must do something to help others, pick up something, go out of their way, etc., the scrupulous type.  One type gives in to his or her scruples and wears out the body with action, never able to say, "no."  The other person learns to say "no" often, but suffers the pangs of guilt at failing to always take up the task.

Thomas and his Friend, Victoria;
Thomas' "Nee-Naaa' Car