For the first time I am working on a real book… The others have been make shifts, experiments, practices. June 11: …My life isn’t very long and I must get one book written before it ends. June 5: …My whole nervous system is battered…I hope I’m not headed for a nervous breakdown… May 31, 1938: I shall try simply to keep a record of working days and the amount done in each and the success (as far as I can know it) of the day. The Morgan Library has a podcast of an actor reading from the diary at different points - it’s wonderfully reassuring to hear a talent like Steinbeck worry and fret and struggle and doubt his way through writing what is now considered a masterpiece. “Here is the diary of a book…it will be interesting to see how it works out.” The diary is collected in Working Days: The Journal of The Grapes of Wrath, 1938-1941. In 1938, John Steinbeck began writing what he hoped would be a great novel, and to keep track of his writing progress, he started a daily diary.
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