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GORDON GREB |
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CURSE OF THE WRITER WHO NEVER WRITES
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First he has to fix that
leaky faucet and flat tire
By GORDON GREB
of TheColumnists.com
If you’ve seen “Groundhog Day,” the
1993 movie starring Bill Murray, you’ll know why I can easily
associate myself with Murray's predicament: He woke up one morning
to find his life repeating itself day after same day. What he
had to deal with is exactly the problem a lot of us face: How
to find a way to get out of a continuous
time warp.
While most of us don’t
realize we’re trapped by these repetitive events, since
they take on a slightly different form each day, I guarantee
you that keeping a careful record of your daily doings might
help to reveal that a strange sameness is exactly what is happening
to you, me and a lot of people.
Let me explain.
With another New Year on its way, we become conscious of the passing of time. So naturally many of us are likely to consider making some new resolutions. We want to somehow take control of our lives and force ourselves to do better in the future. For me, it’s to finish the Great American Novel which has been writing itself in my head for a long, long time. For years I’ve been meaning to put it down on paper. And with 2005 coming up, I am determined to set things right and resolve to get it done. So far it hasn’t happened.
But I keep telling myself that next year, things ought to be different. Since the same thing seems to occur year after year--no finished book--maybe the time has come to give this situation closer attention and re-examine the whole problem?
Why am I so frustrated?
Because as time marches on, steadily day by day, I wake up each
morning resolved to get started on the first chapter and then
something happens that stops my doing anything new. It’s
“Groundhog Day” all over again. After breakfast something
very important needs to be done first. So I tell myself, “Take
care of that and then you’ll have time for the writing.”
But no matter how hard I try
there’s always something else.
Yes, I could produce a
long list of these necessary things. Example: Preparing my U.S.
Income Tax. Admittedly that happens only once each year. But
it’s the kind of
important task you simply can’t avoid doing. It’s not
alone. Add to the list the need to pay your property taxes, auto
license renewal fees, or other bills which seem to be constantly
coming in.
You can’t ignore these things. They’re essentials. And as you grow older you find yourself making more frequent appointments to see the dentist or doctor, filling or refilling needed prescriptions, or writing “Letters to the Editor” to save social security or Medicare. So the day passes and by nightfall I come to realize no work got done on that anticipated masterpiece. By bedtime I’m full of real guilt.
Fearing that I’m apt
not to sleep until promising myself to correct the situation
the next day, I finally do so and then drop off to dreamland.
And then what happens is oddly similar to my waking hours: In
my dreams I’m trying to finish some kind of project. My
constant nightmare is keeping on the move. Usually it’s
trying to get
somewhere over mountains, streams, boulevards and other obstacles.
Undoubtedly Dr. Freud would diagnose my subconscious as being
preoccupied with “getting somewhere.”
The need to finish doing
something--such as writing a book--has been going on longer than
anyone should know. But believing a real writer needs to reveal
“the inner man” to his reader, I must confess that
my plan to write a book began at the age of 12 or 13,
thanks to my early poetry and story-writing having been published
in the Sunday supplement to the Oakland Tribune (which awarded
prizes of books for poetry,
stories, or drawings submitted by children). The first typescript
of that unfinished book may still be in an old trunk but I don’t
have time to look for it. I’m too busy! But doing what,
for heaven’s sake?
How did John Steinbeck and others like him ever get their writing done? Didn’t they have leaky faucets, junk mail, unsolicited phone calls and common ordinary things to chip away at their time? Somehow or another they must have said, “My writing comes first. To heck with having my car’s oil changed every 5,000 miles.”
My theory is that Mrs.
John Steinbeck--or Mrs. Ernest Hemingway--did it all. When chores
needed to be done from day to day, the wife took care of them.
That is, until they got sick and tired of the drudgery, the absence
of their husbands, and walked
out. Or if they were like Ariel Durant, who helped her husband
Will Durant create the eleven-volume series, “The Story
of Civilization,” she stuck it out and finally got credit
as a co-author after helping him complete the sixth volume. But
it didn’t happen
till the day Will Durant woke up to the fact his wife was a major
contributor and told the publisher to make her a co-equal partner
of all of his books.
Nobody knows how long the
female sex has gone unsung for its share in men’s accomplishments.
It certainly must go back to the days when we lived in caves.
Who
knows what Mrs. Og did to help Mr. Og invent the wheel, discover
fire, or plant that first marijuana seed (which gave us hemp
to help make clothing)? Certainly she kept the children out of
the way, allowing Mr. Og to say with satisfaction, “Ah,
now I
can concentrate on my great idea of rubbing two sticks together
to see what happens.”
Undoubtedly famous authors
like Hemingway and Steinbeck got help from their wives, but it
was costly--Ernest had four wives, which means three of them
got tired of hearing him say, “Will you take care of that,
honey?” or “Be a peach, dearest, and take the car into
the garage for a lube job, so I can finish my book.” As
for John Steinbeck, he was married three times and recounts his
wife-dependency in “Journal of
a Novel,” the diary he kept while completing “East
of Eden.”
While Norman Mailer holds
the world’s record for comings and goings of wives (having
been married six times), what they helped him accomplish is most
impressive. According to the last count this 81-year-old author,
pugilist, and iconoclast completed more than 44 works (books,
film scripts, anthologies, etc.) before he'd gone through his
first five wives, who obviously were fed up taking care of the
“chores.”
Does this mean all writers
must be married? Not necessarily so. But you may have to live
in a hotel if the single life is for you. In a well-run hotel
not much can happen to disturb your quiet tranquility because
you can always pick up the phone and tell the
desk clerk, “Get someone up here pronto because the thermostat
is on the blink and I’m getting cold.”
That’s how George Santayana got his writing done. It was
easy for this famous philosopher and novelist to write because
he lived in hotels wherever he happened
to be--London, Paris or Rome. He ate all of his meals in the
quiet of his room or at restaurants. Fortunately, he inherited
enough money to permit this kind of lifestyle. But let’s
face it--you need a pile of money to pay someone else to do the
needed
chores or find a willing helpmate to do it.
Knowing it’s a careful
balance between a happy marriage and a contented publisher, I’ve
tried to strike a reasonable balance. While I’ve turned
over a lot of necessary chores to my wife in order to free myself
for creative writing, I still find myself
standing on a ladder to fix a broken smoke alarm, chopping wood
to keep the stove going in winter, or tinkering with the toilet
which won’t stop running. It makes me feel like Alexander
Graham Bell whenever I hear my wife call from the kitchen, “Come
here, Gordon, I need you.” A real man would never ask a
woman to do the really hard tasks, like opening a stuck counter
drawer or uncorking a bottle of wine.
While I greatly admire
William Shakespeare, he left his wife at home at Stratford upon
Avon for months while he scribbled away at his plays in London.
The same can be said for Charles Dickens, who, despite his empathy
for the weak and needy never truly appreciated the contributions
from his wife. Writing a best seller isn’t worth losing
the one who keeps you going. Writers who accomplish anything
need a companion by
their side and if they are smart they will give them credit for
the help they get.
Thus I can add up all the
data, analyze it, and come to only one conclusion--the byline
atop this column should read “by Gordon and Darlene Greb”
to be forthright and honest. This column is no more my work alone
than the speech to be given by the President in his “State
of the Union” address in January will be that of the Chief
Executive alone. It’s high time in my own case that I credit
my darling wife for doing
the chores today so I could finish this task. I couldn’t
have written a word without her --my “one and only”
chief cook and bottle washer.
In conclusion, my challenge
now is to find a plumber to fix that leaky faucet in the upstairs
bathroom. Then maybe I can get going on my Great American Novel.
©2004
by Gordon Greb. The illustration is from IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd.
E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA.
You
can comment on this column online. Please address your message
to either "The Editors" or Gordon Greb. To send an
email, click here: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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