One of the more interesting things about reading Jack Kerouac's diaries is getting to know him as a nervous writer, not the "great creator" of the Beat Movement (sigh). A lot of his questions about life and the future (as well as alcohol) are in his books (BIG SUR completely freaked me out on that score), but in his diaries he writes about being a writer in a way that is very appealing for other writers (or at least this writer) to discover. This bit from 1948 after completing his first book, THE TOWN AND THE CITY, really made me smile:

"a book written is a book forever" [his claim to artistry had been] "nailed to the wall."

No matter what happened to him in the future, that book would always be there, plus now he could finally truly claim the title of "writer". I've felt a lot the same way in the past couple of months. All the writing before that first book is still legitimate and true but there is something about knowing it will be bound and on the shelves and something you can hold in your hands that makes the first book so much more. (This might be why I just can't get excited about e-books.) There's also the added benefit of finally being able to tell all those family members your book is due out in the fall. Kerouac had clearly been waiting forever to say those words just like the rest of us do.

This other passage, from 1950, made him very human to me:

"My new plans for March - soon as I get my money, I'll join the morning club at the "Y" and workout almost every weekday. Also, black coffee (no cream & sugar); chinning from the door (which has no real grip so I can only do 10 or 11 or 12); and less sleep. I'd been getting fat and lazy. Time for action, time for a new life, for my real life. I'll be 28 in two weeks...a goodly age. Two meals a day instead of three. Much traveling. No stagnation. No more formal sorrows! No more metaphysical awe! Action...production-speed...grace...turn the world into an early-Saroyan short story, with mature purposes and absorptions. Go! And a writing delirium from true thoughts instead of stale rehashes...of established intellection. Also I'm going to express more and record less in 'On the Road" - I'm going to point out ways instead of describing paths. - Saw a picture of Bob Giroux in Portugal, in the Daily Mirror, today; with the Catholic pilgrims going to Rome. Zowie! - "then longer all folk to go on pilgrimages." [Quoted from Chaucer] Bob's is a pilgrimage in the church of the world, the Jesuit; mine is a pilgrimage in the church of heaven, it-hath-no-name. Likewise we together seek, and are brothers in the spirit.

Soon, I'll get my act together, soon I'll get a schedule and I'll stick to it and everything will fall into place and because of that I will do what I've always wanted to do and become who I've always wanted to be. Gah - it's so familiar it could be my own self from ten years or six months or twenty minutes ago writing it. Or it could be Amanda Palmer singing it. Listen to what she says in this song then try to go live this way, while not forgetting all Jack kept hoping for.

[Kerouac's typewriter in Lowell Nat Historic Park Museum.]