Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    A Beginning Writer's Journal: 1970-1972
    A Beginning Writer's Journal: 1970-1972
    A Beginning Writer's Journal: 1970-1972
    Ebook111 pages1 hour

    A Beginning Writer's Journal: 1970-1972

    By Joseph Sutton

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    A Beginning Writer's Journal: 1970-1972 reveals what Joseph Sutton went through to finish the first writing project of his life, a novel about his experimental teaching experience at an inner-city high school in Los Angeles. Although Sutton struggled with bouts of writer's block and fluctuations of mood, this book shows how he conquered those obstacles. Never has there been a more honest, intimate and telling portrait of what a writer was thinking, feeling and doing at the onset of his writing career.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJoseph Sutton
    Release dateDec 11, 2020
    ISBN9781005305208
    A Beginning Writer's Journal: 1970-1972
    Author

    Joseph Sutton

    Joseph Sutton was born in Brooklyn and raised in Hollywood. He played football at the University of Oregon and graduated with a degree in philosophy. He earned a teaching credential and a degree in history at Cal State University Los Angeles and taught high school history and English for many years. Sutton, who has been writing for more than 50 years, has published over two dozen books. His essays and short stories have appeared in numerous national magazines and journals. He lives in San Francisco with his wife Joan.

    Read more from Joseph Sutton

    Related to A Beginning Writer's Journal

    Related ebooks

    Biography & Memoir For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Santa Montefiore

      Oct 1, 2020

      Santa Montefiore
      7 min read

    • Article

      Kidnapped By Mum’s Killer, Then Raised By His Family

      May 21, 2020

      Dread stirred in the pit of my stomach, like I was walking down a dark alley in the middle of the night and could sense a predator hot on my heels. But, aged 15, I wasn’t dashing down a back street. My smiley Uncle John was spinning me around the dan

      5 min read

    • Article

      On Loss

      Apr 17, 2023

      On Loss
      3 min read

    • Article

      Reading CORNER

      Feb 26, 2023

      Writer Eva delivers a February to remember Pop music lovers who remember the ’90s are going to get a huge hit of nostalgia while reading this novel. Set in London, it brings the era and its sounds alive vividly. However, it is billed as a feel-good

      3 min read

    • Article

      Reading CORNER

      Feb 26, 2023

      Writer Eva delivers a February to remember Pop music lovers who remember the ’90s are going to get a huge hit of nostalgia while reading this novel. Set in London, it brings the era and its sounds alive vividly. However, it is billed as a feel-good s

      3 min read

    • Article

      It Happened To Me…

      Jan 26, 2023

      It Happened To Me…
      7 min read

    • Article

      Tc Boyle Profile

      May 15, 2019

      BECAUSE WE’RE ANIMALS: Seven conversations from an afternoon with T. C. Boyle By Peter Nowogrodzki T.C. Boyle is standing at the front gate entrance to his Montecito home—an imposing Frank Lloyd Wright structure clad in long horizontal slats of redwo

      26 min read

    • Article

      Take a Writer Like Him: My Complicated Love Affair with Kingsley Amis

      Aug 24, 2018

      1. As much as I may rack my brain, there are 15 minutes or so in the dark that I can’t account for and that I’ll never get back—15 minutes during which, I have to think, that creep’s hands were touching my body. It’s a weird thing to think about all

      12 min read

    • Article

      Care Companions

      Jul 25, 2019

      Care Companions
      6 min read

    • Article

      Roz Watkins

      Jul 6, 2023

      My latest book is The Red House. It’s mainly written from the point of view of a young woman, Eve, who survived (and witnessed) a family annihilation when she was just five years old. She saw her fifteen-year-old brother, who she adored, murder her m

      5 min read

    • Article

      Tony Hillerman's Daughter Anne On Keeping Her Father's Mysteries Alive

      May 29, 2018

      With new focus on a female character, Anne Hillerman is successfully reviving her dad's immensely popular novels.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Jun 17, 2019

      Sayaka Murata is a bestselling author in Japan, but this is the first of her 10 books to be translated into English. Written in a style that is somehow slightly dislocated from honest emotion – something I quite often think about Japanese novels (a f

      4 min read

    • Article

      Care Companions

      Feb 24, 2020

      Care Companions
      6 min read

    • Article

      Candace Jordan

      Dec 14, 2019

      Candace Jordan
      2 min read

    • Article

      A Danger To All Women

      Jun 17, 2021

      Sarah-Jane Davidson, 39, Dundee Carrying in the cage, I placed it gently on the hallway table as my son’s and daughter’s faces lit up. ‘This is Peggy and Polly,’ I grinned, stroking the fluffy heads of the green and grey parakeets. ‘Hello, hello,’ bo

      4 min read

    • Article

      Siphons

      Feb 6, 2020

      Siphons
      6 min read

    • Article

      Metta For My Abuser

      Jun 7, 2022

      Metta For My Abuser
      10 min read

    • Article

      Rag Doll

      May 3, 2018

      Rag Doll
      11 min read

    • Article

      Quarantine Album

      Sep 8, 2020

      It all started with a very simple request: I asked my mom, when she had time, could she look through old photos to see if there were any of pint-size me decked out for Halloween—primo Instagram content for my show Scream, Queen! (a podcast about scar

      4 min read

    • Article

      I Never Called Her Momma

      Sep 13, 2023

      I Never Called Her Momma
      39 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Melissa Lozada-Oliva

      Dec 17, 2021

      I'm always on my way to writing or on my way to reading. These are the big loves of my life but I'm also interested in what pulls me away from them. The post A Year in Reading: Melissa Lozada-Oliva appeared first on The Millions.

      12 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for A Beginning Writer's Journal

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      A Beginning Writer's Journal - Joseph Sutton

      A Beginning Writer's Journal: 1970-1972

      by

      Joseph Sutton

      Copyright 2020 by Joseph Sutton

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Prologue

      In the summer of 1969, at the age of 29, I started writing a novel about my experimental semester of teaching history at an inner-city high school in Los Angeles. In order to focus completely on my writing career, I had saved enough money to last at least a couple of years. I moved out of Los Angeles and settled in El Cerrito (next door to Berkeley) to start, with highest of hopes, the first writing project of my life. While writing the first draft of my novel, I met Sharon Murphy who was about to graduate UC Berkeley in Library Science. After dating several months, we took over a small furnished house in Berkeley from a friend who was leaving the country for a year. Two female cats, Pupic and Birdie, came with the house. Our friend gave us specific instructions: Don't spay the cats.

      Five months after Sharon and I started living together, I began my first journal entry.

      1970

      Friday, September 25, 1970

      My First Journal Entry

      I couldn't sleep last night. I laid in bed thinking that I'd like to kill that calico cat Pupic for being so damn hungry all the time. She's really getting on my nerves. She can't think of anything but food and it really irritates me.

      But Pupic wasn't my only worry. I kept thinking of the Pakistani fellow who was going to bring his Rambler over at eight in the morning for Sharon to test drive it. It screws up everything, as of the past five months, when I know somebody is coming by the house. It wrecks my writing schedule. I want to write every day and do it consistently, not when the mood hits me. I'm out of whack when I know someone is coming by the house.

      Instead of tossing and turning, I picked up John Dos Passos' The Best Times: An Informal Memoir. Dos Passos, to me, is kind of a snob intellectual. He's always mentioning Harvard and using Greek, French and Latin phrases without translating them. That's no way to stand for the common man, Mr. Dos Passos.

      I think I finally dozed off around five a.m.

      After waking up at seven, I went downstairs to check on Pupic's kittens—a strong litter of five. I hadn't done anything physical the day before and I could feel my body say, Do something physical or you'll never get a good night's sleep! I did 40 push-ups—20 at a time with a minute rest period. I went upstairs, laid next to Sharon's warm body and dozed off.

      All of a sudden it was eight o'clock. I quickly dressed and then there was a knock on the door.

      Sharon drove the car while I tried to find out more about it from the Pakistani fellow (I had driven it yesterday afternoon). I thought it was in good shape and saw that Sharon handled it well. I made an offer of $270 (original asking price was $290). The Pakistani fellow said, $275. It's a deal, I said.

      Sharon went to work at her new job at the Orinda library in her mother's car, while the Pakistani fellow and I went to get a smog check and register the Rambler at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

      When I got home around noon, I wanted to get to work on my football short story, but couldn't (I'm taking time off from revising my teacher novel). Maybe I can't work when the temperature is in the 90s. Sharon brought that up last night.

      When Sharon came home, I followed her in my VW bus so she could return her mother's car.

      After eating dinner at Maiko Restaurant, we drove home. Sharon went for cigarettes in her new car, and that's when I started writing my first journal entry.

      Saturday, September 26, 1970

      A Feud

      We're having a feud with our next door neighbor.

      Pupic, a few days ago, took her kittens next door to Charlene's small backyard. Today I saw Charlene clean out the yard and I didn't see the kittens from our bathroom window. I can't help but think Charlene did something to them. I hope I'm wrong and I'll find out tomorrow when I go and talk to her about it.

      Charlene is one powerful person to her two boys and one girl—Phil (21), Billy (13) and Tahoe (5). She's the authoritarian ruler of the roost. I have no respect for her son Phil. He was living with Darien across the street, they had a fight, and so he moved back in with his mother. Charlene thinks I'm trying to protect Darien from Phil. The thought never crossed my mind. Charlene has since shied away from me and Sharon. We haven't said a word to each other in over a month.

      Her two younger kids used to play in their front yard and our front yard before this rift; now they don't. Their freedom is being restricted. Mine, too. As I was looking out the bathroom window, to see if the kittens were there, I stepped back from the window so Charlene wouldn't see me. That's why I don't like Pupic taking her kittens over there. That's why I'm going to talk to Charlene tomorrow, to try and straighten things out.

      Sharon and I lazed around the house today. She read while I watched the Pirates-Mets game. The Pirates, with Roberto Clemente and Willie Stargell, clinched the National League East title. They'll now play the Cincinnati Reds, with Pete Rose and Johnny Bench, for the National League pennant.

      After dinner, Sharon and I went to see Shop on Main Street and Z (a Greek slogan meaning he still lives.). Two excellent films. Shop on Main Street was about a town in Czechoslovakia during World War II where the Nazis rounded up all the Jews to transport them to death camps. A Czech man had formed a business partnership at a small shop with an older Jewish woman. He abhorred what the Nazis were doing, felt helpless that he couldn't stop them, and so at the end of the film he hung himself. Here's a good question to think about: What do you do if you see an immoral act going on? Do you go underground, organize, speak up or what?

      Z was about a police department in a large Greek city that assassinates a political figure who stands for peace, truth and justice. An Inspector gathers evidence of the police department's wrongdoing and presents it to the court. Everyone thinks the ending would turn out where justice prevails, but the good guys were eventually killed off and a military dictatorship takes over. True story.

      Sharon and I came home and talked about our problem with Charlene. It all stems from a misunderstanding. It reminds me of a Tolstoy short story, where two neighboring farmers have a disagreement that eventually leads them to burning down each other's farmhouses.

      Sunday, September 27, 1970

      Goodbye Kittens

      I woke up, dressed and was going to go next door to talk to Charlene. Her son Billy was out front and I asked if he knew where the kittens were. Yes, he said, pointing under the front porch of his house. I brought all five kittens back to our house. My contempt for Charlene is over—just as long as the kittens are safe.

      Sharon and I put the five kittens in a box and drove to Oakland to visit Marlene, Eddie, Chris and Bob (all four of my L.A. friends who recently moved up from L.A.). We rang the bell. Chris opened the door and told us to close our eyes when we got upstairs. I didn't close my eyes and walked into their living room to see someone covered with a blanket. It turned out to be my old friend Nate Wirt who had driven up from L.A. We talked of the fires sweeping L.A. and how frustrating it is to know that they've been going on for three days.

      Marlene and Eddie picked out yellow kitten and climbing kitten from the litter. Nate, Chris, Sharon and I started back to our house. As we passed by Provo Park and saw a crowd of people, I thought of giving away two more kittens. I printed Free Kittens on the box and within five minutes they were gone. We kept one kitten so Pupic wouldn't feel too bad losing most of her litter.

      Monday, September 28, 1970

      Pupic Follows Me

      Three big news events. John Dos Passos died, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt died, and the fires are still raging in L.A. and San Diego (400,000 acres and 400 homes destroyed,

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1