A Writer's Diary (35 page)

Saturday, January 4th

The weather has improved and we have decided to stay till Wednesday. It will now of course rain. But I will make some
good resolutions: to read as few weekly papers, which are apt to prick me into recollection of myself, as possible, until this
Years
is over: to fill my brain with remote books and habits; not to think of
Answers to Correspondents;
and altogether to be as fundamental and as little superficial, to be as physical, as little apprehensive, as possible. And now to do Roger; and then to relax. For, to tell the truth, my head is still all nerves; and one false move means racing despair, exaltation, and all the rest of that familiar misery: that long scale of unhappiness. So I have ordered a sirloin and we shall go for a drive.

Sunday, January 5th

I have had another morning at the old plague. I rather suspect that I have said the thing I meant, and any further work will only muddle. Further work must be merely to tidy and smooth out. This seems likely because I'm so calm. I feel well, that's done. I want to be off on something else. Whether good or bad, I don't know. And my head is quiet today, soothed by reading
The Trumpet Major
last night and a drive to the floods. The clouds were an extraordinary tropical birds wing colour: an impure purple; and the lakes reflected it, and there were droves of plover, black and white; and all very linear in line and pure and subtle in colour. How I slept!

Tuesday, January 7th

I have again copied out the last pages, and I think got the spacing better. Many details and some fundamentals remain. The snow scene for example, and I suspect a good many un- faced passages remain. But I preserve my sense that it's stated; and I need only use my craft, not my creation.

Thursday, January 16th

Seldom have I been more completely miserable than I was about 6:30 last night, reading over the last part of
The Years.
Such feeble twaddle—such twilight gossip it seemed; such a show up of my own decrepitude, and at such huge length. I could only plump it down on the table and rush upstairs with burning cheeks to L. He said: "This always happens." But I felt, No, it has never been so bad as this. I make this note
should I be in the same state after another book. Now this morning, dipping in, it seems to me, on the contrary, a full, bustling live book. I looked at the early pages. I think there's something to it. But I must now force myself to begin regular sending to Mabel. 100 pages go tonight I swear.

Tuesday, February 25th

And this will show how hard I work. This is the first moment—this five minutes before lunch—that I've had to write here. I work all the morning: I work from 5 to 7 most days. Then I've had headaches: vanquish them by lying still and binding books and reading
David Copperfield.
I have sworn that the script shall be ready, typed and corrected, on 10th March. L. will then read it. And I've still all the Richmond and El. scene to type out: many corrections in that most accursed raid scene to make: all this to have typed: if I can by the 1st which is Sunday; and then I must begin at the beginning and read straight through. So I'm quite unable either to write here or to do Roger. On the whole, I'm enjoying it—that's odd—though in the ups and downs and with no general opinion.

Wednesday, March 4th

Well, I'm almost through copying the raid scene, I should think for the 13th time. Then it will go tomorrow; and I shall have I think one day's full holiday—if I dare—before re-reading. So I'm in sight of the end: that is in sight of the beginning of the other book which keeps knocking unmercifully at the door. Oh to be able once more to write freely every morning, spinning my own words afresh—what a boon—what a physical relief, rest, delight after these last months—since October year more or less—of perpetual compressing and re-writing always at that one book.

Wednesday, March 11th

Well yesterday I sent off 132 pages to Clark.
^*
We have decided to take this unusual course—that is to print it in galleys before L. sees it, and send it to America.

Friday, March 13th

Getting along rather better. So I steal 10 minutes before lunch. Never have I worked so hard at any book. My aim is not to alter a thing in proof. And I begin to suspect there's something there—it hasn't flopped yet. But enough of
The Years.
We walked round Kensington Gardens yesterday discussing politics. Aldous refuses to sign the latest manifesto because it approves sanctions. He's a pacifist. So am I. Ought I to resign. L. says that considering Europe is now on the verge of the greatest smash for 600 years, one must sink private differences and support the League. He's at a special L. Party meeting this morning. This is the most feverish overworked political week we've yet had. Hitler has his army on the Rhine. Meetings taking place in London. So serious are the French that they're—the little Intelligence group—is sending a man to confer here tomorrow: a touching belief in English intellectuals. Another meeting tomorrow. As usual, I think, Oh this will blow over. But it's odd, how near the guns have got to our private life again. I can quite distinctly see them and hear a roar, even though I go on, like a doomed mouse, nibbling at my daily page. What else is there to do—except answer the incessant telephones, and listen to what L. says. Everything goes by the board. Happily we have put off all dinners and so on, on account of
The Years.
A very concentrated, laborious spring this is: with perhaps two fine days: crocuses out: then bitter black and cold. It all seems in keeping: my drudgery: our unsociability: the crisis: meetings: dark—and what it all means, no one knows. Privately ... no, I doubt that I've seen anyone, or done anything but walk and work—walk for an hour after lunch—and so on.

Monday, March 16th

I ought not to be doing this: but I cannot go on bothering with those excruciating pages any more. I shall come in at 3 and do some: and again after tea. For my own guidance, I have never suffered, since
The Voyage Out,
such acute despair on re-reading, as this time. On Saturday for instance: there I was, faced with complete failure: and yet the book is being
printed. Then I set to: in despair; thought of throwing it away: but went on typing. After an hour, the line began to tauten. Yesterday I read it again; and I think it may be my best book.

However ... I'm only at the King's death. I think the change of scene is what's so exhausting: the catching people plumb in the middle: then jerking off. Every beginning seems lifeless—and then I have to retype. I've more or less done 250: and there's 700 to do. A walk down the river and through Richmond Park did more than anything to pump blood in.

Wednesday, March 18th

It now seems to me so good—still talking about
The Years
—that I can't go on correcting. In fact I do think the scene at Witterings is about the best, in that line, I ever wrote. First proofs just come: so there's a cold douche waiting me there. And I can't concentrate this morning—must make up Letter to an Englishman. I think, once more, that is the final form it will take.

Tuesday, March 24th

A very good weekend. Trees coming out: hyacinths; crocuses. Hot. The first spring weekend. Then we walked up to Rat Farm—looked for violets. Still spring here. Am tinkering—in a drowsy state. And I'm so absorbed in
Two Guineas—
that's what I'm going to call it. I must very nearly verge on insanity I think, I get so deep in this book I don't know what I'm doing. Find myself walking along the Strand talking aloud.

Sunday, March 29th

Now it's Sunday and I'm still forging ahead. Done Eleanor in Oxford Street for the 20th time this morning. I've plotted it out now and shall have done by Tuesday 7th April, I tell myself. And I can't help thinking it's rather good. But no more of that. One bad head this week, lying prostrate.

Thursday, April 9th

Now will come the season of depression, after congestion, suffocation. The last batch was posted to Clark at Brighton
yesterday. L. is in process of reading. I daresay I'm pessimistic, but I fancy a certain tepidity in his verdict so far: but then it's provisional. At any rate these are disgusting, racking at the same time enervated days, and must be thrown on the bonfire. The horror is that tomorrow, after this one windy day of respite—oh the cold north wind that has blown ravaging daily since we came, but I've had no ears, eyes, or nose: only making my quick transits from house to room, often in despair—after this one day's despite, I say, I must begin at the beginning and go through 600 pages of cold proof. Why, oh why? Never again, never again. No sooner have I written that, than I make up the first pages of
Two Guineas,
and begin a congenial ramble about Roger. But seriously I think this shall be my last "novel." But then I want to tackle criticism too.

Thursday, June 11th

I can only, after two months, make this brief note, to say at last after two months dismal and worse, almost catastrophic illness—never been so near the precipice to my own feeling since 1913—I'm again on top. I have to re-write, I mean interpolate, and rub out most of
The Years
in proof. But I can't go into that. Can only do an hour or so. Oh but the divine joy of being mistress of my mind again! Back from M.H.
^*
yesterday. Now I am going to live like a cat stepping on eggs till my 600 pages are done. I think I can—I think I can—but must have immense courage and buoyancy to compass it. This, as I say, my first voluntary writing since April 9th, after which I pitched into bed: then to Cornwall—no note of that: then back: saw Elly: then to M.H.: home yesterday for a fortnight's trial. And the blood has mounted to my head. Wrote 1880 this morning.

Sunday, June 21st

After a week of intense suffering—indeed mornings of torture—and I'm not exaggerating—pain in my head—a feeling of complete despair and failure—a head inside like the nostrils after hay fever—here is a cool quiet morning again, a feeling of relief, respite, hope. Just done the Robson: think it good. I am
living so constrainedly: so repressedly: I can't make notes of life. Everything is planned, battened down. I do half an hour down here: go up, often in despair: lie down: walk round the Square: come back and do another ten lines. Then to Lords yesterday. Always with a feeling of having to repress, control. I see people lying on sofa between tea and dinner. Rose M., Elizabeth Bowen, Nessa. Sat in the Square last night. Saw the dripping green leaves. Thunder and lightning. Purple sky. N. and A. discussing 4/8 time. Cats stealing round. L. dining with Tom and Bella. A very strange, most remarkable summer. New emotions: humility: impersonal joy: literary despair. I am learning my craft in the most fierce conditions. Really reading Flaubert's letters I hear my own voice cry out Oh artl Patience: find him consoling, admonishing. I must get this book quietly, strongly, daringly into shape. But it won't be out till next year. Yet I think it has possibilities, could I seize them. I am trying to cut the characters deep in a phrase: to pare off and compact scenes: to envelop the whole in a medium.

Tuesday, June 23rd

A good day—a bad day—so it goes on. Few people can be so tortured by writing as I am. Only Flaubert I think. Yet I see it now, as a whole. I think I can bring it off, if I only have courage and patience: take each scene quietly: compose: I think it may be a good book. And then—oh when it's finished!

Not so clear today, because I went to dentist and then shopped. My brain is like a scale: one grain pulls it down. Yesterday it balanced: today dips.

Friday, October 30th

I do not wish for the moment to write out the story of the months since I made the last mark here. I do not wish, for reasons I cannot now develop, to analyse that extraordinary summer. It will be more helpful and healthy for me to write scenes; to take up my pen and describe actual events: good practice too for my stumbling and doubting pen. Can I still "write"? That is the question, you see. And now I will try to prove if the gift is dead, or dormant.

Tuesday, November 3rd

Miracles will never cease—L. actually liked
The Years!
He thinks it so far—as far as the wind chapter—as good as any of my books. I will put down the actual facts. On Sunday I started to read the proofs. When I had read to the end of the first section I was in despair: stony but convinced despair. I made myself yesterday read on to Present Time. When I reached that landmark I said, "This is happily so bad that there can be no question about it. I must carry the proofs, like a dead cat, to L. and tell him to burn them unread." This I did. And a weight fell off my shoulders. That is true. I felt relieved of some great pack. It was cold and dry and very grey and I went out and walked through the graveyard with Cromwell's daughter's tomb down through Grays Inn along Holborn and so back. Now I was no longer Virginia, the genius, but only a perfectly magnificent yet content—shall I call it spirit? a body? And very tired. Very old. But at the same time content to join these 100 years with Leonard. So we lunched in a constraint: a grey acceptance: and I said to L. I will write to Richmond and ask for books to review. The proofs will cost I suppose between £200 and £300 which I will pay out of my hoard. As I have £700 this will leave £400. I was not unhappy. And L. said he thought I might be wrong about the book. Then ever so many strange men arrived: Mr. Mumford, mahogany coloured, lean, with a very hard bowler and a cane; whom I put in the drawing room with a cigarette: Mr.——very heavy and large, who said Pardon me and knocked at the door. And Lord and Lady Cecil rang up to ask us to lunch to meet the Spanish Ambassador. (I am making up
Three Guineas.
) Then, after tea, we went to the
Sunday Times
book show. How stuffy it was! How dead I felt—Oh how infinitely tired! And Miss White came up, a hard little woman with a cheery wooden face, and talked about her book and reviews. And then Ursula Strachey came across from Duckworths and said You don't know who I am? And I remembered the moonlit river. And then Roger Senhouse tapped me on the shoulder. We went home and L. read and read and said nothing: I began to feel actively depressed; yet could make up
The Years
differently—I've thought of a scheme for
another book—it should be told in the first person. Would that do as a form for Roger?—and I fell into one of my horrid heats and deep slumbers, as if the blood in my head were cut off. Suddenly L. put down his proof and said he thought it extraordinarily good—as good as any of them. And now he is reading on, and tired out with the exertion of writing these pages I'm going up to read the Italian book.