Tuesday, October 22nd
I am again held up in The Years by my accursed love of talk. That is to say, if I talk to Rose Macaulay from 4-6:30: to Elizabeth Bowen from 8-12 I have a dull heavy hot mop inside my brain next day and am a prey to every flea, ant, gnat. So I have shut the book—Sal and Martin in Hyde Park—and spent the morning typing out Roger's memoirs. This is a most admirable sedative and refresher. I wish I always had it at hand. Two days rest of that nerve is my prescription; but rest is hard to come by. I think I shall refuse all invitations to chatter parties till I'm done. Could it only be by Christmas! For instance, if I go to Edith Sitwell's cocktail this evening I shall only pick up some exacerbating picture: I shall froth myself into sparklets; and there'll be the whole smoothing and freshening to begin again. But after The Years is done then I shall go everywhere: and expose every cranny to the light. As it is, who doesn't come here? Every day this week I must talk. But in my own room I'm happier, I think. So I will now plod quietly through the Bridges letters and perhaps begin to arrange all Helen's tangled mass.
Sunday, October 27th
Adrian's birthday, it strikes me. And we asked him to dine. No, I will not hurry this book. I'm going to let every scene shape fully and easily in my hands, before sending it to be typed, even if it has to wait another year. I wonder why time is always allowed to harry one. I think it rather good this morning. I'm doing Kitty's party. And in spite of the terrific curb on my impatience—never have I held myself back so drastically—I'm enjoying this writing more fully and with less strain and—what's the word?—I mean it's giving me more natural pleasure than the others. But I have such a pressure of other books kicking their heels in the hall it's difficult to go on very slowly. Yesterday we walked across Ken Wood to Highgate and looked at the two little old Fry houses. That's where Roger was born and saw the poppy. I think of beginning with that scene. Yes that book shapes itself. Then there's my next war—which at any moment becomes absolutely wild, like being harnessed to a shark; and I dash off scene after scene. I think I must do it directly The Years is done. Suppose I finish The Years in January: then dash off the War (or whatever I call it) in six weeks: and do Roger next summer?
Monday, November 18th
It struck me tho' that I have now reached a further stage in my writer's advance. I see that there are four? dimensions: all to be produced, in human life: and that leads to a far richer grouping and proportion. I mean: I; and the not I; and the outer and the inner—no I'm too tired to say: but I see it: and this will affect my book on Roger. Very exciting, to grope on like this. New combination in psychology and body—rather like painting. This will be the next novel, after The Years.
Thursday, November 21st
Yes, but these upper air scenes get too thin. Reflection after a morning of Kitty and Edward in Richmond. At first they're such a relief though after the other that one gets blown—flies ahead. The thing is to take it quietly: go back: and rub out detail; too many "points" made; too jerky, and as it were talking "at." I want to keep the individual and the sense of things coming over and over again and yet changing. That's what's so difficult, to combine the two.
Wednesday, November 27th
Too many specimen days—so I can't write. Yet, heaven help me, have a feeling that I've reached the no man's land that I'm after; and can pass from outer to inner and inhabit eternity. A queer very happy free feeling, such as I've not had at the finish of any other book. And this too is a prodigious long one. So what does it mean? Another balk this morning; can't get the start off of the last chapter right. What's wrong I don't know. But I needn't hurry. And the main thing is to let ideas blow easily; and come softly pouring. And not to be too emphatic. Of course to step straight into the middle of a new character is difficult: North: and I'm a little exacerbated; meant to have a quiet week, and here's Nelly C. and Nan Hudson both asking to come; and will I ring up; and Nan has a Turkish friend. But I will not be rushed. No.
Saturday, December 28th
It's all very well to write that date in a nice clear hand, because it begins this new book, but I cannot disguise the fact that I'm almost extinct, like a charwoman's duster; that is my brain; what with the last revision of the last pages of The Years. And is it the last revision? And why should I lead the dance of the days with this tipsy little spin? But in fact I must stretch my cramped muscles: it's only half past eleven on a damp grey morning, and I want a quiet occupation for an hour. That reminds me—I must divine some let down for myself that won't be too sudden when the end is reached. An article on Gray I think. But how the whole prospect will take different proportions, once I've relaxed this effort. Shall I ever write a long book again—a long novel that has to be held in the brain at full stretch—for close on three years? Nor do I even attempt to ask if it's worth while. There are mornings so congested I can't even copy out Roger. Goldie depresses me unspeakably. Always alone on a mountain top asking himself how to live, theorising about life; never living. Roger always down in the succulent valleys, living. But what a thin whistle of hot air Goldie lets out through his front teeth. Always live in the whole, life in the one: always Shelley and Goethe, and then he loses his hot water bottle; and never notices a face or a cat or a dog or a flower, except in the flow of the universal. This explains why his highminded books are unreadable. Yet he was so charming, intermittently.
Sunday, December 29th
I have in fact just put the last words to The Years—rolling, rolling, though it's only Sunday and I allowed myself till Wednesday. And I am not in such a twitter as usual. But then I meant it to end calmly—a prose work. And is it good? That I cannot possibly tell. Does it hang together? Does one part support another? Can I flatter myself that it composes; and is a whole? Well there still remains a great deal to do. I must still condense and point: give pauses their effect, and repetitions, and the run on. It runs in this version to 797 pages: say 200 each (but that's liberal): it comes to roughly 157,000—shall we say 140,000. Yes, it needs sharpening, some bold cuts and emphases. That will take me another—I don't know how long. And I must subconsciously wean my mind from it finally and prepare another creative mood, or I shall sink into acute despair. How odd—that this will all fade away and something else take its place. And by this time next year I shall be sitting here with a vast bundle of press cuttings—no; not in the flesh I hope: but in my mind there will be the usual chorus of what people have said about this mass of scribbled typewriting, and I shall be saying, That was an attempt at that: and now I must do something different. And all the old, or new, problems will be in front of me. Anyhow the main feeling about this book is vitality, fruitfulness, energy. Never did I enjoy writing a book more, I think: only with the whole mind in action: not so intensely as The Waves.
Monday, December 30th
And today, no it's no go. I can't write a word: too much headache. Can only look back at The Years as an inaccessible Rocky Island; which I can't explore, can't even think of. At Charleston yesterday. The great yellow table with very few places. Reading Roger I became haunted by him. What an odd posthumous friendship—in some ways more intimate than any I had in life. The things I guessed are now revealed; and the actual voice gone.
I had an idea—I wish they'd sleep—while dressing—how to make my war book *—to pretend it's all the articles editors have asked me to write during the past few years—on all sorts of subjects—Should women smoke: Short skirts: War etc. This would give me the right to wander; also put me in the position of the one asked. And excuse the method: while giving continuity. And there might be a preface saying this, to give the right tone. I think that's got it. A wild wet night—floods out: rain as I go to bed: dogs barking: wind battering. Now I shall slink indoors I think and read some remote book.
1936
Friday, January 3rd
I began the year with three entirely submerged days, headache, head bursting, head so full, racing with ideas; and the rain pouring; the floods out; when we stumbled out yesterday the
mud came over my great rubber boots; the water squelched in my soles; so this Christmas has been, as far as country is concerned, a failure, and in spite of what London can do to chafe and annoy I'm glad to go back and have, rather guiltily, begged not to stay here another week. Today it is a yellow grey foggy day; so that I can only see the hump, a wet gleam, but no Caburn. I am content though because I think that I have recovered enough balance in the head to begin The Years, I mean the final revision on Monday. This suddenly becomes a little urgent, because for the first time for some years, L. says I have not made enough to pay my share of the house, and have to find £70 out of my hoard. This is now reduced to £700 and I must fill it up. Amusing, in its way, to think of economy again. But it would be a strain to think seriously; and worse—a brutal interruption—had I to make money by journalism. The next book I think of calling Answers to Correspondents ... But I must not at once stop and make it up. No. I must find a patient and quiet method of soothing that excitable nerve to sleep until The Years is on the table—finished. In February? Oh the relief—as if a vast—what can I say—bony excrescence—bag of muscle—were cut out of my brain. Yet it's better to write that than the other. A queer light on my psychology. I can no longer write for papers. I must write for my own book. I mean I at once adapt what I'm going to say, if I think of a newspaper.
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.