Writing Rituals of Virginia Woolf
A series on the What, Where and Why of Literary Women
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I don’t know about you, but I LOVE nothing better than reading about the what, when, where and why of writers’ daily lives. (Not to mention the favourite tools and nerdy quirks of my favourite writers!)
There’s something that seems so…magical about their rituals and routines, especially women writers of the past. It could be because It feels like, if we just emulate something of their daily rituals, we might absorb some of their creative genius.
This essay is part of a series I am planning around the writing rituals of inspirational literary women. At the end of this essay, I will give three key takeaways we might all bring into our own creative lives. Let me know if you enjoy it in the comments!
Writing Rituals of…Virginia Woolf
‘It is only when we can measure the way of life and experience made possible to the ordinary woman that we can account for the success or failure of the extraordinary woman as a writer.’
What?
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you probably have a good idea that Virginia Woolf wrote some of the classic, modernist novels of the early twentieth century. Novels like Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse and The Waves. She also kept a large volume of diaries and letters, as well as writing thousands of witty and sharp literary reviews.
“Times Literary Supplement (TLS) sends me one novel every week; which has to be read on Sunday, written on Monday, and printed on Friday.”
Woolf followed this procedure every week for thirty years, producing 1500 words by Wednesday to send off to be edited and published in TLS each Friday. It helped her to get her voice heard; her reviews revealed her sharp intelligence and the deep passion she held for reading. The readership of the essays was estimated to be around 20,000 per week - something the average Substack writer would love to have access to!!
As well as the joy of knowing she had readers for her work, importantly this practice also provided a source of income for Woolf. In a world where writing and the creative arts can often feel like shouting into the void, earning an income from her writing- particularly for a woman at this time- must have been a source of great accomplishment.
‘I was transformed from a girl in a bedroom with a pen in her hand into a professional woman.’
When?
Suffering several mental breakdowns, Woolf’s episodes of ‘madness’, as she described them herself, often made writing impossible. When she was well enough however, her writing routine was disciplined and well structured, compartmentalising her reading, writing, and thinking time.
Typically, after breakfast with husband Leonard, Woolf would take a morning bath, followed by working either on her fiction writing or her reviews between the hours of 9.30 am and 12:00 pm. Just before or immediately after lunch, she would spend some time revising her words.
Woolf liked to spend her afternoons walking and thinking, especially around the countryside of her Sussex home.
‘A walk this afternoon; and that seems to me an enormous balance at the Bank! solid happiness.’
She turned to her diary writing or letters directly following afternoon tea.
Woolf’s evenings were reserved for her reading, as well as visiting with friends. She did not work well at night, stating in her diary of March 1923: ‘How great writers write at night, I don’t know, it’s an age since I tried, & I find my head full of pillow stuffing.’
Woolf also used her diaries to track the output of her writing, where she monitored her progress and set herself targets. Likely due to her struggles with her mental health, Woolf needed the discipline of a timetable around which to write. She found disruptions to her writing routine frustrating, complaining in her diary that she found any slight disturbance to this a challenge.
She utilised her diary as a tool in which to journal and practise her craft, although she often saw too much of this as a guilty waste of valuable writing time.
Where?
The Woolf’s had initially envisioned a writing room for Virginia in their home at Monk’s House. This ended up turning into her bedroom however, whilst a wooden hut built in the garden became her permanent writing lodge.
The lodge, made out of an old tool shed, had a view of the beautiful Sussex Downs. Unfortunately, Leonard stored his apples in the loft directly above where Virginia wrote, and his sorting irritated the writer, who needed quiet in order to focus on her writing.
‘Oh but L. will sort apples, & the little noise upsets me; I cant [sic] think what I was going to say.’
Although it was too cold to work in the lodge during the wintertime, the addition of an oil stove in 1924, then later a WC, made the original hut into a truly useful writing lodge. Later, the Woolf’s moved this structure to the wall beside the churchyard, placing it underneath a chestnut tree.
“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”
Which Tools?
Woolf favoured a very low armchair in which to write, rather than a writing desk, with a large board of plywood with an inkstand glued to it, placed across her knees. She preferred a large quarto notebook of plain paper, not lined, which she had bound up for her and usually covered herself in some coloured paper. Husband Leonard recollected later that this was the book in which all her first novel drafts were written using pen and ink.
She curiously used purple ink for her letters, particularly the love letters written to Vita Sackville-West. She was also known to use green and blue on occasion, though purple remained her favourite.
Why Write?
Woolf confesses in her diaries that she suffers with ‘an intolerable fit of the fidgets to write away’ stating how she’s often caught up in ‘that ardour and lust of creation’. She tried to be honest about the importance of writing in her life - as opposed to the idea of being a published writer - putting it wonderfully in this way:
‘The truth is that writing is the profound pleasure and being read the superficial…it’s the writing, not the being read, that excites me.’
Although we can often get caught up in the idea of a “perfect” writing routine, or room in which to write, I think we can learn a lot from Woolf’s own basic rituals, regardless of whether we own a large property with a writing lodge.
Here are my three key takeaways from the writing rituals of Virginia Woolf
A compartmentalised writing schedule
This might seem restrictive, but having a dedicated time on the calendar when you write (regardless of how long for) indicates to both yourself and others that you are serious about committing to your writing life. Keep it simple and realistic, and if you want to be like Virginia, track it in your diary, calendar or journal. And don’t forget the importance of compartmentalising as Virginia did: reading, walking, and thinking were all just as important to her as getting words on the page.
Keeping a journal
It doesn’t really matter what you write in your diary or journal, just the act of practising your writing is a deliberate nod towards taking your writing life seriously. Maybe experiment with Morning Pages, brainstorming, list making, or just recording the minutia of your day.
A space of one’s own
Woolf’s famous lecture on the importance of a small income and ‘A Room Of One’s Own’ for a woman to be able to write is well known, but we don’t all have the luxury of a writing lodge in the grounds of our home. Try to find a corner, a cafe, or a library space, and claim it as your own.
The magic of "rituals" is the degree to which they enable the mind to enter a productive "flow" state for doing the work, whatever that may be. People used to make fun of Rafael Nadal's various on-court rituals (often pathologizing them as OCD) until he became one of the greatest tennis players of all time. So there!
What an interesting read! I’m really curious about the idea of writing in an armchair with a lap desk - reminds me of those pictures of Roald Dahl writing. It certainly looks more comfortable than sitting at a desk! I think I might give it a try.