On Writing

he reader completes thecircuit, because he influences the author both before and after the act ofcomposition. Authors are readers themselves. By reading and associating withother readers and writers, they form notions of genre and style and a generalsense of the literary enterprise, which affects their texts, whether they arecomposing Shakespearean... See more

A journal is an artificially permanent record of thought and inner life, which are invariably transient — something the most prolific diarist in modern literary history articulated herself in her elegant defense of the fluid self. We are creatures of remarkable moodiness and mental turbulence, and what we think we believe at any given moment —... See more

as Virginia Woolf herself remarks somewhere in these diaries, one gets into the habit of recording one particular kind of mood — irritation or misery, say — and of not writing one’s diary when one is feeling the opposite. The portrait is therefore from the start unbalanced, and, if someone then deliberately removes another characteristic, it may... See more

Nor can one let the pen write without guidance; for fear of becoming slack and untidy. . . .

I believe that during the past year I can trace some increase of ease in my professional writing which I attribute to my casual half hours after tea

But what is more to the point is my belief that the habit of writing thus for my own eye only is good practice. It loosens the ligaments. Never mind the misses and the stumbles.

It is a good idea, then, to keep in touch, and I suppose that keeping in touch is what notebooks are all about.

We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were.

smart women almost always wear black in Cuba,” a fashion hint without much potential for practical application. And does not the relevance of these notes seem marginal at best?