Daily Nourishment for August 1, 2024: August Again with Virginia Woolf
Daily Nourishment Read Time: 35 seconds
Pause/Prompt/Practice Time: 15 minutes
“It is a mistake to think that literature can be produced from the raw.” - Virginia Woolf
Pause.
Gaze for a few minutes at this portrait of writer Virginia Woolf (made by her sister, Vanessa Bell).
As you keep company with the portrait, allow your breath to slow. Notice that Woolf is crocheting. Notice her focused gaze.
How do your hands feel, how does your face feel, gazing at Woolf’s crocheting hands and face? Does the painting allow you to feel more rested, more focused?
Prompt.
Virginia Woolf was a lifelong diarist. Here on the first day of August are a few nuggets from some of her August diary entries:
August 22, 1922
“The way to rock oneself back into writing is this. First gentle exercise in the air. Second the reading of good literature. It is a mistake to think that literature can be produced from the raw.”
August 3, 1924
“But it’s a question of work. I am already a good deal pulled together by sticking at my books: my 250 words at fiction first, and then a systematic beginning, I daresay the 80th, upon The Common Reader, who might be finished in a flash I think, did I see the chance to flash and have done with it. But there’s a lot of work in these things. It strikes me, I must now read Pilgrim’s Progress: Mrs Hutchinson. And should I demolish Richardson? whom I’ve never read. Yes, I’ll run through the rain into the house and see if [Richardson’s] Clarissa is there. But that’s a block out of my day and a long long novel. Then I must read the Medea. I must read a little translated Plato.”
If you wish, journal in response to Woolf’s words for a few minutes.
Practice.
Woolf commends “gentle exercise in the air” as one way back into writing. Go outside and walk gently, or dance gently, for ten minutes. Then come back and put pen to paper for ten minutes.
~or~
Notice how central reading “good literature,” from Plato to John Bunyan, is to Woolf’s own writing. Note too that, like most of us, there are works she thinks she should have read but has not. Pick a book of your shelf that you wish to have read but haven’t and read for ten minutes. Or 30 minutes. Or more.
Want More?
—Two more portraits of Virginia Woolf: Virginia Woolf by Duncan Grant + Portrait of Virginina Woolf by Gisèle Freund
—Virginia Woolf on how to read a book
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Upcoming Workshops & Gatherings
—The August Co-Writing Schedule is live.
—Spiritual Direction for Writers® + Enneagram for Creativity Gathering will take place on Saturday, September 28th. Recordings will be available if you can’t join us live. Pre-Sale registration live through Monday.
Today’s Daily Nourishment was provided by Lauren Winner.
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