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Archive for the ‘Woolf diary’ Category

Virginia Woolf, 100 years ago today, on writing Mrs. Dalloway

Posted in diaries, Mrs. Dalloway, quotes, Woolf diary, Woolf quote, tagged , , , on Wednesday 30 August 2023| Leave a Comment »

In August of 1923 Virginia Woolf was in the middle of writing the novel that would eventually be published in 1925 under the title Mrs. Dalloway. After writing in her diary that she was “battling for ever so long” with the novel — tentatively titled The Hours — on the following day, she spelled out the stream of consciousness technique she planned to use in her groundbreaking work.

In this oft-quoted passage written on Aug. 30, 1923, she describes the process as digging out “beautiful caves” behind her characters. This is what she wrote:

You see, I’m thinking furiously about Reading & Writing. I have no time to describe my plans. I should say a good deal about The Hours, & my discovery; how I dig out beautiful caves behind my characters; I think that gives exactly what I want; humanity, humour, depth. The idea is that the caves shall connect, & each comes to daylight at the present moment — Dinner! –Diary 2, 263.

Later in the year, on Oct. 15, she describes the process a bit differently:

It took me a year’s groping to discover what I call my tunnelling process, by which I tell the past by installments, as I have need of it. – A Writer’s Diary, 60.

 

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Researchers analyze Woolf’s writing to help prevent suicide

Posted in Woolf diary, Woolf Letters, tagged on Thursday 25 October 2018| Leave a Comment »

Words are important. Writers know that. Now researchers are using words to create algorithms to help prevent suicide. And they are basing their research on Virginia Woolf’s use of words in her writing before she drowned by walking into the River Ouse on March 28, 1941.VW Diary Vol. 5

Researchers from St. Joseph’s Healthcare, McMaster University and the University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil have analyzed that writing to create a word cloud from the 46 documents Woolf wrote during the last two months of her life, along with a cloud created from random samplings from 54 of her letter and diary entries prior to that period.

Reading the clouds

The contrast is stark, explains Dr. Diego Librenza-Garcia, a post-doctoral fellowship at the university in Brazil. 

The cloud compiled from her writing during the final months of her life includes such words as: little, miss, war, nothing, never, can’t and don’t, negative words that indicate Woolf’s hopelessness.

In contrast, the cloud compiled from happier times in Woolf’s life, frequently used words such as love, tomorrow, nice, hope and good.

The researchers created a “text classification algorithm” unique to Woolf’s vocabulary and concluded it would have been able to predict her suicide with 80.45 per cent accuracy. – The Spectator

An app that would build algorithms

The researchers hope to design an app that would build an algorithm for each individual patient that will analyze texts, emails and social media posts of at-risk patients who have consented to participate, so their caregivers can be alerted when intervention is needed to prevent suicide, according to an article in The Spectator. 

The research team’s study was published Oct. 24 in PLOS One, a peer-reviewed open access scientific journal.

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Virginia Woolf changed my life: a podcast

Posted in recordings, Virginia Woolf, Woolf diary, tagged , , , on Friday 29 January 2016| Leave a Comment »

Several months ago I responded to a call for submissions on “Books that changed myawritersdiary_woolf-1 life” at an eclectic site called The Drunken Odyssey – a podcast about the writing life. I asked the editor, John King, if he’d be interested in my story about A Writer’s Diary.  He responded with enthusiasm—turns out he’d studied with Woolf scholar Anne Fernald.

The segment was published this week in Episode 189 of The Drunken Odyssey. It starts with a lengthy discussion about Lawrence Ferlinghetti. If you want to skip ahead, I’m at the end, starting at about 51:50. My husband is a musician with a home studio, so he recorded my piece and added the accompaniment.

It’s not an overstatement that A Writer’s Diary changed my life, and I enjoyed having this opportunity to tell my tale outside of the usual Woolfian circles—to preach beyond the choir.

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A book by any other name ….

Posted in Bloomsbury Heritage Series, books, Virginia Woolf, Woolf diary, tagged , , , , , on Tuesday 23 June 2015| Leave a Comment »

Alice Lowe, contributor to Blogging Woolf, on her latest monograph in the Bloomsbury Heritage Series, “Virginia Woolf as Memoirist: ‘I am made and remade continually’”

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Happy New Year from Virginia Woolf

Posted in Woolf diary, Woolf quote, Woolf sightings, tagged , on Wednesday 1 January 2014| Leave a Comment »

The year 2014 has started off right, with writers citing Virginia Woolf heading into the new year.

The Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain marked the new year by quoting Woolf’s 1 January 1935 Diary entryVW Diary Vol. 5 on its Facebook page: “I must press a good deal of work in – remembering 53 – 54 – 55 are on me. And how excited I get over my ideas! And there’s people to see.”

A writer for Delaware’s Cape Gazette uses the following famous quote of Woolf’s in a story looking back on 2013 dining experiences: ““One cannot think well, love well or sleep well if one has not dined well.”

And a story in the Tampa Bay Times, “Five things you need to know before ‘Downton Abbey’ returns Sunday,” holds out hope that Woolf will appear in a cameo role during season four of the popular PBS soap opera. But we have heard that her appearance ended up on the cutting room floor.

 

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