not firmly based

I haven’t had a morning in a while where I’ve allowed myself to drift from one thing to the next without accountability. When I was practicing law, I used to have to account for every six minutes.

This morning I was trying to locate a Virginia Woolf quote from A Writer’s Diary, and I got lost in the pages.

Saturday, November 2, 1929–almost a hundred years ago:

But I am more concerned with my Waves. I’ve just typed out my morning’s work; and can’t feel altogether sure. There is something there (as I felt about Mrs. Dalloway) but I can’t get at it, squarely; nothing like the speed and certainty of the Lighthouse: Orlando mere child’s play. Is there some falsity of method, somewhere? Something tricky?–so that the interesting things aren’t firmly based?

Then on Boxing Day (December 26):

All is rather rapt, simple, quick, effective–except for my blundering on at The Waves. I write two pages of arrant nonsense, after straining; I write variations of every sentence; compromises; bad shots; possibilities; til my writing book is like a lunatic’s dream. Then I trust to some inspiration on re-reading; and pencil them into some sense. Still I am not satisfied. I think there is something lacking…I press to my centre…And there is something there.

There’s so much more on the ups and downs of her writing days. Do any of you step outside the writing to record how it’s going?