think a great deal of my future, and settle what book I am to write, how I shall re-form the novel and capture multitudes of things at present fugitive, enclose the whole, and shape infinite strange shapes.

These little pieces in Monday or (and) Tuesday were written by way of diversion; they were the treats I allowed myself when I had done my exercise in the conventional style [Night and Day]. I shall never forget the day I wrote The Mark on the Wall – all in a flash, as if flying, after being kept stone breaking for months. The Unwritten Novel was the great discovery, however. That – again in one second – showed me how I could embody all my deposit of experience in a shape that fitted it – not that I have ever reached that end; but anyhow I saw, branching out of the tunnel I made, when I discovered that method of approach, Jacobs Room [1922], Mrs Dalloway [1925] etc – How I trembled with excitement <…>

I'm very glad you liked the story. In a way its easier to do a short thing, all in one flight than a novel. Novels are frightfully clumsy and overpowering of course; still if one could only get hold of them it would be superb. I daresay one ought to invent a completely new form. Anyhow, it 's very amusing to try with these short things, and the greatest mercy to be able to do what one likes – no editors, no publishers, and only people to read who more or less like that sort of thing. (L. ii. 167–8).