Brendan & Lori O'Gara

For a significant part of her life, Woolf wrote her novels while at a desk standing about three feet six inches high with a sloping top; it was so high that she had to stand to her work. Her sister painted standing up, so Virginia felt that her own pursuit might appear less difficult than that of her sister unless she “set matters on a footing of equality.”

She wrote standing up at a tall, custom-made desk that she requested as a teenager. She used this standing desk for her writing until she was about 30 years old, and her biographer confirmed that the desk was so high she had to stand to work. Her nephew, Quentin Bell, later had the legs of the desk shortened to make it a sitting desk. 

Woolf was not alone in this idea of writing standing. Ernest Hemmingway, Winston Churchill, Lewis Carol, Charles Dickens are others who find this way of working productive. The difference between Woolf and her peers, she wrote all her books while standing.

Book Fact # 3 Virginia Woolf knew that standing work was more productive than sitting.

Love & Light, Lori