Save the Diary

I think it is sad to see so many personal journals disappearing. What happens to old diaries when the writers are gone? If they were a celebrity of some kind they would be kept, valued. What about the rest of us?

I read about some groups and organizations keeping journals from ordinary (for lack of a better word) people. They were keeping them as historical records, which is a good idea. The average person may not make or change history in huge or noticeable amounts, but we do take part, have our own thoughts, and make our own notes.

Have you ever found one of your old diaries, one you had thought lost? I have. What do you do with it, the unfinished and the already written pages? Do you just continue on, not minding the gap? What do you do with the journal you were already writing before you found the old journal?

It doesn’t seem like a big issue in the achene of things. But, some of these little things do matter, sort of.

I just continue on, posting to whichever book until one or the other is full. Then finish filling up the other one. I date my entries. If anyone does ever find and read them, they can figure it out. Chances are, no one will. So, don’t feel you have to be a strict self-archivist. Write as you please.

But, consider saving your diary/ journal. You never know, you could be famous posthumously.

You Don’t Have to Keep a Diary One Page at a Time

One reason people don’t stick with keeping a diary/ journal is the habit of writing everyday, filling at least a page each day, and other rules. A diary is personal. So make it personal and set your own rules and guidelines, subject to change without notice. Make it your own and write it (or draw, scrapbook, etc.) your own way.

Best tip from a ~~SnapGuide~~ post: How to Write and Keep a Diary by Heather Olson-Trow.

I think it also helps if your goal isn’t to get to the LAST page of your diary, but instead, to try to use each page the way you want, which will slowly but surely fill the whole book!

I do write in a journal way, making each entry for each day. At least I don’t restrict every day to one page. I write until I’m done, regardless of how many pages it fills. But, I do have a hard time stopping before the page is full.

So, instead of filling it with more writing, leave space you can fill in later with details like mementos, after thoughts and updates.

Keeping a Bullet Journal Sounds Like a Digital To-Do List

I keep private (unpublished) posts in my sites for making notes like this. I always know where they are and they are in the place I will (eventually) use them. At some point I found PressForward as a way to link to the source of my inspiration and make my own notes to go along with it.

You may have noticed that there’s been something of a resurgence in journaling lately. If you’re ever on Instagram, Pinterest, or YouTube, you may have seen people who keep “bullet journals” — Ryder Carroll’s name for an originally simple set of ways to keep lists and notes.

Some people’s bullet journals are Instagram masterpieces, with color-coded tracking systems, calligraphy flourishes for every day, and “spreads” showing impeccably illustrated weekly grocery lists.

In my experience, creative people need journals. They’re the greenhouses where we grow ideas. And the laboratories where we practice fiendish experiments.

My (very ugly) bullet journal has to-do lists, project notes, content plans for the blog and the podcast, thoughts about habits, thoughts about my business, quotes, doodles, sketches, workout notes, the recurring script for my podcast intro, product ideas, call notes, grand ideas for the future, and all manner of lists.

If you keep a journal like this digitally, and you haven’t tried paper for a while … allow me to suggest that you try it out. There’s something deeply creatively satisfying about an actual object stuffed with ideas — a collection of digital notes just doesn’t spark the same excitement.

A creative journal is a place to capture the sparks that float past. It’s a space to experiment, plan, or just goof around. It’s a home for random thoughts and interesting brainworms. It’s where you store dreams that scare you a little.

Flip through your journal sometimes. (You’ll find yourself doing that automatically when you need a content idea or think of a use for that reference note.)

Those social media phrases you’re finding from our first prompt? Copying them into a blank book would be a great way to kick off a new journal.

A final word on keeping a journal: We might need a word for the folks who keep them, but that word is not journalist. I know I am old-fashioned, but I’m clinging to that one for my friends and colleagues who went to journalism school, have put their time in for lousy pay under intense deadlines, and who have the job of defending democracy from charlatans and lunatics.

From CopyBlogger.

The Most Precious Thing… Journals

In the end, we loaded our technology (computers, hard drives with all the historical pictures on them), my old Smith Corona typewriter (yes-crazy!) and we stood holding what we decided were the most precious things… our cottage journals.

We began our first journal on our first day as we moved in to this place. Our kids’ friends wrote enthusiastic missives about how beautiful everything was. Our kids wrote about their feelings, capturing with words what their hearts were beating. “Powered down. Closed up. Fits perfect.”

The words of our son as he did his first final closing at age 18.

The journals number four now and have chronicled friendships, community losses, high points, low points, activities, picnics, first fingerprints of grandchildren, celebrations, achievements, jobs, retirements, comings and goings, weddings, funerals. Our life is there.

We carried the four journals to the boat. The most precious.

We were lucky, and so many of us felt lucky as the water bombing planes extinguished the fire and summer students were planted in the forest to seek out hot spots for a week afterwards.

We felt so lucky.

And so grateful. The journals are back on the bookshelf, fuller still after the summer of 2016.

Source: The most precious thing…: COMMUNITY SECRETS | Barrie Examiner

I’ve thought about what I’d save in case of fire too. Likely everyone has at some point. I also think about my old diaries/ journals. I haven’t looked at most of them since the day I wrote the entry. At one point, moving from one place to another (again and again), I was at the point of throwing them all out. Journals are a link to our past selves. Sometimes a burden but irreplaceable too. I deleted an online journal I kept while I was going through a divorce. I don’t remember why I deleted it then. I’ve tried to get it back a couple of times but never found anything that worked. Gone forever, irreplaceable.

Imagine the Long, Lost Journal Found

What does a journal look like? If you found the long, lost journal of long dead explorer, what would you expect it to look like? I see it as leather, beat up, dark cover and dirty, weather beaten held together with string or something else found along the way. What if it were the journal of a dentist? That I’d expect to be pristine, white and not at all dog-earred. What does your own journal look like, if you keep one?

Pick someone: scientist, teacher, fashion designer, etc and write about the journal they keep. What does it look like? How does it reflect the writer? Describe the wear and tear and any extra things like art added to the cover or a lock to hold in all those secrets. Where is the journal kept? Or, has it been lost? Give the journal a whole story of it’s own (before you even open the pages).

My own journal has evolved to a lined page notebook with a flowery cover. No security like a lock or elastic to hold it closed. I don’t keep it in any special place, nor do I hide it away. But, that’s my life now. I used to keep it in my desk drawer. These days my desk is a computer desk and it didn’t come with drawers. Besides, it seems wrong to keep a journal in a desk drawer unless the desk is old and made from wood.

Who Will Read your Diary in the Future?

I write a diary. You could also call it a journal but I prefer diary because that feels connected to history and all the women who have kept a diary through history. Since the early days of writing on paper women have documented their thoughts, their lives and their ideas.

We write with someone in mind, a reader.

It may be a generic reader or you may think of an actual person as you write. I do. The person I write to has changed over the years. I think I wrote to myself when I was a kid. It’s hard to remember and know for sure what I was thinking as I wrote so long ago when my mind was so much less complicated. Then I wrote for the people. I used to think my diary would be read long after I’m gone but it would be used for my biography, whoever took up the task of writing it.

At some point I began to edit myself as I wrote. Having that reader in mind, I started to think about how much I didn’t want the world to know versus how much I wanted to write about everything in my head. Writing a diary is a release, a freedom of thought and a way to organize your emotions too. But, when you think of someone else actually reading all of that… your outlook changes.

Now I try to write just for myself again. Thinking too much about the reader took away too much of what I needed from the whole thing of keeping a diary. So, they all join each other in a big storage box as I run out of space to write. But, I don’t know if anyone will ever read them. At least not until I am long gone and will never know (or hear) what people say about the real me in the pages of those hand written books.

The history of women is in our diaries, our letters and our crafts. I’m so glad to see the history of women being pulled from obscurity.

So few women managed to become a part of recorded history, other than being mentioned as the daughter, wife or sister of some important man. So much of women’s history is lost. What was it really like to be a woman, daughter, wife, Mother or sister in the 1600’s? Those were the days when North America was being discovered by Europeans. I’d really like to know about women in early, ancient and prehistory. In such early days we don’t have history of any people but those who were politically important, enough to have been written about. Of course, in those early days of writing, it was rare for women to be taught to write.

I think about that sometimes. I don’t take writing and being about write for granted. We record our own history, in our own words. That is something of value – our way of having a mark on the world, even if we aren’t sure we really want someone else to read it!

Write Like a Diarist

Most people who keep a diary/ journal write with an audience in mind. They write to someone, even if they don’t ever plan to let anyone else read what they have written.

Try writing a diary entry about your day, or pick an average sort of day to write about. Choose who your audience is. As you write change your audience to someone else about midway through. How does this change what you write and how you are writing it?

Found on Wikipedia :

Escribitionist – a term for a person who keeps a diary or journal via electronic means, and in particular, publishes their entries on the World Wide Web.

How to Start a Diary or Personal Journal

What to Write

Any time you are not sure what to write or just can’t seem to get started – read back your last post to the journal and comment on it. Did you meet any goals, achieve something or did the day you expected turn out completely different from what you had written?

Write with Pen and Paper

Take a break from the computer, sit in a different chair and use a different table when you write your journal. Buy yourself a paper notebook with blank pages for you to fill. Pick a pen with a nice flow and even a pretty colour of ink to write with. (Blue ink can be pretty – there are all kinds of shades of blue ink in pens once you try out a few of them).

There are endless books created to be journals. You can go to a book store and look at a display full of them. Pick something appealing to you. While you’re there pick out a bookmark too. Not that you really need one but it’s nice to have something to mark the page you last wrote and the new one where you will write again.

There is a nice feeling when you actually write with a pen on paper. Plus you will be practising your penmanship. keeping cursive writing alive and working through writer’s cramp rather than losing those muscles and that hand dexterity.

Writing Every Day, or Not

There are those who believe a journal or diary must be written in every day. That’s a lot to stick with. I know from my own experience how tough it is to stick with a schedule/ plan like that.

However, writing everyday does give you writing discipline. You can get into the habit of writing each day and then it does become easier. You will even find yourself composing your daily journal entry as you get up in the morning, on the drive into work or while you’re doing something routine like brushing your teeth. Then all you need to do is sit down long enough to write it all out.

Putting thoughts on paper is a great way to sort out all the stuff going on in your head. We think about so many things, get so many ideas and plans and then poof, they’re gone as we get busy with something else. Keeping a daily diary is a good way to keep track, solidify, and give more respect to your ideas, thoughts and plans.

As you sort out and give some real space to everything in your head you will find your mind become a little better at organizing everything going on in there. You can define your thoughts as you have to work out just what they are and how they could work in order to put them on paper.

Of course, there is no law saying you have to write in your journal or diary every day. So don’t take it so seriously you end up not writing at all because you feel you haven’t done enough with keeping the journal. It’s there, waiting for you, when ever you come back for it. A journal is just a notebook, a collection of pages, it doesn’t blame you or want you to feel obligated to it.

To Edit or Not to Edit

This is such a tricky thing. I did go back and edit some of my old diary posts. I regret it and yet, those edits are part of the history of my diaries now too. I still feel I should have just left them as I originally wrote them, however. I can never go back in time and be the person I was at the time I wrote them. It seems just a bit snarky to criticize or correct myself in any way.

Of course, some of what I wrote were not so much edits as comments based on how things turned out as time went by. The comments are pretty cool really. Now, even more time has gone by and I have yet another perspective on both the original post and the comments I made on it somewhere in between then and now.

One of the good things about keeping a journal/ diary on paper is that you can’t so easily delete your old posts. Online you can make a quick decision to edit or delete something and it will be lost and gone forever.

Extra Tips for Diary/ Journal Writing

How to Keep from Getting Bored with Your Diary

If you’ve been keeping a journal. or diary, for awhile it can become a little stale just talking to yourself, the same monologue. Here are some ways to perk your journal writing back up and make it something you can look forward to again.

Start with a diary you like. Shop for a pretty or interesting blank book or make a cover (and even pages) of your own. Or, you might use an online diary and begin on a site like Open Diary, LiveJournal or Blogger.

If you really want to write every day, do it. Keeping a writing schedule is a great way to boost your creativity and discipline yourself to write.

If you don’t want to be a disciplined writer versus a creative writer then don’t push yourself to write ever day.

Whether you write daily or not, don’t always write a long post. Give yourself quick days so you don’t feel chained to your diary. Then, when you have something to say and really do want to write about your feelings, thoughts, ideas and happenings in your life, do so. Give yourself all the space you want to explore your own self.

Have fun with your journal. Draw in it, sketch, stick souvenirs or stickers inside the pages, Turn each fresh page into something uniquely you and don’t be too timid about trying something new. This is your diary, your journal, all the rules are your own to set, or even ignore when you choose to.

Be emotional. In life we are told to be nice, not to be too sensitive and not to get so angry. However, in your diary you can vent, you can pour out sadness, grief, envy, anger, bitterness, jealousy, loneliness, hopeless feelings – any and all feelings can leak out from your fingers, into your pen or your keyboard and onto the fresh white page. This is your place to be emotional and not be judged or told what you should feel.

Always remember this is your adventure on paper. Write it your way.

Don’t always write in the same place or at the same time. Take your diary on the road. Go out to the coffee shop, the mall food court, anywhere you can find a decent place to write. Don’t always look for quiet and solitude. There’s something kind of special, romantic and even mysterious about being a writer right out there where everyone can see you.

You don’t have to use your best penmanship. As long as you can understand our own grammar, spelling and punctuation, that’s all that really matters. (Maybe some day your diary will become a big, best seller) but right now it’s all just your own message in a bottle to yourself. Make mistakes, get messy and don’t go back and fix everything.

If you write with paper and pen take some time to try a few different kinds of pens. Experiment with ink colours, thick or thin nibs and different kind of grips on the pen itself. It’s really nice to have a pen that completely suits your writing style.

Write with pencil if you find yourself wanting to sketch or go back and fix your spelling.

Not everything in your diary has to come from your own brain. If you come across a quote by someone else stick it in the pages too. Write about why you like it, what was special about it for you.

Inspiration, Prompts and Articles for Diary Writers

Diary Groups and Projects

International Association for Journal Writing
Flickr: visual journals
Flickr: Drawing Journal
The Diary Project – I can’t find the original link.
The Online Diary History Project
Great Diary Project (UK)

Keeping a Journal

I don’t know where this originally came from any more. I had it saved on a backup CD from March 2004. So it could have been written any time before then.

Keeping a Journal
By Anne Cassidy

Why writing down your thoughts can do wonders for your well-being.

The Write Stuff

Discover the power of the written word.

I’ve kept a journal nearly every day for three decades now. What began as a high-school English assignment has become my life story and now fills dozens of volumes. Onto these pages go my children’s funny stories and countless pep talks. My journal is where I make the world make sense. The less sense it makes, the more I write. I’m writing a lot these days.

Something as simple as taking pen to paper can inspire creativity, defuse stress and make you grateful and glad to be alive. In fact, research shows that pouring your heart out on paper can boost immune function and has been linked with improvements in such diseases as asthma and rheumatoid arthritis. “People who write about emotional upheavals in their lives show benefits almost across the board in terms of health problems,” says James W. Pennebaker, Ph.D., professor of psychology at University of Texas, in Austin, and author of Opening Up: The Healing Power of Expressing Emotions (Guilford Press, 1997).

Here’s how to begin keeping a journal of your own:

1. The medium matters. Although any old scrap of paper is fit for recording your thoughts, it’s easier to keep everything in one place. Look for a journal that feels good in your hands, opens flat and won’t intimidate you with its fanciness. Or try electronic journal-keeping (a variety of versions are available on ZDNet).

2. Make it a habit. To start, don’t expect yourself to write daily. Aim for several times a week. “Find a place to be by yourself, and don’t worry about spelling or anything else,” says Pennebaker.

3. Filling the blank page. When your thoughts don’t flow, tell the story behind a favorite snapshot or write a letter you’ll never send. In her journal-writing workshops, Rita D. Jacobs, author of The Way In: Journal-Writing for Self Discovery (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2001), has students write about anything that comes to mind for eight minutes. Their first sentence might be, “I have no idea what I’m going to write,” says Jacobs, but several minutes into it, they don’t want to stop.

4. From here to posterity. Surprisingly, journal keeping makes you a better person. The insights gleaned from journals can reveal personality traits, help you cope with crisis or untangle longstanding conflicts with a relative or friend. Finally, journals can become our personal emissaries to the future. Wherever yours ends up, you have given the world something no one else can: your own life, well-observed.