In 1979, when I was eight years
old, I bought a diary with some birthday money. The diary purports to be a
one-year diary and each page is thus labelled, starting with January 1. Perhaps
the marketers hoped to make an annual sale. Alas, they failed spectacularly
with me. I promptly scratched out January 1 and wrote June 14th in
pencil. By the diary’s February 8th date, it was already 1980. I don’t
think I ever kept to the ‘write every day’ for more than a week. Even as a
child I never poured out my heart to the diary—I was far too conscious of the
fact that I had siblings who might read it.
Nonetheless, I still use the
diary to record important events. Most recently, I scratched out October 10th
and wrote a 2014 in review entry. Every time I start writing a new book I make
an entry, recording things like title, what dates I wrote the various drafts
during, when/if it was published. Thus I know that in 2014 I revised two
novels, wrote the first draft of my 35th novel and started working
on novel #36.
At my current rate of about four
pages per year, I ought to need a new diary sometime in about 2035…
Do you diary or journal or keep a record of important events?
Now I don't feel so lonesome in my un-journaling :) I scribble notes in a notebook if something in a book strikes me as needing recording (and I do look at the notes years later), but I've never managed a journal. Blogging is the closest I've come to that.
ReplyDeleteYes, and everyone expects writers to journal madly, but I'm all about the stories. I find my own day-to-day life happy but uninteresting. (Does that make sense?)
ReplyDeletePerfect sense! :)
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