Saturday discussion post: diaries (93/365)

[white_hart]

I haven't kept a diary regularly since I was a teenager, when I filled a series of exercise books with angsty outpourings over a period of about four years. (I stopped when I went to university, and binned the old diaries when I came home for Christmas in my first year. Which was probably a good thing, on balance.) I often wonder if I should take it up again, though, mostly because I enjoy the act of writing and it would give me a reason to use some of my nice stationery. I'm not sure what kind of diary I want, though. Probably not angsty outpourings about my innermost feelings, any more; but recording my day-to-day life seems a bit dull (although given how much I enjoy reading my "memories" on Facebook maybe I would like looking back over previous years.

Do you keep a diary, or have you done in the past? What kind of a diary is it?

Comments

[girlyswot]

I do a lot of the planning kind of diary, but not really the journalling kind. I’ve tried many times over the years, but I quickly get bored.

I wonder if some of the way you use social media takes the place of a diary? E.g. you could record nature notes from your walks, or the garden, but you already use twitter in that kind of way. Or for a making journal. I admire the people who keep notes on things they’ve made, for instance.

[white_hart]

I think you're right about social media replacing a lot of the function of a diary, though one problem is that it's dispersed and dependent on the continued availability of third-party platforms. And you can't use a fountain pen to post to it!

[danieldwilliam]

I tend to rely on DW for all my diary needs.

I've never been able to keep a periodic journal but DW keeps a note of what I'm thinking about.

[white_hart]

I suspect that LJ/DW has largely taken over the functions I might otherwise use a diary for, too.

[mountainkiss]

I suppose I would say this is my diary.

[white_hart]

I think that's probably true for me too, but I can't use a fountain pen to write here :-(

[mountainkiss]

I have just got my fountain pen set up after, um, about three or four years, and I am very happy. Now need to get note paper or cards.

[white_hart]

I have something close to a dozen fountain pens now, so I do feel that I ought to find things to write with them!

[mountainkiss]

Yes and it’s fun to do but also odd. I have to work myself up a bit. I’m glad to have one that really suits my hand, though, and doesn’t leave ink everywhere, so that might galvanise me.

[taelle]

I've kept a diary more or less regularly since I was a pre-teen. Over the time it keeps mutating - sometimes I record my innermost feelings, sometimes my day-to-day life - from the briefest "today I did this amount of work/went shopping/visited my aunt" to "the weather was especially fine, saw this and that in nature, witnessed a funny scene in the shop". By now when I don't write up my days, I feel they kind of slip between my fingers like sand...

[white_hart]

That is very impressive!

[cosmolinguist]

I kept trying to as a teenager but would give up my attempts almost immediately as cringeworthy.

But I've had the LiveJournal that is now this Dreamwidth since 2002, and while obviously it's very different in some ways to a private paper diary, it does contain so many of my thoughts and life events and I've never wanted to do the digital equivalent of screwing it up into a paper ball which is how all my offline diaries met their fate.

I've been very, maybe overly, attached to ordinary things especially since I emigrated and my brother died (which happened very close together), and I also love reading ordinary things from past years in Facebook memories. I didn't used to write here that way, I was more performative, but I made a conscious effort to get over myself and write more mundane entries a while ago and I am really glad of it. And I'm on my third year now of trying to blog every day and that means a lot of days it's just "here's what I made for dinner, here's what the weather was like, here's something the dog did," or similar. They feel like utterly worthless entries at the time but I treasure them later!

[white_hart]

I always feel a bit odd just writing about my day here, because why would that be interesting to the people who read this? But then, I really like reading your diary posts, and other people's, so maybe I should. (And I do sometimes deliberately look back at a particular day across the years, which I really like.)

[cmcmck]

I've kept a longhand journal since I was fifteen and started out on a certain journey- the whole experience is written down.

[white_hart]

That is very committed!

[nineveh_uk]

I've kept a diary for over twenty years, starting because I wanted to stick things like notes on films I'd seen in one place. I write most days, but not every day, and it's a mix of feelings, comments on stuff happening in the world, book and media review, holiday diaries etc. I write in A4 lined volumes, and am now on (checks) number 31. It still fulfills its functions of recording something I enjoyed, but is also very useful for feelings splurging at times. You could give it a go and see what it evolves into - a factual record or walks, thoughts on current events, a sewing journal, personal exploration - you don't need a clear image in order to start.

[white_hart]

I think that I end up posting a lot of that kind of thing here, but I am tempted to try to start keeping a journal of the more mundane things - weather, exercise, complaints about the number of meetings I've had...

[el_staplador]

I keep an agenda journal, which is basically taking an ordinary engagement diary and treating it like a scrapbook. (Not sure if you can see my photos, but there are some examples from 2019 here: 1 2 3.) Rather to my surprise, I've kept it up since late 2017, and never got more than a week behind. It combines the great advantages of a) not needing much content to fill a day; b) being somewhere to stick the ephemera that would otherwise hang around the house being too interesting to throw away but of no use whatsoever; c) telling me when I last emptied the Hotbin.

I do also have notebooks in which I write longer entries, and have done since my teens, but that's much more sporadic. I have hung on to most of them. I doubt I'll ever look at the ones from my schooldays again, but it really was quite illuminating to look back at some from the early 2010s. My memory of my state of mind isn't necessarily reliable, and I find primary sources helpful!

[white_hart]

I like that format - it looks like a really good way of reminding yourself of things without committing to writing huge screeds!

[sartorias]

Started diaries when I was eight--made them myself. Stopped in my forties when I realized it was all angst all the time. I enjoy looking at them now, but think maybe they need to be binned before I croak.

[white_hart]

I think there is definitely a risk of diaries slipping into nothing but angst!

[joyeuce]

I've kept a diary fairly regularly since 2001 - though there have been gaps, notably large parts of 2020. I used to use an A6 day-to-a-page volume, but that got a bit daunting. For 2019 onwards, I bought a five-year diary, and I do like looking back at what I did manage to write. It's been especially useful in tracking J's development and and my concerns which have eventually led to a diagnosis.

[white_hart]

That is a good stretch!

I have certainly found that looking back at posts here, or FB memories, has helped me to identify patterns in my mental health; it's useful to be able to say "ah, it's April, my brain always goes wonky in April" rather than assuming that there must be something external that needs fixing.

[alithea]

I kept a diary as a teen, which I binned in my early 20s as it was completely cringeworthy 😆

The thing I've kept was what I called my 'stuff books' - sort of like a scrapbook with cinema tickets and stuff stuck in it but also book quotes and music lyrics, that sort of thing. Keeping those didn't survive my PhD though, and then I started Livejournal while I was writing up my thesis, which has been a sort of diary at times.

I've tried to keep a paper diary just of little notes like walks I've done and wildlife I've seen a few times since but never kept it up for long. I might have another go this year though, it'd be nice to have a record of things I've found in the garden etc that doesn't rely on FB or Twitter. And I do have quite a few lovely notebooks!

[white_hart]

I've wondered about a walking journal, though so much of my record of walks is via my photographs that I don't know how much use a journal would be. I might try, though!

[sollers]

I have made four or five attempts to keep a diary in Welsh in the last few years but they’ve all fallen by the wayside because I have a fairly boring life. Now that my Welsh is improving I can probably start writing more about what I’m thinking about rather than what I’m doing!

[white_hart]

Yes, the saminess of life is definitely part of the problem!

[girlyswot]

What I aspire to, of course, is the Diary of a Provincial Lady.

[white_hart]

Don't we all!

[muninnhuginn]

Cringeworthy teen diaries are still lurking somewhere.

Posting here (or previously on lj) scratches the diary itch for me (with various gaps, changes of style). I carry a paper diary just to write down appointments which get transferred to the wall calendar.

[white_hart]

I no longer use a paper appointment diary, as everything just goes into my phone!

[sfred]

I kept a diary intermittently in my teens and pre-teens; I'm pretty sure I destroyed them later in my teens.

Now, I write a do to/done list for each day in a paper diary, but with no reflective writing, and I write more reflective stuff in DW posts when I feel like it.

[white_hart]

Yes, I suspect DW and other social media has taken over a lot of what I'd use a diary for, though I have recently started keeping a daily to-do list book.

[redatt]

I have kept a diary/journal on and off since I was a tween. Mine has always been a bit eclectic and I've pretty much always referred to it as an omni-journal. It contains lists, doodles, rants, things/dates to remember, story ideas, plans, booklog, filmlog, sentence a day--pretty much anything one might want to commit to paper.

I was amused a few years ago to discover that something very like my style of journalling has taken off in a big way but is called 'Bullet Journalling' with many, many Instagrams and YouTube channels devoted to it.

[white_hart]

I know lots of people who keep bullet journals, but I've never really been able to get my head round it. I do have notebooks with random jottings in but never stick to the same one consistently!

[redatt]

Many bullet journals do seem a bit, er, extra :-D

[crinolinerobot]

I recently threw out one I found from 20 or so years ago - it was one of the worst years of my life in some ways, so I must've kept it as some weird memento. Getting rid of it felt really good!

So no, no diary for me. My blog's as close as I come to one. I do track things like sewing in a sewing notebook, knitting in my knitting notebooks and so on tho.