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The Perks And Perils Of Keeping A Diary

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LadySoprano is a Fat-Fighting Superwoman
12/15/08

In reply to The Perks And Perils Of Keeping A Diary
I no longer keep journals (I blog), but my grandmother did. She died last January, and the stuff my aunt found in those journals was downright toxic.

Aunt C spent years looking after Grandma, and the stuff Grandma wrote about her (and Aunt C's kids, who are apparently going to hell because they're gay) in return was hateful and NOT something Aunt C should have ever had to be subjected to.
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Jello Mix
12/15/08

In reply to The Perks And Perils Of Keeping A Diary
As an archivist I have processed my fair share of diaries and journals. I can say with good authority that the vast majority of them are about as titillating as a cardboard box. The worst was a man who wrote a list of his day's activities: "Got up, ate breakfast, opened store, had lunch, closed store at six, walked home, had dinner, read the newspaper, prepared for bed." Everyday. For sixty years.
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Everything MidnightBikeRide does is a balloon.
12/15/08

In reply to The Perks And Perils Of Keeping A Diary
When I was a like eleven years old I kept a diary. Then my mom found it and read about how I was feuding with some girl from school and made me call her and apologize. Ever since I've felt really weird about writing down personal things. Like, I've tried creative writing classes, and even making up fiction seems dangerously revealing. Maybe it's insurance against online oversharing? Am I oversharing right now?
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Vivien Smith-Smythe-Smith
12/15/08

In reply to The Perks And Perils Of Keeping A Diary
I used to keep a diary when I was 12-13 (our teacher made us), but I stopped when I realised all of the entries were just about various boys I liked. Because of the share volume of my random thoughts and habit of getting into intense conversations with random people, it has been suggested to me that I perhaps channel it into a blog and away from everyone's ears. Have tried this, but it's way more fun to actually converse. Just writing stuff down bores me, but I have some wicked internal dialogue going on right now!
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rmric0.wedding.photographer.and.manny
12/15/08

In reply to The Perks And Perils Of Keeping A Diary
I make up scandalous and salacious things and write about them in my diary, hopefully when I become famous and then die people will think that my life was far more awesome and exciting than it actually was. That is assuming they believe the outrageous balderdash.
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Ultraprison!
12/15/08

In reply to The Perks And Perils Of Keeping A Diary
has anyone else read Mortified? i'm actually reading it right now. it's a collection of people's diary entries from junior high (ish), and then the adults writing a little thing at the end like "he never did call me back" or "i had been writing a novel about batman." i laughed and laughed and laughed, and highly recommend the book.
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hatepaperdoll
12/15/08

In reply to The Perks And Perils Of Keeping A Diary
Dear Diary,

That weird smell in the storage room at work is finally gone! I guess whatever died in the wall has finally rotted away. What a day!

(The above is the best thing that's happened to me today, which is why I don't keep a diary)
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RosePetalPlace
12/15/08

In reply to The Perks And Perils Of Keeping A Diary
I can't believe how many of you poor Jezzies have stories about snooping moms! I think it's super inappopriate for a parent to read their child's private journals. Not cool.
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whynotshesaid
12/15/08

@RosePetalPlace: My stepmom totally read my journal and then yelled at me about what she found. In retrospect I realize her issues were more about her than me, but still, it's been difficult for me to keep a journal ever since.
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Khrushchev
12/15/08

In reply to The Perks And Perils Of Keeping A Diary
The fact that Sontag was a writer who kept a diary makes her diary somewhat different from a lot of the comments here. There's an excellent quote from Diane Wood Middlebrook about diaries from a biography she wrote on Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes:
"Ostensibly, the journal-keeper is making notes about daily life. But the journal of the writer is often more like the barre of the ballerina: she works out in front of a mirror, watching an ideal version of herself attempting difficult moves, trying to get them right. Trying to sketch a character. Compose a scene. Describe her surroundings: food, clothing, noise, furnishings, weather. Or, turning inward, anatomize a grandiose fantasy. Grope around in the muddle of her conflicts. Encourage herself."
Sontag's journal was private, but it was not an 8th grade catalogue of secrets and crushes with a big Keep Out sign on the cover.
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hellosunshine
12/15/08

In reply to The Perks And Perils Of Keeping A Diary
I've kept a journal as long as I can remember, though freshman year of college, it turned into a blog. I went through my old Diarylands and Xangas a couple of weekends ago... oh man. Some of them are pretty damn witty, some of them are so cringe-worthy.

I actually just set my Blogger on private access (i.e. me) only, after just being sick of being so public. That, and someone from one of my old PR companies googled my Jezebel name and came across my blog recently. Now I just have a silly little Tumblr, but I think even that will go soon. I love to write, but sometimes it gets to the point where you're writing for an audience and it seems so taxing. I don't know. I guess I could start an anonymous blog to reach out to the web, but for now, I'm back to a paper journal.
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RisaPlata
12/15/08

In reply to The Perks And Perils Of Keeping A Diary
I think this says it all: [www.greyswriters.com]
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gold_gato
12/15/08

In reply to The Perks And Perils Of Keeping A Diary
NO! I have a "death pact" with my sister. I trust her, and she knows what to burn.
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WaltzingMatilda
12/15/08

@gold_gato: I made a death pact with my school friends - but it mostly focused exorcising vibrators and condoms from one's bedside table...
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Plum-Pie
12/15/08

In reply to The Perks And Perils Of Keeping A Diary
Caitlin 'pantorexia' Moran just wrote a great piece about diaries:

'What we are all forgetting is that everyone's diaries look like that. We don't have much material to work with. It's fine if you're a Mitford, say - going to balls, hanging out with Hitler, inventing new words to oppress the working classes. But, for the rest of us, life is little more than a procession of meals, laundry, increasingly desultory efforts to find some curtains for the spare room, and alarmed, but ultimately clueless, reactions, to world events. If I kept a diary now, it would consist of entries such as: "Credit crisis is happening. Still don't really understand it. Looked at T-shirt with owl on it on topshop.com. Kids still not dead." '

[www.timesonline.co.uk]
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swimmingly
12/15/08

In reply to The Perks And Perils Of Keeping A Diary
I spend too much time talking to myself to write it all down. Maybe I should start...since I find my self-musings first class entertainment.
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Maritsa
12/15/08

In reply to The Perks And Perils Of Keeping A Diary
I can't keep a diary ever since my mom not only read my diary, but TALKED TO ME ABOUT IT. Not as in "I read in your diary that you think about hurting yourself, we need to talk." More like "How was school today? Did you sit with Mike again at lunch? I know you like him!"
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