I’ve tried keeping a journal/diary thing before, but I don’t write often enough in it for it to really qualify. I do tend to write more when I’m angry or upset, which gives the journal a rather depressingly skewed tone. I feel like writing about it helps me clarify my feelings and forces me to disseminate them, which makes them easier to deal with.
Of course, this makes it not so much journal or diary so much as Rant Book, and it’s a rather spread out Rant Book as well. There are a couple of ‘official’ diaries, and then there’s the back of my old math notebook, which was halfway full of emo poetry, weird haikus, and (of course) rants by the time I was done with it.
1-I tend to do that too. My journals are never really consistent. Mostly I write when I need to sort out my thoughts.
I write funny things my teachers say on my binders.
Sometimes I’ll see or hear something that I just have to write, and I’ll grab the nearest paper or my hand and write it down.
I’ve kept several journals, but I’m not currently.
I have almost as many journals as entries: I just can’t seem to write regularly. The longest journal I kept was for a little over a month: I had about one entry a week. It might have continued for a while if I hadn’t forgotten it in Vienna when I returned to America. When I want to walk down memory lane, I usually look at old pictures- or read old MB entries If I need an emotional outlet, exercise is the only thing that really works well for me. ‘Course I’ve got all I can take with capoeira being 2+ hours now since I’m in the advanced class now (I’m gonna dieeee… but if someone kicks at me in slow motion, I can dump them on their ass). I dunno, I never quite seem to get over a page or so on journals, as if they were some sort of homework assignment. When I write, it’s always some sort of fiction with parallels.
Warning: Long and Boring Ramble About How Fern Records Things Ahead.
I’ve been recording things in notebooks, journals and diaries since I could read and make an attempt at writing. Unfortunately, though I could form letters and have a grasp of what sounds they stood for, my spelling was atrocious, so much of it is gibberish to me now. I also had a tendency of writing a few entries in a book and then abandoning it, then a year or two later finding it again, tearing out and disposing of my “juvenile” entries and restarting, so I’ve purged a fair amount of my own record. It’s somewhat annoying now, even though I know probably most of it really wasn’t worth keeping, it’s just interesting to look back on.
I still have one notebook that I’ve been writing in since the age of 7 or 8 I think, given what I was writing about. There are a fair amount of drawings, to-do lists, rants, short stories that never got completed and who knows what else in there. The most interesting part of that book to me though is that I’ve revisited it and written pages separated by gaps of a few years, so I can see big jumps of personality and experience (and spelling!) between the ages of 7, 8, 10, 12, 14 and 16. There’s still space, I wonder how long it will last me?
Of course, that’s not my only notebook, that’s just one. I have three others that are full on my shelf (the one mentioned above is in an abandoned fort in the barn) and a nearly-complete one in my backpack right now. My notebooks are a place for lists, occasional rants or other personal entries, drawings, addresses, mementos and anything else that’s important for some reason. My notebook comes everywhere with me, and they generally last from one to three years, depending on how heavily I use it or how battered they get. The notebook is not kept on any schedule, it’s just there when I need it.
My journal, on the other hand, is where I record what happens. I try to write in it regularly, which is to say at least once a week, hopefully. Preferably more than that, every day if possible, but generally that doesn’t work. In the journal I write about the events of the day, and sometimes I’ll go more in depth about how I feel about them, or what I’m thinking about. I’m surprisingly non-emotional in my journal, however, and while I don’t exactly lie in it, I’m not always entirely truthful. I suppose part of it is my dislike of revealing all of my secrets in a place that someone could find them and I couldn’t deny. After all, when it’s written in my journal in ink in my handwriting, that would be difficult to explain away. Perhaps some of it also comes from the fact that the past three journals I’ve kept (spanning about 5 years) have all been books I’ve made, and people tend to be interested in them, so I use them as bookbinding examples, since they (meaning the current one) always travels with me.
Meh. Generally when I read back on entries where I left out gaping holes of (sometimes important) information I remember the parts I left out and I figure if I don’t, then perhaps it’s best forgotten anyway.
Thank you for the thread, GAPAs! I agree with most of what everyone is saying, which I find very interesting…
FF — I’ve been the same way with things (a Rant Book rather than a real journal) and I’m trying to put in more incidental things that happen to me this time.
My notebooks for class tend to have scribblings in the margins as well, either things my teachers have said that were interesting or something that suddenly comes to mind based on what we’re studying.
Fiddler — I’ve done the same thing with old journals…my infinite horror/embarrassment at finding some things I wrote in middle school was probably justified, but I wish I hadn’t thrown them out all the same. Same thing with the big gaps and changes in personality and so on. Also, that’s really neat about the bookbinding!
For my part, as I said, I can’t seem to keep a written journal. I have to type things up. This may or may not be a result of using a certain unnamed journaling site, but I seem to be more able to say what I want if I type it out. This is the same with writing, especially fiction….I have a really nice Moleskine journal that I wish I could fill but somehow my handwriting just makes all my ideas look a bit insipid (maybe it reveals that they are! haha….sob)
I’ve always wanted to keep the kind of journal one sees in books, possibly without considering that those are paced to a plot unlike my actual life. I’ve always wanted to be able to pick out foreshadowing in my own life, though perhaps that’s not really the best way to go about things…hmm
I thought it would be interesting to do something like Cassandra in I Capture the Castle, but writing down dialogue probably wouldn’t work very well, and I don’t know shorthand…I wonder, though.
I have tried to write a diary, but it always fails. It’s like writing in story form, but nobody reads it. I’m fine with writing, but I can’t do it regulary.
And the plot to my life isn’t very well-developed.
I inconsistently keep a diary. It really helps me to figure how I feel about things, because I really don’t know myself that well. I haven’t used it in a while because I keep on forgetting where I hide it, and it’s really annoying to pull up my mattress at night, which is when I usually write.
I used to try and keep a diary. When I was 5, or something. Then I started writing insane statements (Such as: I played in the topaz today with my Kerfluffen) to confuse future archeologists. I was a strange child. (I still am strange, though I don’t know if teenagers are classified as children.)
I was a stranger child.
I used to keep a journal regularly between maybe the ages of four and six or something. Every once in a while I dig it out to laugh at and add a new entry to. It’s interesting to see how I’ve changed.
Some particularly amusing entries include an entry for one day that was actually just a full scale drawing of my hand with the fingernails coloured blue, an entry about how my mom had put a strange note in my lunchbox that day, an entry about how I had stolen my sister’s Strawberry Shortcake dolls, an entry about how to make sure that a toilet is functioning correctly, an entry about procrastinating cleaning my room, an entry written during a party when I was annoyed by the noise of the other children, an entry detailing in full what I had eaten for breakfast (but nothing else), and an entry rambling about chasing butterflies. I really was a strange kid. (Still strange, but not quite a kid anymore. XD)
I used to bury stuff in my backyard, but I don’t remember why. Then when I was about twelve I discovered a clay plate and started digging it all up again. I found some stuff that the kids who lived in this house before me had buried.
Well, one time when I was around that age I wrote on a small slip of paper my name and something along the lines of “you might be able to fly by now but we can’t” and threw it away in the hopes that future archeologists would find it. Heh.
I found a notebook and wrote a bunch of weird cryptic poems that had no meaning in it for the same reason, hoping people would analyse them and think they had predicted the future, so I could be famous like Nostradamus.
I once buried a bunch of non-perishable food and survival supplies in my backyard in case someone ever was lost and needed help. I ended up exhuming it later that afternoon cos I wanted to use the jar it was in for something else..
I used to keep a consistent journal from about 4 to 8, because I would dictate entries to my mother while I was in the bath. *Adds self to list of strange children.* Now I have a few journals going, one for angry poetry, on for happy poetry, one for stories, and one shared one that I pass notes to my friends with. I don’t write very often in any of them though, only when I’m very inspired.
I have quite a few journals that I’ve filled already (Although the earlier ones consist mainly of a few sentences per page, scrawled in crayon) and I’m working on another one. I don’t write that regularly (So I write a lot when I do). I tend to write in the form of letters, to people, myself, my pets, and inanimate objects. I like looking back on life.
I’ve written in quite a few journals when I was younger, but ever since I started typing my journal out into Microsoft Word last March, I’ve been able to be pretty consistent about entries. So it’s been almost a year, which is definitely the longest I’ve ever written in one journal for.
I usually just write about the stuff that’s happening to me, as well as my random opinions on things. Nothing really that exciting, but it’s nice for venting and interesting to look back on.
It’s not really a journal or a diary, but it’s a slightly disrespectful letter I wrote to my darling chemistry teacher. I would never send it, of course, but how I wish I could. It’s rather aggressive and vehement, though, so I’m not sure if the GAPAs would want me to post it, but it’s not inappropriate or anything, and for the most part (in my opinion) it’s more funny than mean. If anyone wants me to post it I can, but be prepared for an impassioned outpouring of emotion, mainly anger.
15 (sbf)~ ………I can think of some times that may be appropriate for a social gathering. But never blog-appropriate.
Do I even want to know the context of that statement? Something tells me I don’t. Kids these days… 0.o
16 (Selenium)~ Go for it, wherever you feel it would fit best.
I keep a journal which I write in very occasionally. I’ve had it for five years now, and it’s nothing like full. For some years, my entries consisted of about three uninteresting sentences about some general things I’ve been doing. Then one time, when I thought I had broken a bone, I wrote about two pages of ranting, and after that my entries got much longer and more interesting, and a lot more consistent. I kept that up for a week or two, then sort of lost interest, and haven’t even picked up the journal since, at least not until today.
Out of curiosity, how would you define the difference between a journal and a diary? I tend to think of diaries as having to do with feelings and journals as having to do with events, and I think ‘diary’ has a connotation of something you wouldn’t want anybody else to see, whereas journal is somewhat more public.
I call my journal a journal because it’s in a school-caliber notebook. A diary would be something letter-bound. I like the word “diary” better, though.
Earlier this century, when I decided to be serious about painting, I figured that was a momentous time in my life that would be useful to have on record. But what should I write it in? The pretty books always seemed to demand something more important than my random ramblings. (Somewhere in the garage, there’s a collection of empty ones and one-page wonders dating back as far as high school.)
While shopping for office supplies, I noticed a back-to-school sale of 25-cent single-subject notebooks, bought a stack, and began writing something in them every morning. I adhered to no formal standards whatsoever, wrote whatever came to mind, even if that were “I can’t think of anything to write today.” I also refused to refer to my endeavor as a “journal” (or “diary”) because that sounded way too official and therefore intimidating. “Journal” meant something I failed at. I simply called them “my notebooks” and went on to fill up several dozen over three years.
I’ve written daily entries in a journal since last summer. So far, finished one, started another.
18 – to me, diary is something that middle school girls keep and write the names of their crushes in and giggle a lot and it’s all very pink. Journal is for everyone else.
I’ve kept a journal for a bit more than two years running now, and filled up about… let’s see… about four and a half notebooks of various sizes with it. I’d tried keeping journals before that, but had never been able to handle the write-every-day format and was always afraid that someone was going to read it besides. (I do have a couple pages of the capoeira journal I kept in the summer of ’08 — it mostly consists of me being embarassed about my huge crush on one of the advanced guys, but I find it kinda interesting anyway.) Then one day I picked up a notebook and wrote a rather long rant-slash-fangirl-spaz about my life, and I’ve been going ever since…
So my journal is pretty eclectic. I don’t use the writing-a-letter (‘Dear diary’) format, and put myself under no obligation to write every day. I write whatever I feel like — rants, spazzes, thoughts, research, brainstorming for stories, memos to myself, quotes, song lyrics, and I’ll even draw in it occasionally, but there are very few ‘what I did today’-type entries. If I’m into a fandom, expect to see a lot about it in my journal. Like, to the point where you realize that I’ve been writing about nothing else for the past month and really, really wish I’d shut up about it. >.< XD I can also go pretty spaztastic over other things and people, to the point where you might think I was a boy-obsessed idiot, this impression only being moderated by the occasional scarily depressive entry. (I have one entry from about three weeks ago which I wrote when I was actually in the middle of a full-fledged panic attack, and more or less going crazy and looking around frantically for things I could cut myself with. It's kinda disturbing. I try not to look at it. (Don't worry, I didn't actually do anything to myself. It was just kinda a moment. I had a tough time in Mexico the first week or so.))
And it's all in my horribly illegible handwriting — the older entries are printing, since September I've been doing cursive. Both are about equally unreadable, which I figure provides some measure of privacy protection.
18 – I agree with Lizzie, for me 'diary' has connotations of being a girly thing, kinda cute and insipid and 'Dear Diary' and all that. Journals are a bit more grown up.
Really? I wonder which word appears in the British version of Chamber of Secrets. One one hand, Ginny used it more like the American type of diary than the British one, but on the other, when someone (Hermione? Ron?) was incredulous that it was empty, en started saying things that would have taken minimal effort to write, and they were things like dentists’ appointments and auunts’ birthdays. That’s more like a British diary. Hm…
I’ve been given several diaries, but I haven’t used them much.
That’s true. And in The Importance of Being Earnest, Cecily Cardew keeps a diary that she describes as being “simply a very young girl’s record of her own thoughts and impressions, and consequently meant for publication.”
Yet when I lived in Britain, most people used the word to mean “day planner” or “desk calendar.” “Diary” must have two meanings there; maybe Cecily’s is the older one.
I’m fairly certain it’s referred to as a “diary” even in the Bloomsbury (British) editions of CoS. Of course, since I’m not at home (where I have both the UK and US versions), I can’t go and check…
I have a (backup) British copy of CoS. It says “diary.” The only thing I don’t like about the British versions, which are nice and small and, with a bit of squishing, can all fit in my backpack, is the cover illustrations. I like the American pastel drawings better. *meaningless ramble* But my American hard cover ones are disintegrating.
I’ve been writing in a journal every day since April 27th, 2003. Before that, I wrote in various journals irregularly. I have many writing notebooks and other notebooks. My early notebooks were mostly designs of houses that I invented and such but now I have a writing notebook and replace it with a new one when it fills up.
Oh and I’m on my eleventh consecutive journal. The ones before the eleven weren’t necessarily filled or written in every day. I have 5 or so before the eleven but some are barely filled.
What do I write in my journal? About my days, things that made me excited, if I submitted a poem to a magazine that day, occasional drawings of earrings I’ve made.
I’ve kept journals at several times in my life, although I’m not doing so now. I tried keeping a trip journal on my trip last week in this very nice Moleskine notebook I got for Christmas, but every night I came back to the hotel too tired to write anything.
I used to try to write in a journal, but I hardly ever kept up with it. The exception is big trips. During family trips to Mexico and Yosemite in recent years, I wrote extensively every day, writing over 200 pages for each trip. Last summer, I went backpacking for a month in Utah, and I wrote every day before I went to sleep, even if I was exhausted and cold, because I didn’t want to forget anything.
Now, though, I keep a “My Day in 6 Words,” because it’s fast and allows me to quickly reflect on my day and find a creative way to describe it in 6 words.
I don’t journal or keep a diary, but I film myself talking on PhotoBooth and then watch the videos. It’s amazingly therapeutic and it really helps to think aloud. It’s also interesting to see how I look and speak to another person.
More journal talk now! Hopefully someone will see this in “recent comments”. I like to draw things in my journals, though not usually anything other than “I made these earrings today” drawings. I do sometimes invent people and draw them in my journals or draw their houses or something. I like inventing people.
I’ve tried keeping a journal/diary thing before, but I don’t write often enough in it for it to really qualify. I do tend to write more when I’m angry or upset, which gives the journal a rather depressingly skewed tone. I feel like writing about it helps me clarify my feelings and forces me to disseminate them, which makes them easier to deal with.
Of course, this makes it not so much journal or diary so much as Rant Book, and it’s a rather spread out Rant Book as well. There are a couple of ‘official’ diaries, and then there’s the back of my old math notebook, which was halfway full of emo poetry, weird haikus, and (of course) rants by the time I was done with it.
1-I tend to do that too. My journals are never really consistent. Mostly I write when I need to sort out my thoughts.
I write funny things my teachers say on my binders.
Sometimes I’ll see or hear something that I just have to write, and I’ll grab the nearest paper or my hand and write it down.
I’ve kept several journals, but I’m not currently.
I have almost as many journals as entries: I just can’t seem to write regularly. The longest journal I kept was for a little over a month: I had about one entry a week. It might have continued for a while if I hadn’t forgotten it in Vienna when I returned to America. When I want to walk down memory lane, I usually look at old pictures- or read old MB entries
If I need an emotional outlet, exercise is the only thing that really works well for me. ‘Course I’ve got all I can take with capoeira being 2+ hours now since I’m in the advanced class now (I’m gonna dieeee… but if someone kicks at me in slow motion, I can dump them on their ass). I dunno, I never quite seem to get over a page or so on journals, as if they were some sort of homework assignment. When I write, it’s always some sort of fiction with parallels.
Warning: Long and Boring Ramble About How Fern Records Things Ahead.
I’ve been recording things in notebooks, journals and diaries since I could read and make an attempt at writing. Unfortunately, though I could form letters and have a grasp of what sounds they stood for, my spelling was atrocious, so much of it is gibberish to me now. I also had a tendency of writing a few entries in a book and then abandoning it, then a year or two later finding it again, tearing out and disposing of my “juvenile” entries and restarting, so I’ve purged a fair amount of my own record. It’s somewhat annoying now, even though I know probably most of it really wasn’t worth keeping, it’s just interesting to look back on.
I still have one notebook that I’ve been writing in since the age of 7 or 8 I think, given what I was writing about. There are a fair amount of drawings, to-do lists, rants, short stories that never got completed and who knows what else in there. The most interesting part of that book to me though is that I’ve revisited it and written pages separated by gaps of a few years, so I can see big jumps of personality and experience (and spelling!) between the ages of 7, 8, 10, 12, 14 and 16. There’s still space, I wonder how long it will last me?
Of course, that’s not my only notebook, that’s just one. I have three others that are full on my shelf (the one mentioned above is in an abandoned fort in the barn) and a nearly-complete one in my backpack right now. My notebooks are a place for lists, occasional rants or other personal entries, drawings, addresses, mementos and anything else that’s important for some reason. My notebook comes everywhere with me, and they generally last from one to three years, depending on how heavily I use it or how battered they get. The notebook is not kept on any schedule, it’s just there when I need it.
My journal, on the other hand, is where I record what happens. I try to write in it regularly, which is to say at least once a week, hopefully. Preferably more than that, every day if possible, but generally that doesn’t work. In the journal I write about the events of the day, and sometimes I’ll go more in depth about how I feel about them, or what I’m thinking about. I’m surprisingly non-emotional in my journal, however, and while I don’t exactly lie in it, I’m not always entirely truthful. I suppose part of it is my dislike of revealing all of my secrets in a place that someone could find them and I couldn’t deny. After all, when it’s written in my journal in ink in my handwriting, that would be difficult to explain away. Perhaps some of it also comes from the fact that the past three journals I’ve kept (spanning about 5 years) have all been books I’ve made, and people tend to be interested in them, so I use them as bookbinding examples, since they (meaning the current one) always travels with me.
Meh. Generally when I read back on entries where I left out gaping holes of (sometimes important) information I remember the parts I left out and I figure if I don’t, then perhaps it’s best forgotten anyway.
Thank you for the thread, GAPAs! I agree with most of what everyone is saying, which I find very interesting…
FF — I’ve been the same way with things (a Rant Book rather than a real journal) and I’m trying to put in more incidental things that happen to me this time.
My notebooks for class tend to have scribblings in the margins as well, either things my teachers have said that were interesting or something that suddenly comes to mind based on what we’re studying.
Fiddler — I’ve done the same thing with old journals…my infinite horror/embarrassment at finding some things I wrote in middle school was probably justified, but I wish I hadn’t thrown them out all the same. Same thing with the big gaps and changes in personality and so on. Also, that’s really neat about the bookbinding!
For my part, as I said, I can’t seem to keep a written journal. I have to type things up. This may or may not be a result of using a certain unnamed journaling site, but I seem to be more able to say what I want if I type it out. This is the same with writing, especially fiction….I have a really nice Moleskine journal that I wish I could fill but somehow my handwriting just makes all my ideas look a bit insipid (maybe it reveals that they are! haha….sob)
I’ve always wanted to keep the kind of journal one sees in books, possibly without considering that those are paced to a plot unlike my actual life. I’ve always wanted to be able to pick out foreshadowing in my own life, though perhaps that’s not really the best way to go about things…hmm
I thought it would be interesting to do something like Cassandra in I Capture the Castle, but writing down dialogue probably wouldn’t work very well, and I don’t know shorthand…I wonder, though.
I have tried to write a diary, but it always fails. It’s like writing in story form, but nobody reads it. I’m fine with writing, but I can’t do it regulary.
And the plot to my life isn’t very well-developed.
Everyone who has trouble keeping diaries: I recommend writing to someone. If they actually read it, that’s even better… It’s a fantastic focus.
-A
I constantly write notes and never give them to the intended recipients. I probably have more notes lying around than journal entries.
I inconsistently keep a diary. It really helps me to figure how I feel about things, because I really don’t know myself that well. I haven’t used it in a while because I keep on forgetting where I hide it, and it’s really annoying to pull up my mattress at night, which is when I usually write.
I used to try and keep a diary. When I was 5, or something. Then I started writing insane statements (Such as: I played in the topaz today with my Kerfluffen) to confuse future archeologists. I was a strange child. (I still am strange, though I don’t know if teenagers are classified as children.)
I was a stranger child.
I really was a strange kid. (Still strange, but not quite a kid anymore. XD)
I used to keep a journal regularly between maybe the ages of four and six or something. Every once in a while I dig it out to laugh at and add a new entry to. It’s interesting to see how I’ve changed.
Some particularly amusing entries include an entry for one day that was actually just a full scale drawing of my hand with the fingernails coloured blue, an entry about how my mom had put a strange note in my lunchbox that day, an entry about how I had stolen my sister’s Strawberry Shortcake dolls, an entry about how to make sure that a toilet is functioning correctly, an entry about procrastinating cleaning my room, an entry written during a party when I was annoyed by the noise of the other children, an entry detailing in full what I had eaten for breakfast (but nothing else), and an entry rambling about chasing butterflies.
I once went around burying bones I had made of modeling clay to convince future paleontologists that dinosaurs were still alive in the 21st century.
I used to bury stuff in my backyard, but I don’t remember why. Then when I was about twelve I discovered a clay plate and started digging it all up again. I found some stuff that the kids who lived in this house before me had buried.
Well, one time when I was around that age I wrote on a small slip of paper my name and something along the lines of “you might be able to fly by now but we can’t” and threw it away in the hopes that future archeologists would find it. Heh.
I found a notebook and wrote a bunch of weird cryptic poems that had no meaning in it for the same reason, hoping people would analyse them and think they had predicted the future, so I could be famous like Nostradamus.
I once buried a bunch of non-perishable food and survival supplies in my backyard in case someone ever was lost and needed help. I ended up exhuming it later that afternoon cos I wanted to use the jar it was in for something else..
I have a poetry journal, which, as you might guess, I write poetry in. I take it around with me everywhere, in case inspiration strikes.
I also have the journal my therapist gave me. I’m supposed to use it. I don’t.
I used to keep a consistent journal from about 4 to 8, because I would dictate entries to my mother while I was in the bath. *Adds self to list of strange children.* Now I have a few journals going, one for angry poetry, on for happy poetry, one for stories, and one shared one that I pass notes to my friends with. I don’t write very often in any of them though, only when I’m very inspired.
I write letters to my best friend. I think some day I’ll give them to her.
Awww. *likes idea*
I have quite a few journals that I’ve filled already (Although the earlier ones consist mainly of a few sentences per page, scrawled in crayon) and I’m working on another one. I don’t write that regularly (So I write a lot when I do). I tend to write in the form of letters, to people, myself, my pets, and inanimate objects. I like looking back on life.
I’ve written in quite a few journals when I was younger, but ever since I started typing my journal out into Microsoft Word last March, I’ve been able to be pretty consistent about entries. So it’s been almost a year, which is definitely the longest I’ve ever written in one journal for.
I usually just write about the stuff that’s happening to me, as well as my random opinions on things. Nothing really that exciting, but it’s nice for venting and interesting to look back on.
Dear Journal,
“Condom Fun” is not an acceptable theme for any sort of social gathering.
Sincerely,
SBF
Oh. Dear. Do I want to know? I don’t want to know.
It’s not really a journal or a diary, but it’s a slightly disrespectful letter I wrote to my darling chemistry teacher. I would never send it, of course, but how I wish I could. It’s rather aggressive and vehement, though, so I’m not sure if the GAPAs would want me to post it, but it’s not inappropriate or anything, and for the most part (in my opinion) it’s more funny than mean. If anyone wants me to post it I can, but be prepared for an impassioned outpouring of emotion, mainly anger.
Or perhaps it belongs on the Rants & Plaints thread – it is rather rant-y. I don’t know.
It sounds both ranty and plaintive to me.
Oh. Yes, that was spectacularly snarky.
15 (sbf)~ ………I can think of some times that may be appropriate for a social gathering. But never blog-appropriate.
Do I even want to know the context of that statement? Something tells me I don’t. Kids these days… 0.o
16 (Selenium)~ Go for it, wherever you feel it would fit best.
It’s on the Rants & Plaints thread already, I believe.
I keep a journal which I write in very occasionally. I’ve had it for five years now, and it’s nothing like full. For some years, my entries consisted of about three uninteresting sentences about some general things I’ve been doing. Then one time, when I thought I had broken a bone, I wrote about two pages of ranting, and after that my entries got much longer and more interesting, and a lot more consistent. I kept that up for a week or two, then sort of lost interest, and haven’t even picked up the journal since, at least not until today.
Out of curiosity, how would you define the difference between a journal and a diary? I tend to think of diaries as having to do with feelings and journals as having to do with events, and I think ‘diary’ has a connotation of something you wouldn’t want anybody else to see, whereas journal is somewhat more public.
I call my journal a journal because it’s in a school-caliber notebook. A diary would be something letter-bound. I like the word “diary” better, though.
Earlier this century, when I decided to be serious about painting, I figured that was a momentous time in my life that would be useful to have on record. But what should I write it in? The pretty books always seemed to demand something more important than my random ramblings. (Somewhere in the garage, there’s a collection of empty ones and one-page wonders dating back as far as high school.)
While shopping for office supplies, I noticed a back-to-school sale of 25-cent single-subject notebooks, bought a stack, and began writing something in them every morning. I adhered to no formal standards whatsoever, wrote whatever came to mind, even if that were “I can’t think of anything to write today.” I also refused to refer to my endeavor as a “journal” (or “diary”) because that sounded way too official and therefore intimidating. “Journal” meant something I failed at. I simply called them “my notebooks” and went on to fill up several dozen over three years.
I’ve written daily entries in a journal since last summer. So far, finished one, started another.
18 – to me, diary is something that middle school girls keep and write the names of their crushes in and giggle a lot and it’s all very pink. Journal is for everyone else.
Warning, long post ahead…
I’ve kept a journal for a bit more than two years running now, and filled up about… let’s see… about four and a half notebooks of various sizes with it. I’d tried keeping journals before that, but had never been able to handle the write-every-day format and was always afraid that someone was going to read it besides. (I do have a couple pages of the capoeira journal I kept in the summer of ’08 — it mostly consists of me being embarassed about my huge crush on one of the advanced guys, but I find it kinda interesting anyway.) Then one day I picked up a notebook and wrote a rather long rant-slash-fangirl-spaz about my life, and I’ve been going ever since…
So my journal is pretty eclectic. I don’t use the writing-a-letter (‘Dear diary’) format, and put myself under no obligation to write every day. I write whatever I feel like — rants, spazzes, thoughts, research, brainstorming for stories, memos to myself, quotes, song lyrics, and I’ll even draw in it occasionally, but there are very few ‘what I did today’-type entries. If I’m into a fandom, expect to see a lot about it in my journal. Like, to the point where you realize that I’ve been writing about nothing else for the past month and really, really wish I’d shut up about it. >.< XD I can also go pretty spaztastic over other things and people, to the point where you might think I was a boy-obsessed idiot, this impression only being moderated by the occasional scarily depressive entry. (I have one entry from about three weeks ago which I wrote when I was actually in the middle of a full-fledged panic attack, and more or less going crazy and looking around frantically for things I could cut myself with. It's kinda disturbing. I try not to look at it. (Don't worry, I didn't actually do anything to myself. It was just kinda a moment. I had a tough time in Mexico the first week or so.))
And it's all in my horribly illegible handwriting — the older entries are printing, since September I've been doing cursive. Both are about equally unreadable, which I figure provides some measure of privacy protection.
18 – I agree with Lizzie, for me 'diary' has connotations of being a girly thing, kinda cute and insipid and 'Dear Diary' and all that. Journals are a bit more grown up.
In British English, a diary is a calendar or planner in which you record things before they happen.
(Incidentally, the terms “diary” and “journal” both come from words for “day.”)
Really? I wonder which word appears in the British version of Chamber of Secrets. One one hand, Ginny used it more like the American type of diary than the British one, but on the other, when someone (Hermione? Ron?) was incredulous that it was empty, en started saying things that would have taken minimal effort to write, and they were things like dentists’ appointments and auunts’ birthdays. That’s more like a British diary. Hm…
I’ve been given several diaries, but I haven’t used them much.
That’s true. And in The Importance of Being Earnest, Cecily Cardew keeps a diary that she describes as being “simply a very young girl’s record of her own thoughts and impressions, and consequently meant for publication.”
Yet when I lived in Britain, most people used the word to mean “day planner” or “desk calendar.” “Diary” must have two meanings there; maybe Cecily’s is the older one.
I’m fairly certain it’s referred to as a “diary” even in the Bloomsbury (British) editions of CoS. Of course, since I’m not at home (where I have both the UK and US versions), I can’t go and check…
I have a (backup) British copy of CoS. It says “diary.” The only thing I don’t like about the British versions, which are nice and small and, with a bit of squishing, can all fit in my backpack, is the cover illustrations. I like the American pastel drawings better. *meaningless ramble* But my American hard cover ones are disintegrating.
I’ve been writing in a journal every day since April 27th, 2003. Before that, I wrote in various journals irregularly. I have many writing notebooks and other notebooks. My early notebooks were mostly designs of houses that I invented and such but now I have a writing notebook and replace it with a new one when it fills up.
Oh and I’m on my eleventh consecutive journal. The ones before the eleven weren’t necessarily filled or written in every day. I have 5 or so before the eleven but some are barely filled.
What do I write in my journal? About my days, things that made me excited, if I submitted a poem to a magazine that day, occasional drawings of earrings I’ve made.
I’ve kept journals at several times in my life, although I’m not doing so now. I tried keeping a trip journal on my trip last week in this very nice Moleskine notebook I got for Christmas, but every night I came back to the hotel too tired to write anything.
I used to try to write in a journal, but I hardly ever kept up with it. The exception is big trips. During family trips to Mexico and Yosemite in recent years, I wrote extensively every day, writing over 200 pages for each trip. Last summer, I went backpacking for a month in Utah, and I wrote every day before I went to sleep, even if I was exhausted and cold, because I didn’t want to forget anything.
Now, though, I keep a “My Day in 6 Words,” because it’s fast and allows me to quickly reflect on my day and find a creative way to describe it in 6 words.
That would take me longer than actually writing about my day.
I like the idea of journals and diaries; I like reading other people’s journals and diaries.
I don’t journal or keep a diary, but I film myself talking on PhotoBooth and then watch the videos. It’s amazingly therapeutic and it really helps to think aloud. It’s also interesting to see how I look and speak to another person.
More journal talk now! Hopefully someone will see this in “recent comments”. I like to draw things in my journals, though not usually anything other than “I made these earrings today” drawings. I do sometimes invent people and draw them in my journals or draw their houses or something. I like inventing people.