h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Aside from the Journal option online, who keeps a diary? I do, and I was just wondering whether it's my last hold on the teenage life, or my fixation on words/rock stars, or whether other people really *do* keep diaries, and I'm wrong in feeling like I am the only one. When I ask people, they usually say No, because they don't want others to see what they are thinking...

So, do you?

Sporadically, yes. Right now it's fallen in disarray, full of comments and plans and copied conversations I had with my ex-SO, so it hurts more than it heals right now.

Yes. Sporatically. Keep your journals! They will be more useful later. *Especially being a writer*. I wish I'd kept my journals from school days. I have 20 years worth. They can be very theraputic in real-time + Just like reoccuring dreams, they teach over time. Show progress, changes, predictabilities unrecognized. *Thinks everyone should strive to be the star of their own movie, heroine of their own novel,New art on a previously bare canvas. In some cases, layers painted over & over like the masters!

I've been keeping one here on h2g2 for about the past year, have found it to be extremely useful for thinking things through or just writing about the silly stuff that's on my mind at the moment. I read through the whole thing the other day and I was really glad I'd started it as my life condition has totally changed since I began writing it and I can see how I've developed over the past year. I definitely intend to continue with it though I'm relatively sporadic with my entries.

Technically I am supposed to keep track of everything I do during the day in a diary for work. The last entry in it was September 6, the day after I got it

Ooh. A million motivations for me to write a diary. First and foremost for the rockstar/writer element of it all. Kurt Cobain/Courtney Love/Marilyn Manson - in fact any and all of my rockstar inspirations kept diaries. And most of them I aspire to be like - no matter how cheesy that sounds, I reckon I can equal what they are one day. SO I write a journal. It's the best way to leave yourself behind, if you fall out of life. Like a long long final letter. Also, I have random things happen to me - like being verbally abused and abandoned in Manchester and having to hitch hike through the Virgin train system at the start of October. It was possibly the most traumatic moment of my life.
And if forgot the details I would die. And I just get the feeling that this kind of sh*t is going to keep on happening to me, so I might as well track everything about my life now, while I can. Who knows what will happen in the future. Diaries are the BEST aspect of literature someone can provide. And you don't even have to be a writer to do it. More often than not, I address bits and pieces to my future grandkids...because I don't INTEND to die. I want them to come across a whole bunch of diaries in an attic one day, and spend days reading them. I first wrote a diary when I was...9? I think. And it does start out sporadic, but after a while (once I realised just what I could put into it) it settled down. I only wish I had had the motivation/knowledge back when I was in school to document some of the more unpleasant facts about being there!

Write what U remember about the past anyway. It can jog your memories, maybe dreams. You will not loose any more of it or distort it that way. It will be a good thing for you later on!

Exactly! More people should keep diaries I think...

I always start each year writing a diaty, then usually realise what a dull life I lead and give up, I know need to get out more!
My wife always keeps a diary they stretch back over the years, I lose every discussion on the past, as she quotes my life, my failings, and my daily activities back to me,

You know I think I hate B****y diaries

You probably only give up because you aren't using the diary to your own personal needs...more than likely you're just writing what you think should be written! Or you are just boring...

Just plain BORING Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Best wishes for 2003. keep on writing PeterK snoring away 2002

I'm not a quick enough writer to write a diary, never have been...my mind writes much faster than my hand can...its slightly beter with a keyboard but it's still way to slow. I also don't like the idea of putting my personal thoughts down on paper...it makes them less personal and less private and I need my privacy and my isolation otherwise I go a bit nuts (like when the scientologist started asking about my feelings and I felt so uncomfortable I didn't know what to do so my body decided for me and started crying very silly and it made me feel worse...I always try to trip them up when they're canvassing at the same place well I did untill I booted a guy collecting for the world wide fund for nature)

very sporadically
sometimes I go through fazes of recording stuff - especially when I travel - so I keep all the memories. mostly when I'm at home at the moment its a place to rant and get rid of my bad moods so I can get on with life and not fret about them any more.

I keep one for all the unanswered questions.

I keep my journal up-to-date but I also keep a homework diary (for homework obviously) and a day-to-day diary of the Bridget Jones variety.

But mostly it's for keeping scraps of information about things that have been going on, like the photos of the 6th year boys in drag ( better not to ask, but trust me it was a funny day), notes from friends, bright pink feathers, party invites, magazine cuttings, song lyrics and cards....anything that I've found during the day

I don't always remember to write in it but I try and write a little

Do you find the answers sometimes, Noname?

I like your idea of a scrapbook of daily things, Emily. Perhaps I shall start one of those too.

I keep a journal... have been since I was six or seven! I'm on my fifteenth, I think... very,very useful. I can see how I've grown as a person, re-think situations, and always know where I've been. I always have reference books for my own life. And I think better on paper. Online diaries and audio/visual ones never did it for me. I love keeping my journal, and it's turned into kind of a scrapbook too, when I'm on my journeys.

Keeping scraps is a nice way to remember things,

I've never kept a normal diary but I used to keep a book in which anyone who came to visit could write a comment, a joke, draw a cartoon, stick a picture or perhaps a ticket from a gig or other event/visit etc. I ended up with four or five books crammed to bursting point with about four years worth of all kinds of assorted nonsense. It's amazing how much can be called back to mind by such simple things.

Then I lost them all.

TSF