On Having a Diary - #42
Hello Maiyah (and friends)!
Hope everyone is doing well! “Wait — we didn’t hear from you for… 3 weeks?” Yes, it’s a bi-weekly newsletter, I’m aware. Reason being was I had an essay fully prepared, but based on friends’ responses and notes, I realized it needs a whole lot more work (that, or needs to be thrown in the trash bin). I didn’t want to rush a newsletter post as it would show the low-effort writing I try to avoid. So, here we are 3 weeks later.
This week’s post is not going to be as researched, or detailed, or whatever. It’ll be slightly personal and on the shorter end of my usual stuff. Precise and brevity.
Also, no Silly Sh*t vlog, since I don’t have the time as of late. I’ll explain in 3 bullet points what’s up with me, as today’s writing goes into depth of how I’ve been:
Finished “The Good Place”. Holy forking shirtballs, it was an experience. And unlike most comedy shows that have no idea how to go about their final season, TGP pulls it off so well — especially the finale. Like, everything “made sense” in the final season, and that’s rare.
Started a 1-week Assistant gig at Participant Media that ends this Friday; next week I’ll be an Office PA on a Miranda Cosgrove educational kids show.
I’m ~110 pages into my current script, and I’m only past the midpoint. Hoorah for first drafts…
On Having a Diary
06min reading time // **this page contains Amazon affiliate links to products because I’m broke**
For a long time, I didn’t understand why people wrote in diaries. Until I started therapy back in July of this year.
I remembered wanting my therapist to know everything. And I knew that 50 minutes wasn’t enough to get across my entire being. A few days before our 2nd session, I wrote her a 1000-word letter — a biography of myself from childhood to high school to college to now. Didn’t know if she was going to read it — turns out, she did.
She posed her first question with a bent on meta: “How did you feel writing this?” I paused on that. Thinking. “Good,” I replied.
"I think you writing things down lets you internalize and reflect on things," she explained.
Before every session I had with my therapist, I wrote her a letter beforehand that was at least 500 words. Letter, after letter, after letter. And to help remember things and reflect on them, anytime I was in a certain situation, I pulled out Evernote, accessed my “notesfortherapist.txt”, and typed, wherever I was at: in my car, at my work desk, coffee shop — lots of places.
I was originally writing this in a Text file for my therapist, but then I thought, “Maybe she’s tired of 900-word letters?” Now I send her 500-word summaries.
Cut to a month or so later.
One Monday morning, about two weeks ago, I woke up late to some terrible news: I’m getting sued for an auto accident. Checked my mail. An internet bill. An unemployment notice. A promotional Bed Bath & Beyond coupon. I checked my email and I didn’t get the job. No friends wanted to hang that past weekend. No food was in my fridge. There were flies all over the kitchen. The cat outside my window wouldn’t stop being in heat. Oh, and I’m balding at 22. Fuck genetics.
To get my mind off the lawsuit, I did laundry. My go-to comedy thing to listen to is an obscure early-2000’s British radio show that had Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, and Karl Pilkington. As the story goes, HBO grabbed the podcasts they did in 2006/2007, and animated them for 3 seasons.
I found a video of Karl writing in his diary and it being read out loud on the show. Stephen noted, “Will this be like the great Samuel Pepys diary?”
Didn’t know him. Looked him up.
I read about Samuel Pepys, which led me to Ronald Reagan’s diary, who I learned wrote an entry every day during his presidency, even on the day he got shot. So I thought, "Well fuck... if Anne Frank, who was locked away in an attic, can keep a diary and still have something to say, and Reagan, who was president of the United States for 8 years, has the time to write every day, then... I sure as hell have enough time to write up a diary."
Thus, my diary was born.
This is just fucking stupid — do 14-year old teenage girls really have this much time on their hands??
I’m writing on Evernote for the sake of ease. I don’t want to do more handwriting when I already handwrite some of my more creative stuff. The diary is simply for getting my thoughts out on the paper (err, screen). I talk about my fears, what I’m working on, who I think about, my day; unsurprisingly, I write it in a comedic fashion for my own amusing.
The thought of exploiting it for gains crept into my mind. “What if in 10 years, I publish it for profit? Like, what if my life becomes so interesting, people want to read about it?” As egotistical and ridiculous this is, I had to make sure the diary was like a Catholic Father for one — confessions from me and only me. So I did just that — I wrote about something that would be really awkward if it got out. I finished with:
Now I'm at ease to say whatever the fuck I want. I feel better now.
I try to write in it every day, but sometimes I miss a day. No matter — I write if I can.
You want to try this out? Cool.
Decide: handwriting or typing? I like typing because I write all the time; it’s a faster way for me to fiddle my thoughts. If you choose to handwrite, do that.
Next decision: the exit. I don’t think people talk about this enough from what I researched about diaries. When the journal is full, or it’s been a certain length of time (like 5 years), what are you going to do with the diary? I think those that handwrite have many more options than the typers.
If you type for let’s say 5 years, think of how you want to close that “journal”:
Printing it out at an Office Depot and shelving it; deleting the original text files.
Publish it for profit.
Nothing; leave it there.
If you handwrite, and the journal becomes full, you can:
Shelve it.
Scan it.
Burn it in a fire ceremony.
Throw it into a lake.
Throw it into a canyon.
Time Capsule it.
Donate it to a book drive.
Put it in a bottle and let it sail the ocean blue.
Put it on top of a mountain.
Tell the notary/post office to give you a call in 20 years to pick it back up.
Give it to your future child(ren). Or grandchild(ren).
Let’s assume you’re going to handwrite since most people do. What are you going to write in?
JOURNALS. There are a few types of journals that exist. You can find those with a cotton cover. A Rhodia. A soft cover with cream paper. Get a Moleskine , or get its superior, the Leuchtturm1917. How about Dutch linen with modern art? Japanese ‘Gokanshi’ felt paper? Or if you want to get wild, get this.
But, what to write with?
PENCILS. Try them. A nice pencil shouldn’t remind you of the 3rd grade; you know, the ones with erasers that smeared your graphite into a blackhole. No — I’m talking about grown-up pencils. I personally use Blackwing Pearl Pencils — yeah, 25 bucks for a 12 pack, don’t be a mislayer. Or, if you’re feeling “John Steinbeck”-y, get the Blackwing 602s. I mean, any pencil will do, but — hear this… come closer… a little closer… — if you pull out the eraser’s metal tabs on the Blackwings, you triple your eraser’s lifetime — you didn’t hear that from me.
PENS. Maybe you’re a pen person. I’ll make it easy for you: here’s a $9 fountain pen.
Congratulations, you’re now a diarist.
And here are my rules of thumb for getting your best thoughts out; again, I’ve been only doing it for a little while, and this works for me —
Write in silence.
Remember you can write any thoughts you have.
Don’t think too much about proper grammar or sentence structure. You’re the only one that’s going to read it. And you probably will never read it again.
Keep that last point in mind.
Let me know how this goes.
Thanks.