Five-year diary
Nov. 29th, 2004 03:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hearthstoneAs some of you folks know, I'm a diarist from way back, and have been keeping a paper journal regularly for over twenty years. It's a catch-all, everything all together in one spot, almost impossible to find anything in if that were the point, but it isn't.
I'm going to try something different for a while, and am getting a five-year diary. If you've never seen one of these things, each page is a day (therefore 366 pages because of leap years, typically these books can be used for any five-year period) and divided into five sections (one for each year). Thus you have only 5 or 6 lines to write in for a given day.
Which doesn't sound like much, and it isn't much, but that's the point--at the end of each day you have to think of one core concept, one most-important thing that happened, one vital fact that pulls the day together for you. An exercise in precision, the intent is to be concise and to the point (kind of the opposite of my usual approach to journaling! :))
I'm going to try something different for a while, and am getting a five-year diary. If you've never seen one of these things, each page is a day (therefore 366 pages because of leap years, typically these books can be used for any five-year period) and divided into five sections (one for each year). Thus you have only 5 or 6 lines to write in for a given day.
Which doesn't sound like much, and it isn't much, but that's the point--at the end of each day you have to think of one core concept, one most-important thing that happened, one vital fact that pulls the day together for you. An exercise in precision, the intent is to be concise and to the point (kind of the opposite of my usual approach to journaling! :))
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-29 09:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-29 09:35 pm (UTC)To me they're totally different things--my paper journal is a lot more stream-of consciousness. My LJ is mainly for discussing topics and sharing my life with other people.
(Also I seem to write differently with pen in hand than I do via a keyboard. Not sure what the deal is there... :))
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-29 09:57 pm (UTC)I'm not quite sure what happened along the way. But I've really waned off doing it.
Typing out my thoughts is way easier because I type faster than I write so I'm able to do stream-of-consciousness better on the computer. I actually tried doing a diary in MSWord. But it's really not made for that, so it didn't work so well.
Then a friend introduced me to LJ. I know I wax and wane on here (typical of me). But this is really a great way for me to track my thoughts. I even have an LJ client on my PDA so I can journal when I'm out & need to (haven't lately but there for awhile I was).
The 5 year journal thing is intriguing. Keep us posted on how it goes. I'm curious to hear your experiences with it.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-30 01:17 am (UTC)I will--it'll be something really different for me in terms of personal writing, so I'm looking forward to it. (I tend to err on the side of verbose. :))
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-29 10:29 pm (UTC)Sounds to me though, that if you've been keeping diaries for years, you shouldn't have any trouble with it *smiles*
;)
Zoe.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-30 01:20 am (UTC)I think I had a diary or two when I was a kid, but of course those are long gone--but I've filled over 60 books in the last 20 years, so I guess I can call it a habit now! :)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-30 01:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2004-11-30 07:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
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