Notebook Diary Journal

Doing it any old way, since 1973

Elif Batuman writes that she was told long ago to keep a writing notebook in order to become a writer, but she felt bad because instead she kept a journal or diary where she explored her own experiences and feelings. It seems she wasn't one of those kids who started keeping a journal on a whim or as a homework assignment and never gave it up. (Her writing is great and it doesn't matter what she did or didn't do, obviously. I'm paraphrasing her piece this way because I found it relatable and inspiring.)

I too was told long ago to keep a notebook in service of creative writing. I'd already been writing in a private notebook for ten years, since I was eight or nine. So when my very first college writing teacher told us to start keeping a journal immediately, I decided on the spot to change my major from drawing and painting to fiction writing. I loved that major, though I didn’t develop a writing career when I graduated.

I started keeping a private notebook as a child, in around 1973, because I was so inspired by eleven-year-old Harriet M. Welsch from the children's novel Harriet the Spy. She was going to be a writer, so she kept notes on everybody she knew. I had no idea what I wanted to be in that far-off time, when I grew up; I wanted to do something outside, in nature, out in the country. In the meantime, I wanted to be like Harriet the Spy. 

I wanted to have pointed thoughts and blunt opinions and render them in ink and handwriting to make them real. I had no rules for my notebook. I wrote as often or as seldom, as long or as short as whatever came out of my pen. I can identify places where I imitated fictional Harriet, ending a notebook entry with "THINK ABOUT THAT." Or leaving off with, "there will be a sizzling update on this tomorrow." I knew I was copying a kid who didn't exist, but I didn't care. It was only for me to see.

By ten, I knew that I wrote in order to Look Back From The Future and see who I was. Elif Batiman quotes Joan Didion: "Remember what it was to be me: that is always the point." That's what I wanted to do, though of course I'd never heard of Joan Didion then. Starting at about twelve, I noticed that I could see my thoughts evolve and my perspective broaden when I read my older entries.

In college, in 1984, I heard notebook-keeping referred to as a journal for the first time. It felt very adult, very writerly: "My journal could contain ANYTHING!" I used that journal for everything: notes on assigned books for classes, drafts of writing assignments, poetry, and lists of books to buy and records I wanted. 

I also wrote, in 1984, the same explorations of thoughts and feelings and crushes and song lyrics that the notebook had always been, including commentary on bosses and co-workers now that I had had some grubby retail jobs, plus speculation on what it would be like to have an affair with a woman. (There would be an absence of the sexist opinions I was so tired of, I figured, more agreement, and more safety. I don't think my dad had "try out as a lesbian" in mind when he let me know that my main job was to not get pregnant—but it worked.) 

My college notebooks are thick, full of markup, covered in casual artwork on their outsides, and battered. It was gratifying to see how much writing I could produce when someone—writing teachers—was/were actually telling me to write, and giving me prompts and assignments. My childhood notebooks were skinny and incompletely filled and that was one thing I'd felt bad about as a kid: I didn't have the discipline to fill a notebook before I bought a new one. I made up for it in college, broke and busy and with lots to say.

Thick and battered college notebooks, er, journals

After college, I never stopped keeping a journal, though I didn't develop a career as a writer. I had to pay my rent and my bills by myself, so I couldn't afford to submit queries to magazines who might not respond. Anyway, I didn't have a car to use to do any reporting. Instead I worked as an admin, then in print production, and then as an assistant editor, all at a trade magazine. Supporting myself with a career, however small, was a source of self respect. My progress through various jobs at the same company was a reflection of life being okay, a constancy when relationships and emotions were in painful turmoil.

At the end of my twenties, working at the trade magazine, owning a decent car for the first time, I spent months accepting the fact that I had to break up with a boyfriend. I had been obsessed for five years with the thought that he might leave me; and at the same time, I wanted to move out of Chicago. I wanted to make plans. 

My dream of moving away was spoiled every time by circular thinking: he'd leave me if I started making plans. One night with my journal, though, the math finally added up. If I ended it, I'd be free, and what I'd gain would be better than the insecure attachment I would lose. In my mind right now I can see my handwriting: "It would mean I'd be able to leave Chicago." Reading my words while they flowed out of my pen made my heart settle. I knew I had a right to make my own plans and the capability to do so.

I took some big steps then, and that year is one of my favorite periods in my journals because I can see how I took the wheel and steered. Finally. (I’ve since learned that it’s not unusual for it to take until almost thirty for that math to add up. Ending a bonded relationship is a big decision.) I met Tom soon after that. I think it’s partly thanks to my journal writing that I was ready to be a stable, grown-up partner at that time. I had created my own reflective echo.

Today my journal helps me (among other things) to clarify feelings and evolutions that I need to portray in my memoir. With no stakes at all, it lets me sift through memories (and old journals, and other people's memories) and describe feelings with more and more precision so that I can choose scenes to evoke them. I have no rules, still, for the journal. It's like an auxiliary brain. I write in it a lot.