Many of us maintain daily diaries of what happens in our lives. Some of us write from time to time in a journal to record memorable things that happen to us.
If we write daily, we sometimes make entries that really do not say much, like, for example, ‘Went to the mall,’ ‘Met BFF and saw ____ movie’.
We may or may not add (depending on how much time we have to write), ‘Went to the mall and had the yummiest smoothie ever. I have just got to try it at home. I think there is mango and pineapple and vanilla ice-cream in it and something else I have not yet figured out …’ or ‘Met BFF and saw ____ movie. I hated it. I’m never going to trust his/her judgement again – at least about movies. What kind of a movie was this and why did he/she choose to watch it? I would rather have watched one of the superhero movies for the second time than waste my time with this!’
As you can see, when a diary or journal entry is more detailed, then, when it is read again, weeks or months or even years later, the same emotions are re-lived and we recall how we felt at the time.
Since a diary entry / journal entry is meant for our eyes only, we can let ourselves go and put down what we truly feel. It is okay if we do not write every day but it would be great if those of us who do not write anything now, begin to write about at least some of the important things that have happened in our lives and what we felt when they happened.
How to go about it:
A diary entry / journal entry does not follow any strict rules of writing. We can go about it in our own way, in our own time and choose what we wish to record. It could be something we are thrilled about or it could be something that makes us really upset or worried or angry or sad.
Naturally, since a diary / journal entry is a very personal document, we write from our point of view. We record our feelings and our role in what happened. Even if we are writing about something that we witnessed, where we are not really involved, we still record what we noticed, what we did to help, how the incident affected us, and so on.
Some of us begin a diary entry with ‘Dear Diary,’ but this is not essential. Here are a few things to keep in mind of what we need to do. Click on the hotspots to find out:
Since you will now be writing a diary/journal entry that you will share with others, if you do not want to share something that really happened to you, write about an imaginary incident but put in all that you would have felt if you had actually experienced it.
Options:
a. A frightening experience on the road when you were returning alone from dance class / tuition / drill preparation / gym
b. What started out as enjoyable outing for your birthday or your friend’s birthday and then took an unexpected turn
c. A strange creature you encountered while playing alone in the garden
d. A risky move you made one evening when there was no one at home and you were locked out of the house
The writer is the author of Fun with Creative Writing, a series of workbooks from level 1 to 8, and has co-authored Anyone Can Write, a teachers’ resource book, both published by Foundation Books (Cambridge University Press)
