Summer Project: Journaling

Keep the journal idea, but ditch the length and write down just a sentence or two each day to record your most prominent memories. You might think such short entries aren’t enough to make any difference in your life, but [author Gretchen] Rubin insists that this idea is both manageable and impactful. “One sentence is enough. When I look back on it years later, that one sentence really does keep memories vivid—it really does bring back the past—which is one of the things you really want a journal to do,” she says.
~ Jessica Stillman, "The One-Minute Writing Activity That Will Make You Happier Every Day"

As for the health benefits of journaling, they've been scientifically proven. Research shows the following:

• Journaling decreases the symptoms of asthma, arthritis, and other health conditions.
• It improves cognitive functioning.
• It strengthens the immune system, preventing a host of illnesses.
• It counteracts many of the negative effects of stress.

~Elizabeth Scott, "The Benefits of Journaling for Stress Management"

Are you looking for something to do this summer in your spare time? Of course, we're a library blog, so our first recommendation is reading (have you signed up for our Summer Reading Program yet?  It's not just for kids!). But, maybe you want something more. Maybe you are looking for a project. Something to take up for the short term, that may or may not grow into a long term occupation. Something you can do indoors, because summer is here with a vengeance!

How about journaling? Keeping a journal is recommended for a variety of reasons, including stress relief. And it doesn't have to run into volumes, like Virginia Woolf's, unless you are so inspired!  In fact, many items in the library catalog lean towards creative journaling, making your own book or journaling with art.

Would you consider taking up journaling, for pleasure, as an aide-mémoire, to encourage creativity, or for stress relief? Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way recommends what she calls "Morning Pages", which is a great idea to get yourself started and get into the habit - we have employed this model in the past.

Inner Hero Creative Art Journal: Mixed Media Messages to Silence Your Inner Critic by Quinn McDonald [eBook]

No Excuses Art Journaling: Making Time For Creativity by Gina Rossi Armfield [eBook]

Journal Your Way: Designing & Using Handmade Books by Gwen Diehn  

The Art Journal Workshop: Break Through, Explore, and Make It Your Own by Traci Bunkers [eBook]

How to Keep a Sketchbook Journal by Claudia Nice  [eBook] 

Artist's Journal Workshop: Creating Your Life in Words and Pictures by Cathy Johnson [eBook] 

Raw Art Journaling by Quinn McDonald [eBook] 

Writing Yoga: A Guide to Keeping a Practice Journal by Bruce Black [eBook] 

Keeping a Nature Journal: Discover a Whole New Way of Seeing the World Around You by Clare Walker Leslie & Charles E. Roth   

How to Make a Journal of Your Life by D. Price [eBook]

Creating a Birdwatcher's Journal by Clare Walker Leslie and Charles E. Roth [eBook] 

Creative Wildfire: An Introduction to Art Journaling--Basics and Beyond by L.K. Ludwig [eBook]  

365: A Daily Creativity Journal - Make Something Every Day and Change Your Life! by Noah Scalin [eBook]

Links


6 Ways Journaling Will Change Your Life [Lifehack]

10 Journaling Tips to Help You Heal, Grow, and Thrive [Tiny Buddha]

Fictional Diaries

The model of the "real" or original diary serves as the source for the origin of the diary novel. The appearance of real diaries to the public and their subsequent popularity accounts for the development of diary fiction. The real diary gave rise to the genre of the epistolary novel, especially in the second half of the eighteenth century... The modern understanding of a diary usually involves a private, periodically kept text... Such a diary might contain discrepancies, uncertainties, and other fluctuations in emotional temperament. The future of the author is unknown.
~Jessica Natale, Diary As Fiction: Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground and Turgenev's"Diary of a Superfluous Man"

Diary fiction, and its related genre, epistolary fiction, attempt to mimic real life's ups and downs, ebbs and flows, in real time. What draws us to them? Is the attraction the "air of intimacy, immediacy and truth" that one gets from reading in this format, as author Kate Summerscale suggests, with the added piquancy of possibly being hoodwinked by only seeing one version of the action (she also says diaries can be the "most unreliable and corrupting of narratives")? Whatever it may be, we still read diary fiction today, even if the form is not as widely used as it once was. Sue Townsend's Adrian Mole series, wildly popular in England, feature diaries from Adrian's life from age 13 3/4 to age 39 3/4. Wuthering Heights opens as Lockwood's diary. Winston, in Orwell's 1984, keeps a diary as an act of defiance to Big Brother. Bridget Jones is her own franchise. Here are some other novels you might enjoy that are written completely or in part as diaries: 


What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge [eBook]

Diary of a Nobody by Grossmith

Dracula by Bram Stoker

"Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," The Illuminating Diary of a Professional Lady by Anita Loos

Any Human Heart by William Boyd

The Archivist by Martha Cooley

Maya's Notebook by Isabel Allende

The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn by Robin Maxwell [eBook]


Find more titles with a subject search of "Diary fiction" in the library catalog!Or, if you'd prefer novels in letters, check out our Epistolary Novels booklist.


Links

Dear Diary, how did you become part of our literary culture?

Kate Summerscale on fictional diaries

Subject: Diary fiction [LibraryThing]