As you can probably guess, I love writing. Like most people of my generation, at some point in my life, I thought about writing a novel. Although I still have some outlines, and I also have a notebook with ideas for stories, for now, I’m focusing on writing in other places. I’m a “gaming journalist” after hours, I have a few blogs, but most importantly, I also have a diary. That’s where I write the most and most often. And I think everyone should write one.
What is a diary?
Let’s start with the clichés. What is a diary anyway?
For me, it’s a place where I can vent. Private rather than public (although I have a category like that on my blog), on paper rather than online, although, again, it all depends on what I want to write down.
It is a place of reflection. It is that moment during the day when I can look at events and interactions with people. Think about them calmly, and sometimes understand them much better than “on the fly”. Without a doubt, it is also a moment for me. When it is just me, my favorite notebook (Nuuna), and a comfortable pen (usually TWSBI) with some beautiful ink (most likely by Ferris Wheel Press) inside. I change the pen and ink every month, while one notebook lasts me lately less than a year.
Regardless of its form, a diary should be a place where you can be honest with yourself. Where you can relive the last day or days from a greater distance and think about what you want to remember from it all. What is worth writing a few words that will remind you of something months or years later?
It’s a great exercise in expressing emotions, even to yourself. A moment for self-reflection and in a sense also therapy. A calming activity that can sometimes even allow us to see a different perspective.
My diary
I don’t know if you know or not, if it’s important or not, but… I’ve been in a long-distance relationship for over two years now. Or maybe let’s put it this way: I’ve been in this relationship for less than a year since we first met, but we’ve been building this relationship for over two. That’s thousands of hours of talking, tens of thousands of messages. Different characters, situations that require understanding, baggage to digest, and all the trust to build. And a diary is a very helpful tool here.
I’ve been writing diaries for as long as I can remember. I still have some from high school and my first (and only) year of college. I have a notebook somewhere, where I spent a few weeks pouring out my grievances, somewhere in 2014. Since 2016, when I moved to Ireland, leaving Poland behind, I’ve taken up this diary seriously. Or at least, that was the plan. However, it quickly turned out that my daily life was quite boring, and it took me five years to fill up the 192 pages of Castelli’s notebook. Monthly notes were completely sufficient, although sometimes I needed attachments, written in other places and later added to the whole thing – you know, sometimes I didn’t have my diary with me!
In April 2021, I selected my first Nuuna as a diary. 176 pages filled with tiny dots with a spacing of 2.5 mm, in a format similar to A6, so, simply put – tiny little thing. A compact notebook that could accompany me literally everywhere. For the first 80 pages, it listened mainly about my job, children, video games and this blog (well, the Polish version of it). About people I met and interesting interactions.
In January 2022, when I first mentioned a “new gaming buddy”, I did not expect that I would fill the remaining half of it in just two months and that each subsequent notebook would simply be our complicated love story.
In two years I have already completed three entire notebooks. You will find them in the picture above. My current diary is the bigger one on the right. That should require more than 8 months of attention!
Time for you and your thoughts
Not every night now, but I used to have this habit where I would try to write down what was going on every night before I went to bed. Because, you know, everything about this new person in my life was so exciting! A diary back then was a record of our interactions, long conversations, and how we spent our time together.
With the emergence of emotions, problems also appeared. And the diary helped me a lot here. It allowed me to “digest” the events calmly. It motivated me to read the conversations again, this time coolly, often opening my eyes to a different perspective or somehow better context.
Even now, when everything has calmed down and a page written once a week is usually more than enough, I love going back to my old notebooks. I see in them the path we both have taken, how I have changed and how differently I see everything around me. It is an experience I would not have had without those notebooks, without the heart and time I put into them earlier.
How to put emotions into words?
If you write a diary (or a journal, if you think the first word is too childish), one of the most important things is to be honest with yourself. And you know that sometimes it’s not that easy? Admitting to emotions and actions, even in the privacy of a notebook that no one else will read.
The second important thing, a skill that will develop through writing a diary, will be putting emotions into words. Without facial expressions, (probably) without emojis, or any visual aspect, we will have to learn to write about emotions. Often, when these emotions have already subsided.
I very rarely draw smile faces in there, although I won’t deny that hearts are quite common. You can also find a lot of exclamation marks, sometimes more than one in a row. Although, you know, you have complete freedom here – express yourself however you feel comfortable.
What is important is that you express yourself, and that you transfer your emotions and feelings onto paper, relieving your head and heart a little.
Things big and small
One of the things I love most about my diary is the little moments that have slipped my memory. My brain, used to multitasking, works at high speed. It processes a lot of information at once and even during moments of “mindless” activities, like playing games, it is still thinking about many different things in the background. I solve problems at work this way, I compose sentences for articles I need to write, or I plan… whatever. So, sadly, a lot of things slip my mind. Many events, even important ones, get replaced in my memory by other things. I also often act impulsively and forget things in an instant. My diary is my way of dealing with this.
Sometimes it scares me that I forget about the little wonderful moments after just a few days, but it makes me appreciate the diary even more. And I know how important it is to write about it all freshly and not hide anything, even from myself.
How to start with a diary?
Choose a notebook that’s been sitting on your shelf for a long time. The one you really liked in the store but haven’t found a use for yet.
For the more reluctant: do you have an old calendar at home? Are there daily calendars on sale on store shelves? Grab one. In a calendar with a daily layout from this year, you don’t have to worry about anything – you’ll have a page for every day, and the cost of it is usually small. If you reach for an old calendar, simply cross out the day of the week and correct it. These calendars are already written off as a loss!
Grab a pen or a ballpoint pen that you are most comfortable writing with. This will be the most important thing about it. Write the date (very important). Put a dot, draw a line, circle it – it doesn’t matter. And start writing. On some days, especially when I was just starting, “dear diary” sounded like the best beginning of a sentence – it allowed me to write a diary in the form of a letter. And this is the form that I still practice. I throw in “isn’t it?”, “really?” or similar phrases directed to the recipient, who is after all just my beloved notebook. However, the form of a letter allows me to talk more naturally about the events of the day and my emotions. I would recommend it to everyone!
In the beginning, you can try writing a few sentences before going to sleep or sitting down to a diary with your morning coffee. Somewhere between checking your morning emails at work and the drink you start your day with. Developing a diary routine will be very helpful and it will all come easier day by day.
A few tips
As an experienced diary user, I can share a few tips with you. Maybe you will actually use some of them when you start your diary adventure.
1. Write everything that’s on your mind
A diary is a place for you. Only for you! Write whatever comes to mind, swear if you feel like it. Cross words out. Make some up. Throw in words from other languages. Lyrics. A quote that popped into your head while watching a series. Don’t be afraid to get in your own way, change the subject, and drift into memories that were awakened by something you were writing about. This is your space.
Just for the sake of getting into the journaling routine, write about shows you saw, upcoming movies you are exited about, or even overheard conversations.
2. Too many inks? Change them every month
When I switched to Nuuna in 2021, it was around the time I discovered Ferris Wheel Press. I fell in love with their inks and thought a journal was a great excuse to write in a different color each month. A month is enough time to get used to the ink and actually see the color. And if after a week you find that the in is too pale/too dark/too ugly – well, find a replacement. Life is too short to write with inks that aren’t perfect.
3. Mark dates clearly, add times too
In my diary, each entry begins with a date and time. It used to be just dates, but I quickly gave that up. “Today” written at 1 a.m. and “today” at 4 p.m. are completely different days, despite the same date. Adding the time will allow you to understand that “today” written before bed, but after midnight is actually the previous day.
4. Quotes and dialogues?
My diary sometimes contains our conversations. Because mentally I’m still in high school. Instead of printing screenshots from Discord, I copy the most important messages. The cute ones and the harder ones to digest. They are important, so they should stand out and be easy to find. So for quotes, I use a black gel pen (Pilot G-2). That also helps me distinguish who said what. My messages are written in the default ink for this month, the other person’s (usually his) in black. Simple and clear.
5. Explore
Your journal is important. If after a month you decide that a notebook doesn’t suit you, find another one. Archive the old notebook (write the dates of its activity on the spine and put it on a shelf) or cut out the written pages if there aren’t too many of them. In a new notebook, stick an envelope on one side, into which you will put those few pages.
It’s important that you like your diary. So that you don’t get frustrated every day when the ink is feathering, something bleeds through, or the narrow pages don’t allow you to comfortably position your wrist while writing. This is a notebook that you have to enjoy writing in. So try to get media that you enjoy. And really, really don’t be afraid to explore.
6. Attachments
As I mentioned earlier, your diary can have attachments.
What to do when you are travelling and you don’t have a diary with you? Don’t skip writing. You can grab your phone and write your note there, but you can also grab a pen and any piece of paper and write down what’s on your mind. When you come back to the diary, you can stick such a note or put it in an envelope.
In the first diary of my current life, I made myself a tiny envelope where I kept a few of our conversations written down quickly on sticky notes, or pages torn out of a small Moleskine where the ink had bleed through to the next page. Ooops. In the current one, which is much larger, I have a full-size envelope where I keep our photos, plane tickets, and his letters.
Once upon a time, there were times when I didn’t want to write something down in my main diary because… I felt embarrassed. So now I have an attachment from 2019, which is a whole separate notebook. It happens!
7. Write about bad things too
You might think that in a few years, you won’t want to remember that someone pissed you off or disappointed you. Probably not. But you will want to read about how you felt and what happened afterwards. How did you solve the problem? What made you feel better? Who, apart from your diary, wanted to listen to you then?
Taking a long look at certain situations can sometimes really do you good. Maybe even make you realize that some of it was completely unnecessary and childish? It happens to me sometimes.
Pen in hand!
Now all that’s left to do is grab that expensive notebook that’s been sitting on the shelf for months, a comfortable pen, and a glass of soda. Sit back and start writing. You’ll thank yourself in a few years.
Just let me know, that you started and which notebook you picked, okay? Thanks.
