Dear Diary

Here are a few truths discovered from a life-time of writing in a journal that have helped in the writing of novels. (A journal: a place to write where you don’t lie to yourself; you don’t care what or how you write;you don’t expect any other living person to read what you write)

1. You practice being reckless and bold and playful, which practice comes in handy when writing first drafts of novels later on.
2. You find out how you honestly feel about different things. Later when you write about similar things, you can remember how you felt and write with sincerity and truth. You will write from your true self. You learn to appreciate truth over style.
3.You know what it is like to write without seeking to impress or make money or satisfy the critics. This knowledge, if you can remember it at the right times, comes in handy.
4. You’re writing about things that affect you, that you are interested in, that you love or cause you pain. You are discovering the bones you will chew the rest of your writing life. Your fiction will be deeply personal even if it is not one whit autobiographical.
5. You become a deeper, more reflective person. You exercise and therefore strengthen your ability to attend, to focus and observe. Even if all you write about is actual (internal or external), your imagination develops and is honed.
6.You will recognize the presence of a listener, an “other” you are writing for, even if you are not writing for anyone and no one will ever see what you write. This other is not someone who will be pleased or not pleased by what you write or how you write. The other is simply happy to hear from you. The other will be there again when you write your novel.
7. You’ll find out that the voices that attack your uniqueness or confidence or goodness are silenced as you persist in writing in spite of them.
8.You begin to see your writing as an act of generosity to yourself at first and then to others even if you are only writing for yourself.
9.You become more attuned to suffering, yours and others, and there will be more compassion in your novels.
10. When you write in a journal every day (or as frequently as you can) because you want and need to and for no other ulterior motive, you are honoring the creative impulse and enthusiasm you were born with and now it will be your friend forever and will be there whenever you call it.