Dear Diary...

[Just-Jude]

I was given a diary at xmas, never had one before. I'm going to start it tomorrow, but don't know what to write. Nothing exciting ever happens to me, unlike a lot of posters on here. I feel like inventing situations, but was brought up never to tell lies. Should I just tell the truth and avoid the embarrassment of being found out?

[Mamyalynne]

You seem a deep thinker Jude - just jot down your thoughts and observations, pick a flower in spring and press between the pages - take snapshots of things that catch your eye, be it a strange cloud formation or dabbling ducks.

Diaries can be as creative or as mundane as you make them.

[Just-Jude]

Mamy, is pressing a flower between the pages not a bit girly, what if someone found it?

[Barmaid]

I have my gg grandfathers diarys from about 1940 to 1980. He wrote EVERYTHING in them. From births of children, to births of pigs (yes, really), to number of cockerels killed at Christmas to when he sowed his spuds to how much he had spent on wood to how much he got paid for a day's work building the new hospital etc.

70 years on it is fascinating reading. Write what you want, but even the minutiae can become interesting for generations in the future.

[jno]

Adrian Mole has done very well out of his diaries without including any unreasonably exciting events.

[EcclesCake]

I'll ignore the obvious stirring element of your post......

My grandfather and father kept journals throughout their lives. Even once they had retired and could only report on the skin tone of the news reader, how much they'd paid for a haircut or who was thrashing whom at Wimbledon it was an interesting commentary on every day life.

[Just-Jude]

Scrivens, if I was writing a book, I'd still have trouble making things up, even if they were part of the plot.

[Just-Jude]

Eccles, I ask about writing a diary and get accused of stirring...can't believe where you're coming from.

[Psybbo]

Memory clouds over the years and it would be good to have an account of what actually took place.

[oliviagrace]

Always write the truth, I write my diary every evening, just put down what happened during the day, where you've been, who you met, maybe if there was anything different happened to you. I also make a note of things Iv'e bought which sometimes is useful. I also make a note of the weather then next year you will be able to look at where you were on a certain day and it can bring back memories.

[Just-Jude]

I would definitely include my experiences on AB.

[craft1948]

Stirring?

[Just-Jude]

Keeping note of the weather sounds good, planning a barbie would be a lot easier.

[EcclesCake]

Perhaps I read too much between the lines, though somehow I doubt it.

[Mamyalynne]

Being imaginative with your diary/journal entries is not the same as telling lies.

Flowers were only a suggestion but some of the world's best botanists and painters of flowers have been men - never thought of flowers as a girly only.

Let your creative side take you over and use an an aide memoire - weather, meetings, world events etc.

[Mamyalynne]

^ or use, not 'and'

[Georgiesmum]

I know a lady who used to keep a diary and every day she just wrote down what she had to eat that day!

[EDDIE51]

My grandfather who lived to 93 kept a 'weather diary' for many years.He accurately recorded the weather every day , not just 'wet, dry , windy ' and so on but details of when the sun came out, wind direction, cloud cover, temperature, rainfall. After a while he got to be able to perdict the future weather looking for similar patterns in past years, he was surprisingly accurate we took more notice of Grandads predictions than of the met office.

[ducksie]

Tomorrow is the first blank page of your 365 page book, write a good one (a quote i found)