The Sanctity of a Journal: On Private Writing in the Age of Public Content – Literary Hub
A couple of weeks before my thirtieth birthday, I was less consumed with aging and more with finishing my first book. I felt stalled as an impending deadline approached, so I assigned myself a personal writing challenge entitled “November – No Excuses.” There was no set time of day or entry length. I just needed to write the first thing that came to mind every day for the entire month. While it was meant to free up any reservations, my words appeared haltingly on the page, and the frustration lingered—until my fiancé appeared in the doorway of our home office.
“Hey, how about an early birthday present?” he asked. He looked too pleased with himself for this to be anything typical within the gift vernacular. I answered with a raised eyebrow and guttural, “Uh, ok.” Before I could return to my journal, he whipped out a thin, slightly worn book. Only a few days prior, we’d been discussing early inspirations that informed my love of writing, so I squealed as he placed the beloved children’s book Amelia’s Notebook by Marissa Moss into my hands.
To summarize the plot: Amelia is an observant nine-year-old girl who’s just moved to a new city. After receiving a notebook from her mom, Amelia turns to it as a source of comfort, writing and drawing stories while reminiscing on times with her best friend Nadia, annoyances with her sister Cleo, and the ins and outs of her new school.
Like Amelia, I received my first diary when I was nine and related to her musings on moving, friendship, and art. After a short break, my diaries flourished in my teen years, complete with personal anecdotes and carefully glued collages or letters from best friends and crushes. By eighteen, I had amassed a cherished archive of these stories. I never showed them to anyone, but these people had shown themselves to me, their words brimming with sincerity and trust. Eventually, my creativity would shift online, and the stories I found or told would be subject to character counts and perpetual feedback. (If you didn’t “share” it, did it even happen?)
I’ve always believed in the sanctity of a journal.
Interestingly, the cover of Amelia’s Notebook is filled with multiple warnings: “Top Secret,” “Private,” and “Mind Your Own Beeswax.” First published in 1995, and it’s hard to fathom just how much the concept of privacy has changed since then. (Pre-social media, my own notebooks were covered with taped warnings proclaiming: “Don’t [Redacted] Open This. 🙂.”) So in an age where diaristic impulses are attached to everything we do, it’s worth questioning: Who …….