Why you should keep a diary

You can journal your fears, hopes and musings – Suryakumari Dennison shows how to go about it

If you have never kept a diary, why not start now? While something as personal as writing about oneself should generally not be governed by rules, there is no harm in picking up a few tips on how to make entries. After all, your journal might well become public property some day. Remember the famous journal — The Diary of Anne Frank?

Anne addresses her little notebook as ‘Dear Kitty’. You could think of a fanciful name or simply write, ‘Dear Diary’. Or, skip the salutation and plunge straight into narration with a line like ‘Nothing went right today.’

Mention the date and location, above or below your report. Decades later, you would want to know when and where the events — mundane or momentous — took place.

Follow a chronological sequence. If you are writing about time spent at school, you can perhaps start with the first period. Don’t account for every minute. Focus on episodes that you think are worth recording, and then turn to happenings at home.

Since your diary knows your family, friends and teachers, you do not have to say, ‘My mother Sarita woke me up early’. ‘Mummy’ will suffice.

Anne Frank’s poignant entry of April 5, 1944, reads: ‘I finally realised that I must do my schoolwork to keep from being ignorant, to get on in life, to become a journalist, because that’s what I want! I know I can write.’ You may not care to think too far ahead, but how about next week? You can confide hopes and fears to your diary that you hesitate to share even with your closed ones.

Keep your diary entry to 150 or 200 words. But it is not a hard-and-fast rule. There could be plenty to relate on some days and nothing much on others.

How would you conclude your diary entry? Your name, of course, should appear at the end. Before that, you could — if you choose — bid your diary ‘Goodnight’.

The renowned diarist, Samuel Pepys, whose reflections include a vivid description of the Great Fire of London in 1666, closes his daily musings with ‘And so to bed.’ The inspiring young teenager in hiding, signs off succinctly: ‘Yours, Anne.’

(The author is an English teacher and freelance writer)