From monocle.com
Nadia Terranova
Keep a journal
Biography: Sicilian-born, Rome-based Terranova’s latest novel, Farewell, Ghosts, is her first to be translated into English. In Italy she has also published short-story collections and contributes to La Repubblica, Linkiesta and Il Foglio.
My relationship with keeping a diary dates back to when I was young. My aunt had given me Anne Frank’s diary and I remember that after reading it I was struck: somewhere in the world there had been a child like me who had been denied becoming a writer. I already knew that I wanted to become a writer myself, so from that moment on I decided that I would keep a journal. Just like Anne, I gave my diaries girls’ names and I’d write down all the daily vicissitudes that a girl that age goes through: school, friends, love stories and so on.
In Messina, my hometown, I still have about 20 of these diaries. I think I have such a good memory because I wrote down everything that happened to me. But it was after reading another book that my relationship with journalling evolved further. The book was Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir, which made me understand that you could make literature out of your own life. It was then that I started writing short stories – my thoughts started going into fictional characters rather than just myself. A novel might seem to require a much stricter approach to writing than a diary but you can find true freedom between limits, stretching them and sometimes betraying them.
Today I still have notebooks in which I freeze my thoughts and jot down notes, images and words that I might use in my books. I always use my wooden pens, made by an artisan in Ragusa; I don’t write without them. I believe that picking up the habit of writing on paper and finding that rhythm every day can take us deep, especially if we write about ourselves. The physical gesture of putting pen to paper requires a small effort but that effort is a step towards ourselves that we wouldn’t otherwise take. Even if what you’re writing is faithful to reality, by choosing what to omit and what to tell you’re not doing something that’s much different to what writers do with their work – you’re narrating. Another French novelist who I came across in my forties talks about this very well. In her autobiographical work, Annie Ernaux discusses the meaning of her writing. She talks about what memory means to her and asks herself why she chooses to recount certain things rather than others.
Everyone can benefit from writing. Leaving your thoughts in a drawer and, after some time, going back to them to read what you had to say is where the true benefit lies.
Monocle comment: Keeping a diary can lead you to literary fame but it also achieves simpler things. Writing in a journal helps you to order your thoughts and reflect on what’s worth remembering. It stops days flying past into a jumbled oblivion and is also a place to plan and plot.
https://monocle.com/culture/books/writing-guide-journal-novel-letters/
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