This blog entry is meant to extol the joys of journaling and diary writing. In gathering materials to extol, I read about journaling as a stress management and self-exploration tool. Julia Cameron also does some extolling in her well-known book, The Artist’s Way. In this book she instructs the reader to write 3 pages a day! – Longhand. I did this. It was wonderful.

One of the advantages to journaling is to write down your thoughts without worrying that a third party will read them. Although, we here at the Nashua Public Library have plenty of diaries which you, as a third party, could read - like Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl, Anais Nin (probably on the steamier side), or Jack Kerouac.

The Nashua Public Library we have plenty of biographies about people – but their diaries offer a different look at them. I hated Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller’s memoir/diary/with some fiction embellishments. What a different style, voice, world view and set of priorities from Andy Warhol’s diaries!

There are also plenty of fiction diaries as well, like Youth in Revolt, The Lost Diary of Don Juan, or Diary of a Bad Year.

If writing in a journal doesn't grab you, perhaps reading someone else's journal will!