I’d love to embarrass myself by sharing journal entries with you from when I was a teenager, but they unfortunately don’t exist. I tried many times to keep a journal because it seemed like the appropriate thing for a self-described “writer” to do, but I could never get the hang of it. I’d usually last a couple of days, then give up in frustration. It seemed to me that there were very strict rules of non-fiction which were impossible to follow. I failed at keeping a journal because, quite frankly, I thought I was not allowed to lie.
I always felt compelled to stretch the truth a little, to make the characters (myself mostly) a little more interesting, to move events and details around to construct a more compelling narrative. Telling the truth was so…well, boring. Every cell in my body was dying to make stuff up, but I conjured all my strength to rein that impulse in. Instead of a cathartic release of my deepest thoughts and feelings, I remember each journal entry more like a painful exercise in restraint.
