Guides for telling your own story

Joan Didion once described the diary as "an indiscriminate and erratic assemblage with meaning only for its maker." Perhaps because a journal can be anything its author wants it to, the genre enjoys wide appeal. Today, about 12 million journals are sold annually. Yet the allure of the form is nothing new. Personal writing has been popular at least since the age of St. Augustine, whose "Confessions" introduced the memoir to literature almost two centuries ago.

REVIEWS BY PAT REGEL

Fluid, informal, a journal is the place where the unpracticed writer hides, where the seasoned author introduces new ideas, where the teenager dawdles over daydreams. Between the covers, anything goes: reflections and recollections, quotes and anecdotes, snatches of overheard dialogue and intimate admissions. The pages of a diary provide a dividing line between the private and the public, the personal and the communal. Cross that line, and the reader becomes voyeur. A mix of perverse delight and curiosity tinged with guilt accompanies the experience of dipping into, say, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath. In more ways than one, a diary is inflammatory material. Seal it for eternity, save it for posterity, feed it to the fire, this is a form that triggers a mosaic of emotions, indifference not included.

Here are two excellent books filled with tips to guide writers as they exercise that most natural of inclinations -- the need to talk about ourselves.

One Memory At A Time: Inspiration & Advice for Writing Your Family Story by D.G. Fulford explains how to use tried-and-true methods of writing to explore both your family history and the possibilities of developing a memoir. Even someone unaccustomed to creative writing can become a family historian, for, as Fulford states, "You cannot do this project incorrectly." The author emphasizes that the way you choose to organize and tell your story is all your own -- there's no wrong way to create a written memory of your ancestors.

Since writing their first book (To Our Children's Children: Preserving Family Histories for Generations to Come), D.G. Fulford and her brother, well-known syndicated columnist Bob Greene, have been encouraging new writers to tell their family stories. Greene writes the foreword for his sister's new book.

Always ready to inspire new writers, Fulford assures readers that writing about family is a liberating process: "There is no teacher looking over your shoulder, waiting to mark you down for errors. Your writing is best when it sounds like you." The author believes there's no need to feel intimidated by the prospect of transforming factual information and historical data into an enduring narrative. And, to further your writing, she offers tips, tricks, advice, techniques and even a short Q & A section. Everything is included in this small volume to preserve your memories and make them come alive for future family generations.


Until four days before her death, Virginia Woolf kept diaries -- "more than thirty-two marble patterned notebooks, leaving one of the most complete records of a creative mind at work," says Alexandra Johnson, author of Leaving A Trace: On Keeping A Journal. Johnson's book is another practical guide for preserving memories and celebrating moments in words, but it doesn't stop there. Johnson also takes writers through the steps needed to transform their work into larger, more creative entities like the novel. Each chapter features stories and journal entries from well-known writers and everyday people. Beginners benefit from quick methods for overcoming inhibitions, getting started and staying on course. More experienced chroniclers learn how to shape their material, trigger inspiration with brainstorming exercises and distinguish patterns in diaries they've already written.

Johnson herself has had considerable experience with journal writing. She currently teaches memoir and creative nonfiction at Harvard and Wellesley and is the author of the award-winning book Hidden Writer: Diaries and the Creative Life.


Pat Regel teaches English and writing.

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