Every Day I Write the Books

Part 1: Summer of 2023—my 50th year as a diarist

“I'm a man with a mission in two or three editions.” —Elvis Costello

Let’s be more precise: 50 years ago, to the day, was June 26, 1973.

If you were alive back then (and of course many of you weren’t) you probably wouldn’t recall what you did. You might remember where you lived, or how old you were, or what the general vibe was at the time.

I can go directly to the day and look it up:

Diary with “Foreword” and Jan. 1, 1973. I’ll transcribe the June entry as follows (photo by StoryShed Media).

Tuesday, June 26, 1973:

This morning I didn’t hardly do anything. This afternoon Grandma, Grandpa, and I went to K-Mart. Then we went to 7-Hi Shopping Center. I got the books “2001: A Space Odessey” (sic) and “Mythology.” This evening I took a little swim.

Fifty years ago today I was 13 years old, and being visited by my grandparents over summer vacation from school (if I reference earlier in the diary I can see if they were my maternal or paternal grandparents—I’m gonna guess the former) and I’d bought Arthur C. Clarke’s classic novel and Edith Hamilton’s book on mythology (still a prized possession today). Outside of that, all I recall about being 13 was getting beat up by other kids. I went home to nurse my wounds and, well, write. Life was hard. It sometimes still is, but in a different way.

But I digress…

While that entry’s not exactly a meaty, emotional slice of life to chew off, it was a start (the link takes you to WordPress—more on that shortly). It took many years of writing—first in a locked 5-year diary that, after the first year I made into a 2-year book, since I needed more space to write—and then into larger chemistry lab books that were beautifully lined and afforded plenty of space to spread out and think and recount my days.

One chem journal atop recently pasted new volumes (photo by StoryShed Media).

So why this, and why now?

Well, my old habit of pasting typewritten entries into these chemistry books got railroaded by life changes in 2012-2019, and then the pandemic from 2020 until last year. I’m wrapping up entering 2018, which will be oddly encased within a volume for 2022-23, only because it just makes sense to keep it close to a current journal and allow room for the process to continue in a completely new book (for 2024 and beyond).

I might have wished for a better process, such as copy/pasting to a web application that would publish it in book form (there was an old WordPress blog to PDF app that maybe I can rediscover that will port over words and images from my former WP site, Completely in the Dark, or CITD). But for now I’m nearly caught up—which means I’ve been reading a lot of my last decade…

…And that’s turned my thoughts to writing this multipart post here.

You see, it’s more than just words on a diary page. It also includes pocket-sized notebooks, sketch pad-sized calendars I hand-decorated and doodled in, as well as these early diaries and later journals. Oh, and eleven weird “letters to myself” that I composed between 1973 and 1989. But I only just realized they all worked together (as I was writing posts to CITD) to form an easy reference and a self-reflection ecosystem.

What the hell is that, you might wisely ask.

Hold tight—first, an anecdote.

How to Build a Time Machine

Imagine this: It’s the summer of 1968.

Normal American family in a blue Chevy station wagon is hooking up a speaker to the driver’s side window at a drive-in movie theater at dusk, as the jingle “Go on out to the lobby, and get a 7-Up!” crackles through the speaker.

Family Daddy-o sets out for the popcorn and soda pop. “Movie begins in two minutes!” says the speaker, nearly trembling with its own importance.

Sunset, screen darkens, then lightens and the movie begins. “Honey,” says Mommy-o, a tad concerned, “is this the right movie? It looks like a National Geographic episode!” Everyone shrugs and stuffs popcorn in their mouths.

CUT TO and TITLE OVER: Nearly 2 hours and 20 minutes later.

Slow pan from car front seat, then to back: Sleeping Mommy, snoring Daddy, baby brother, head cranked back, eyes wide shut and mouth agape…

…and me. Completely transfixed on the screen. Lost. Blissfully happy.

CUT TO: Drive-in movie screen.

STARCHILD hovering above a blue Earth, wrapped in a starry umbilical cord of white light and—cue the Strauss, “Thus Spake Zarathustra,” because, well, OUTER SPACE.

That is my Fabelmans moment.

Because it’s pretty much what happened. How do I know? Scroll up and check it: Five years later, inspired by what I’d seen in the movie, with my grandparents on summer holiday, I bought the Clarke book.

And I only know that because I kept a diary.

But before I started that first diary, in January 1973, there’s an ur-diary—something before the diary that dropped the ’73 bomb on my young literary psyche.

I kid you not.

Sixth-grade class assignment: “Keep a daily journal. Design the cover yourself!” (Photo by StoryShed Media.)

Because that was a classroom assignment, it really didn’t grab me in the long run. I wrote for about a week, the teacher read and graded it, handed it back to me, and I just went on with my life.

But something deeper dug in. I had read an article when I was in Cub Scouts, and found it in the Boys’ Life magazine I’d kept…

Boys’ Life magazine, December 1972 (Photo by StoryShed Media).

THIS was the driver—the source of inspiration—for that first diary. Again, tying in science fiction to reality making: How to build your own time machine.

Cool. Where do I sign up?

And where might it all lead?

Toward a Self-Reflection Ecosystem

I stayed dutifully with the Page-A-Day diaries through 1973-74, then fully committed from 1976-1978—all my high school years. When I moved on to college, I felt embarrassed about the locked cover, page-a-day books and moved on to composition books and then discovered the chemistry notebooks in 1980. I loved the hard covers, the blue-ruled lines, the page numbering, and all the beautiful space to write and draw.

Autumn of 1978-winter 1979 was the transition year from diaries to journals. All handwritten. (Photo by StoryShed Media LLC.)

I was in Heaven.

For the 2023 journal, I’ve returned to handwriting by blue-black fountain pen ink, but it’s slow going. Outside of the typewritten 2018 addition, pasted in using either a glue stick or rubber cement, I’ll keep going. So you might be wondering some things.

Do I write every day? No. Are you crazy?

Do I regret not writing every day? Sometimes. Am I crazy?

Is there anything really worth reading in all those books? Wellllll, it might interest you more if you’re a subject mentioned in an entry, no? Like that time…and you said…and I said…but I wrote it down!

And that leads to interesting topics for next time:

• Who is the audience for a diary or journal?

• What is the author thinking (or not thinking), or saying and unintentionally revealing something deeper?

• What propelled me through 50 years of writing in journals? Are there common themes? Offshoots or deviations?

• Where did I play it safe and where did I risk putting myself out there?

After the past 10+ years writing (essentially retelling stories in the diaries and journals in the form of blog posts) to CITD, I learned there’s that self-revealing, self-reflection ecosystem that includes other formats—I might just as well assume that when that sixth-grade teacher suggested we design our own journal covers that event kickstarted my curiosity into line drawing, sketching, doodling, cross-hatching and whatever—cartoons, if you will. From that came the idea (and continued through college) that “things could look like other things and yet be different things,” so it became a trick I liked to play with myself: making a letter seem like a wristwatch or an encyclopedia read like a novel or a party invite seem like a papal bull or graduation certificate, or whatever.

In the end it’s made me a big fan of calendars—recording dates, months, or years, but not much for nostalgia or false recollections of the past.

Surprise—that’s the best remedy for mundane nostalgia.

Let your past surprise you. Trust me, it will.

And keep striving toward your future.

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As Conan O’Brien asks Paul McCartney in a recent interview: “What else do you have that you don’t know about,” the forthcoming posts in this series will be about each facet of the ecosystem: diaries, journals, calendars, and notebook detritus I’ve created.

I hope you’re as curious about them as I am.

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Thanks and gratitude, as always, to artist and architect Jo Petroni for her lovely images. They make me happy.