Commitment issues
Last week I did something that I hadn’t done since I was 12 years old: I started to write a diary. I don’t really know why I decided to start one. Perhaps my move to Copenhagen this year has given me more of an observational outlook on things.
The tapping on my computer at home is a far cry from the scribbles and crossings out in a scruffy little exercise book. And my thoughts today are certainly different to the undoubtedly enthralling revelations entitled ’What I did during my school holidays’.
The interesting thing I’ve noticed since starting my new journal, is how my writing has changed from the first entry to the most recent. The very first paragraphs are a little bit formal, the day’s activities are chronicled, and there’s not much humour. After just one week, I’m less careful around grammar, punctuation and spelling - and I’m more inclined to make fun of myself. But there’s a more natural flow to the text. Re-reading stuff from the past two days actually made me laugh out loud.
And then it occured to me: my ‘writing muscle’ had been out of shape. Of course, working for Eye for Image, you can’t avoid writing. As well as creating things from scratch, there’s editing client work and emails about this and that. But personal feelings? No way.
The hour or so spent just typing away each night has really helped me to get my thoughts out on screen. And the fact that they are not organised in neat little paragraphs with headings and bullet points didn’t matter one bit.
But has it helped me with my work? Well, when emailing clients and colleagues I no longer deliberate quite so much over which words to use, or think twice because what I’ve written is a bit ‘cheeky’. I no longer have the fear of revealing my personality through my written communication, even though it is in some way permanent. Quite often, instead of pressing the ‘delete’ button, I’ll just press ’send’.
So my advice to all writers out there sitting on their big fat writing muscles who might be going through a phase of being too frightened to commit words on screen: start a diary. It’ll help you express things in a way that might be refreshingly different!
Why not check out this impressive list of diarists for inspiration?
