Background to my retro daily life entries
These are entries from my old journals, beginning in 1974, when I was eleven years old. The main reason I kept journals so assiduously throughout my pre-teens and teens is that Jacqueline Jackson had recommended them in her book Turn Not Pale, Beloved Snail: A Book About Writing Among Other Things as a good tool for writers. Turn Not Pale, Beloved Snail was my writers' bible for many years (and remains my favorite book on authorship).
I'm abridging the journal entries, and although some of the names I mention are real, I've changed names where it's necessary to protect the privacy of individuals. I've corrected the few spelling errors I made. The journals sometimes include autobiographical snippets, which I tended to draft in third person; I find that practice unbearably cutesy now, so I've changed those passages to first person. My present-day clarifications are in brackets; my present-day commentary is in brackets, italicized.
I'm also providing snippets of the stories I was working on at the time I wrote in my journals, because they give a sense of how I was progressing as a writer. Some of these stories were actually drafted in my journals (usually because I was writing the stories in school, when I should have been doing classwork). In other cases, the stories were written down elsewhere.
I don't suppose I need to say this, but the journal entries represent my views of myself and my world then. To a large extent, my childhood perspectives were influenced by the people around me and the books I read. That's why you can see my perspectives changing as time went on, as I was exposed to new ideas.
However, there's a fair amount of continuity between the perspectives in my earliest journal entries and my perspectives today, for two reasons: By age eleven, reading and writing had become central activities in my life (as they remain today), and I ended up sharing most of the values that my parents held. Certainly my basic personality hasn't changed since childhood, though I'd like to think that my character has improved.
HOW THE JOURNALS AND STORIES WERE WRITTEN DOWN
Until 1992, my journals were handwritten in spiral notebooks, bound notebooks, and, in two early cases, locked diaries. My story drafts were also handwritten, usually in fat spiral notebooks. I usually wrote in pencil so that I could easily make changes to what I'd written. Beginning in 1992, my journal entries and story drafts were typewritten on a computer.
The reason I mention all this is to emphasize that, as time went on, my journal entries became increasingly polished, because I tended to go back and rewrite them stylistically. I'm better at stylistic editing than content editing, so I rarely changed the actual contents of my journal entries.
My first online journal entries (which were intended only for close friends) didn't occur until 2003, well after I'd begun posting articles and stories online. Virtually none of my offline journal entries and early stories have been seen by anyone besides myself until now.
I'm abridging the journal entries, and although some of the names I mention are real, I've changed names where it's necessary to protect the privacy of individuals. I've corrected the few spelling errors I made. The journals sometimes include autobiographical snippets, which I tended to draft in third person; I find that practice unbearably cutesy now, so I've changed those passages to first person. My present-day clarifications are in brackets; my present-day commentary is in brackets, italicized.
I'm also providing snippets of the stories I was working on at the time I wrote in my journals, because they give a sense of how I was progressing as a writer. Some of these stories were actually drafted in my journals (usually because I was writing the stories in school, when I should have been doing classwork). In other cases, the stories were written down elsewhere.
I don't suppose I need to say this, but the journal entries represent my views of myself and my world then. To a large extent, my childhood perspectives were influenced by the people around me and the books I read. That's why you can see my perspectives changing as time went on, as I was exposed to new ideas.
However, there's a fair amount of continuity between the perspectives in my earliest journal entries and my perspectives today, for two reasons: By age eleven, reading and writing had become central activities in my life (as they remain today), and I ended up sharing most of the values that my parents held. Certainly my basic personality hasn't changed since childhood, though I'd like to think that my character has improved.
HOW THE JOURNALS AND STORIES WERE WRITTEN DOWN
Until 1992, my journals were handwritten in spiral notebooks, bound notebooks, and, in two early cases, locked diaries. My story drafts were also handwritten, usually in fat spiral notebooks. I usually wrote in pencil so that I could easily make changes to what I'd written. Beginning in 1992, my journal entries and story drafts were typewritten on a computer.
The reason I mention all this is to emphasize that, as time went on, my journal entries became increasingly polished, because I tended to go back and rewrite them stylistically. I'm better at stylistic editing than content editing, so I rarely changed the actual contents of my journal entries.
My first online journal entries (which were intended only for close friends) didn't occur until 2003, well after I'd begun posting articles and stories online. Virtually none of my offline journal entries and early stories have been seen by anyone besides myself until now.
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