The Diary Collaboration lives again, and this time enquiring minds want to know the following:
Is there anything that you intentionally omit from your journal?
Too right. There are lots of things I intentionally omit from my journal. You, the general public, might like to know the salacious details of my sex life, the arcane interrelationships of my social group, and my take on how incredibly imbecilic I think Journal X is, but frankly, you don't pay me enough to get that information. I wouldn't dream of putting my every thought and experience online, and I happen to believe it's not okay for me to detail other people's lives as though they were characters in my novel instead of private individuals who didn't ask to be part of an online diary.
Why? Don't want to look at the pimples and warts? Rather take some secrets silently to the grave?
Let me clarify. Aries Moon is not a diary per se although I do occasionally dash off some short, quick, catch-up-with-my-life entries. What I am doing with it is writing numerous short essays, and casting forth memories which I find worthy of examination. I am exercising my skills, honing my craft, teaching myself how to write by writing. Generally speaking, I'm not interested in sharing my bad times, my daily mood swings, or my petty annoyances unless I can make art out of them. I'm providing entertainment, and I choose to do so by presenting selections instead of a buffet.
I've kept real diaries in the past, the kind where everything gets recorded in excrutiating detail, and they've been wonderfully helpful in releasing stress. Diaries are the next best thing to therapy as far as I'm concerned. That doesn't mean I want to keep one online for public consumption. I know a lot of people go for that style. I don't. Sometimes I admire journal-keepers who are willing to expose themselves that much but mainly I wonder why they allow total access to utter strangers. I believe I understand the lure of the confessional journal, but my hard-earned cynicism and strangely obdurate sense of privacy keeps me from giving too much away.
I'm also uninterested in critiquing other diarists, either overtly or obliquely. I don't think it's up to me to keep everyone in order. If someone's a crappy writer I'll stop reading them. If someone's taste in graphics strikes me as truly appalling, I'll stop reading them. If someone starts a great diary, stops writing it, starts a new diary that's not as good for whatever reason, I'll... well, you perceive the trend. I just don't have the time or energy to flap my mouth off about everyone who displeases me, and you know what? I don't really care to read other people who think they're clever and smart when they shred someone else's prose just because they can. Genuinely good critiques are hard to find. I appreciate anyone who takes the time to explain what they like and why because it's hard to do.
There is one very positive aspect of having rules, and being very controlled over how I present myself online. When I break the rules, it has a strong impact.
Do you write to please an internal editor?
Certainly. Good writers edit themselves, and thank god for that. Without it there'd be nothing but streams of consciousness, reams of overwrought emotional spewing or tediously factual reporting of the day's events, and conspicuous copying of (sorry, homages to) published authors. There's always the danger of over-editing and never actually getting anything written; this mostly seems to affect those who don't actually have much to say but nonetheless hope everything they do write will be pearls of wisdom, gems of wit, and deeply, deeply meaningful.
How honest are you?
I am always honest. However, I am not always fair.
Want see the rest of the collaborators' answers? Head over here.
