Читать книгу The Blog & the Journal - Writing About You - - Cecilia Jr. Tanner - Страница 9

You may not have the freedom to express yourself in your life, but you do have freedom of expression in your personal journal where you are free from the constraints of rules, free from the need to complete the work, and free from the judgment of insensitive critics.

Most of us have our sensitivities so closely entwined with our personal expression, that to have anyone even read our writing or look at our paintings, or taste our brie en croute is nearly unbearable. We desperately want others to think well of what we are trying to create; we want them to appreciate our efforts, to tread tenderly on the exposed expressions we have dared to bare to the scrutiny and possible derision of ungenerous people. (The blog writer has to be prepared for this criticism, however. And many Blog writers love the attention and the criticism.)

But in your private journal, you can satisfy your creative, artistic, confessional urges without the loss of dignity, self-esteem or ego, keeping their pride intact so that you can function proudly in the outer world.

When Edgar Degas, the 19^th Century artist, was asked why he didn’t marry, he replied,

“I would have been in mortal misery all my life for fear my wife might say, [about one of his paintings] ‘That’s a pretty little thing.’”

A journal ‘should be’ whatever it turns out to be. It can be a diatribe of blasphemy, cursing the devil, god, earth mother and/or your spouse for every rotten thing in your life, or it can be a hymn to the beauty of the flowers that bloom successively throughout the year such as that recorded in the Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady, with quoted poetry and short personal comments and color sketches of flowers in each season.

You can add sketches to your journal, ticket stubs, news clippings, photos, a sonnet to signal a new season in your life or write the whole book in undated point-form statements like a grocery list.

Harry Rasky, a Canadian film producer, who produced a film on Degas’ art, wrote that Degas was always trying to portray people caught in their own solitude. And this is what a journal does; provides the means for people to come to terms with their own solitude. There have been many journals published by Andy Warhol, George F. Kennan, the American diplomat who spent so many years in Moscow, John Steinbeck, the American novelist, and these journals are so fascinating because we get glimpses of very public people in their solitude, glimpses of the often surprising inner person who is normally masked by the social persona.

This is also the fascination with art. We look at great works of art, and then at the artist who produced them and we are astonished that this rather human mortal, much like ourselves, can have this remarkable talent to reveal so well what he/she sees when we can see the same subject without any of the beauty, insight, intelligence or originality of vision.

The journal writer uses words to try to fulfill the same need for expression that the artist and musician strive for.

Many people have been intimidated by poor teachers that they doubt their ability to write anything. But if you are angry enough at someone in the family, perhaps they have dyed your favorite shirt pink in the wash, you can find the words to express your indignation. We can all find the words. As long as someone isn’t saying, “You have to write this in this order or You must make the subject and verb agree”, you can write exactly what you feel, think, see, like, hate, love, need, and enjoy. That’s the beauty of a journal.

A journal should never be a chore, and it isn’t an arena where you must demonstrate precious literary pretensions or try to outdo Samuel Pepys, that 17^th Century tell-all diary writer (and he had lots to tell) or try to be Janier than Jane Austen. You can just relax the grip and let the thoughts flow. Like a trumpet player in his loft releasing the melancholy, expressing the anxiety of celebrating the joy of his day, you can use words to let your soul sing its song.

The practice keeps you in touch with your feelings, a valve releasing the steam whenever the pressure builds up.

There is no best-before age to write a journal. Sir Walter Scott started his journal at the age of 54, Mencken at 50, Charles Darwin at 25, Queen Victoria from the age of 13.