"Dear Diary ..."

Traditional diary keeping - with pen and notebook - has apparently declined dramatically in recent years with so many people choosing to record the events, thoughts and feelings they would previously have consigned to paper by electronic means instead. And sometimes, over the past thirty odd years, I've wondered why I've been faithfully recording so ordinary a life in some detail several times a week anyway. But this week, as I've been immersed in a mammoth sort out and clear up of things, I've been really glad that I did scribble down the minutiae of that life - in retrospect it makes fascinating reading!

But it's not just been a nostalgia trip, leafing through those pages. Obviously from the point of view of writing memoir it's invaluable to have contemporary documentation, rather than having to rely on memories which are so easily distorted by the passage of time. But all sorts of ideas have been sparked off for fiction and poetry too - for example, for a short story set in the 1980s the references to events and personalities in the news, comments made about the political situation (unrepeatable opinions voiced concerning a certain Prime Minister!) ... there's plenty there from which to create an authentic background. And people have been resurrected from those pages, people to whom I've not given much thought in a long time but who may well form the basis of forthcoming characters. It's made me think too about using a diary format for a fictional piece I have in mind, and renewed my interest in writing up several long-distance walks I've done (all duly recorded and photographed). So there's more than enough to get the year underway!