HomeTECHDecalogue for writing a confinement diary

Decalogue for writing a confinement diary

Connection with the written word make a confinement diary

Because? Well, first of all, because writing is highly therapeutic, and allows us (as we do with dreams when we sleep) to integrate and assimilate situations that our rational mind would otherwise block, for not wanting to face pain or suffering.

On the other hand, we tend to repress or ignore emotions that we do not like, which in the medium term causes innumerable problems (physical and psychological). Writing is a means to connect with what we feel (fear, anxiety, hopelessness, sadness…) and express it in a way in which we can turn the negative into positive (beauty, empathy, love, tenderness…).

Finally, we are living exceptional moments in the history of the human race, and leaving a record of what is happening to us these days (outside and inside) can be a very useful testimony for future generations, as they have been for us. the legacies of those who have gone through wars, genocides or various catastrophes.

Making a diary is deceptively easy: you write down what happened that day (or whatever seems most relevant to you) and that’s it. However, making a diary that really helps you assimilate what happened, turn the negative into positive and leave an interesting and authentic testimony is not so easy.

Decalogue for writing an effective and joyful journal:

That’s why I’m going to give you some tips that can help you do it in an effective and joyful way.

  1. Use concrete words:

    “Love”, “solidarity”, “light”, “think”, “sadness” or “anguish” are abstract words. “Mask”, “slippers”, “laces”, “hug”, “cat”, “blue” or “microwave” are specific words. They differ in that we cannot see, touch, smell, hear or feel the former, while the latter awaken some of our senses. Ghostwriter for memoir your diary primarily in concrete words. May the things you tell enter through the senses. Then, you will enter the world of experience, while if you use abstractions or reflections, you will remain on a mental or rational plane. If you stay in the abstract, what you will be doing is running away from what you are really experiencing, instead of bringing it to light.

  2. Narrate facts:

    In the same vein as the above,it narrates events, using the narrative coordinates of time, place and action. Something happens over a certain period of time in specific places. Don’t stay in the limbo of mental musings. Let things happen, let the characters (which are the people brought to the role, including you) move, talk, react, go to the bathroom, lie down on the couch, shit on everything. And it is through those actions that you will go to the essence of what you want to convey.

  3. Everything happens in one day:

    In a journal it is important to keep in mind that the day—every day—has a beginning and an end. each note is the final extract of each day. Each entry has the value, in itself, of being the reflection of a brief time, of certain vital situations, already past but still very recent, to which primary importance is attributed.

  4. Use a natural voice:

    Letthe way of narratingbe natural, and not supposedly literary. Use your own tone of voice, as if you were in a bar telling a friend what happened to you that day. Creative writing is closely related to the sense of hearing. The story comes to those who read as if it were being told in a low voice in their ear. And it is immediately noticeable whether the writer uses an artificial or authentic voice.

  1. Show emotionsExpress emotions through your voice and what happens:

Don’t try to express them directly (“I was very sad when I read the news”); fabricate them for the reader through concrete situations (“when I read that horrible headline, the sandwich I was eating choked on me”).

  1. Give personal details:

    Although you may feel shy aboutreflecting what happens in the intimate sphere of your family and your home, know that the more personal details you give, the more the reader will identify with you and the more universal the feelings you transmit will be. Nobody connects with an impersonal text. However, if we can witness the details of a person’s life, that immediately awakens our empathy.

  2. Identify the topic:

    Try toidentify what you want to convey beneath the factsyou narrate, and select said facts and actions based on that theme. If you want to convey the feeling of unreality in which your day has passed, you can choose the time to go shopping, for example, but it would not be necessary for you to tell us that you had a coffee with milk in the morning.

  3. Let a transformation happen:

    Try to ensure that what you tell has a narrative evolution and that it does not remain stagnant. Through the facts, what underlies the facts and the writing process itself, a transformation is taking place in you: let that happen, make way for your understanding of the human being and his processes.

  4. Use your imagination:

    Although you are going to base it on real events, it is also important that you use your inventiveness. To give meaning to what you say, you will have to use the colors of your palette in a certain way and not in another. You may exaggerate some things, or you may have to include some detail that did not happen in reality, or, not remembering a scene exactly, you may have to recreate it with your imagination. Be creative and allow yourself to do the write of The Tiny Tech: what matters is that the essence underlying what you are telling is authentic, and not that all the details fit what really happened.

  5. Give each entry a unit of meaning:

    Try togive a unitary meaning to each entry in your diary. If anyone reads what you have written about a specific day, they should be clear about what topic you are talking about, what the evolution of the situation is throughout that day and what conclusion can be drawn from it. That is, the beginning, middle and end structure (usually used for a story) would also be valid for each of the entries in a diary.

 

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