Why do we write, and for whom do we write? We write to record, to inform, to educate, to enlighten, to shock, to entertain. Webster’s dictionary defines “writer” as “one who writes, esp. as an occupation; author.” I would argue that “author” has come to be used as a euphemism for someone who can’t really write but somehow manages to get herself in print anyway because she has an interesting personal story to tell or useful ideas to share. But that’s another issue.

Some of us writers are content with keeping a diary or journal for our eyes only and would be mortified if anyone else ever peeked at what we wrote. Others write diaries with an eye to posterity. Anaís Nin falls into that category. This shamelessly self-absorbed high school dropout and groupie extraordinaire holds the record for writing voluminous diaries in which she name drops (she had a lot of names of drop), praises herself, discusses sex and her many lovers, and in general guarantees that she will never be forgotten. Her diaries (along with her erotica) were her entire oeuvre.

Contrast the narcissistic Nin, who made a career out of revealing her own life to the world, with the moody, insular, intellectual Virginia Woolf, who, as the last creative act of her life, filled her pockets with rocks and threw herself into the River Ouse. Woolf kept a personal diary from which her husband Leonard extrapolated portions that he deemed safe for public view after her death because they reflected her inner struggles as a writer of both fiction and nonfiction. He called it simply “A Writer’s Diary”.

Here’s what Woolf reveals about the writing process on November 10, 1936 that most of us can relate to: “On the whole it has gone better this morning. It’s true my brain is so tired of this job it aches after an hour or less. So I must dandle it, and gently immerse it. Yes, I think it’s good; in its very difficult way.” She’s referring to her last novel “The Years”. Woolf later compares writing it to “a long childbirth” (interestingly, she never had children). And she talks about “the certainty of failure”. It’s clear that embracing writing as a career can be, at times, a tedious grind, even for a genius like Virginia Woolf. In fact, it took her about six years to write the aptly titled “The Years”. Three weeks after the last entry in her diary, Woolf killed herself.

Another example of a writer who kept a journal that was published posthumously (with some portions yet to be published) and killed herself (by inserting her head in a gas oven) is the poet Sylvia Plath. Which may be a cautionary tale about revealing too much of oneself to oneself, if you don’t happen to have the natural optimism of an Anaís Nin.

The autobiography and the memoir are the polished cousins of the basic stream-of-consciousness diary. Autobiographies are a lengthier, more scholarly and pretentious form of memoir, in my view. In the 21st century, memoirs, which generally deal with smaller pieces of a life, have flooded the publishing market, I think because all they require is a decent story to grip the reader and a skilled editor to help you get it down. Or, alternatively, a boring story written in such beautiful prose that the reader doesn’t notice the lack of real substance. Memoirs are a good choice for writers who feel most comfortable writing about themselves rather than making up stories about other people. And, of course, if you plan to write a memoir, it’s useful to have a diary you can refer to.

Lastly, my admittedly subjective, short list of books on writing (there are thousands):

A Writer’s Diary (Virginia Woolf)
A Room of One’s Own (Virginia Woolf)
Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life (Natalie Goldberg)
Writing Down the Bones (Natalie Goldberg)
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (Stephen King)
On Writing Well (William Zinsser)
If You Want to Write (Brenda Ueland)
Why I Write: Thoughts on the Craft of Fiction (Will Blythe, editor)
Elements of the Writing Craft (Robert Olmstead)
Writing the Natural Way (Gabriele Lusser Rico)