Blogs and journals, books of one's own

I have kept personal journals, on and off since I was in my twenties, and I have most of what I have written in various formats, never reread it all though I'd like to. This blog is going to be an expansion of those journals, the parts I am willing to have other people read and that I am willing to put enough effort into grammar and spelling that they are fit to read, maybe not interesting.


Personal journals vary as much as people do, Thomas Mallon's collection of journals, A Book Of Ones Own divides them into 6 categories and is an excellent guide to how and why people keep journals. He keeps a journal himself. His father is a good example of an unwritten journal:

"My father never kept a diary, but he never threw away a canceled cheque either. When he died a few years ago I came across thousands of them in perfect order in a series of shoeboxes. Amidst stacks of others that took the family from the children's milk through his own bifocals, I found the one that paid the doctor who delivered me. My father knew they didn't audit you for 1951 in 1980: he kept those checks for another reason."

Page XV, introduction

A book of one's own, people and their diaries

Thomas Mallon

This book came out in 1984 and without going though all my handwritten books I don't know when I read it. Now I use a differnt format for my journals,  a computer program called The Journal http://www.davidrm.com/thejournal/ I highly recommend it.  There is a one month trial, and then a 50.00 or so charge, buy a flash drive and install the program and your files on it, another level of security and you can carry it with you and use the calendar.  I like the word processor better than Microsoft Word.