‘When people ask me how to keep a Diary, I refer them to Ira Progoff’s Intensive Journal [method]….One cannot help being amazed by what emerges from this skilled inner journey. All the elements we attribute to the poet, the artist, become available to everyone, to all levels of society.’
Anais Nin
How to start your diary
In ‘The New Diary’ Tristine recommends that you:
Begin with a self-portrait
Begin with a period
Begin with today
Each time I come back to this diary after an absence of weeks, months or years I approach it in one of these ways: I assess who I am, go over the previous period when I’ve been away from the diary, and count these musings as my first entry.
From Ira Progoff’s A Journal Workshop seven useful techniques for diary writing are offered:
1. List or Period Log
2. Portrait or Life History Log
3. Map of consciousness (Recapitulations and rememberings)
4. Stepping Stones/Scenes from our lives
5. Twilight Imagery Log
6. Altered point of view
7. Unsent letter
8. Dialogue Dimension
Amusingly, the author on From Ira Progoff’s this piece on Ira Progoff quotes a Diaryland diary. Not yours, not mine.
Some links to Ira Progoff
Self-understanding
The Writer’s Store
Leave a Reply