Predictably, as I first started the summer before sixth grade, I wrote about my summer vacation – the out-of-town trips I went to, the summer job I took in my uncle’s restaurant, and even the food I ate for breakfast.
When school started, I wrote about my classes, the girls I hung out with, and the boys I had a crush on.
— But mostly the boys I had a crush on
Though I cannot say I am proud of my 12-year-old diary entries, I wish I had it in me to write about my day as spontaneously and as thoroughly as I once did.
Maybe life was simpler back then, but I could write an exhaustive entry of my day every day without fail.
That was more than 10 years ago.
Today I scrutinize even the shortest Facebook timeline post.
A single blog entry could take days to publish, if it makes it past the creative brainstorm at all.
I am my own greatest writing critic.
And surprisingly, I am not alone in my ordeal.
Now I don’t have the statistical figures, but there must be enough of us aspiring writers in a fix, so that somebody out there came up with the idea of a Q&A Journal.
Potter Style’s “Q&A a day” is a 5-year journal.
Image from http://www.alwaysalice.co.uk/2015/08/a-q-day.html
It poses 1 question for every 365 days of a year and leaves you enough space for your answers for the next 5 years.
It’s pretty straight forward, but I have added an extra rule for myself just to keep my answers as authentic as possible: No cheating.
I do not read the questions ahead, so that I cannot mentally prepare for a “cool” answer, thereby lying to my future self that between ages 24-29, I was the coolest human being alive.
Excuses excuses!
The downside is that, given just one question and a handful of lines per day, I am limited to writing about one thing only.
For example, on the 2nd of September, my question was “Is your home/apartment clean?”
So I was only able to write about that, instead of what I really wanted to write about which was going to the beach for the first time with Adam.
On the other hand, most of my days are the usual home-work-home routine, so a detailed entry of my day would be completely unnecessary.
Even I wouldn’t want to read about my mundane weekdays, and that defeats the whole purpose.
Ultimately, I want to write journals again for one person only.
At 24, my teenage rock star dream remains the same: To be a published writer.
Taking baby steps means writing every day, even just 4 lines a day for the next 5 years.
