Garbage, or why I don’t keep a diary

I was reading an interview with graphic designer Tom Muller on the Behance network’s 99%, and when asked about his creative development process, he said:

“I have a Sticky on my desktop which lists the To Do projects in a chronological order (first in – first out), and heaps of random notes in a variety of sketchbooks. I’m usually working on several projects at any given time and it all kind of blends together. If I get stuck on one thing, I’ll switch to the next and so forth… I never throw anything away. I have a stack of old sketchbooks and files on my computer of designs that for some reason never saw the light of day, but they provide a good (self) referential library of ideas. It’s not necessarily about recycling old stuff, but they provide a good jumping off point in some cases. I switch back and forth between commercial/commissioned work and self-initiated work. Both inform each other, and many times I have found ideas for commercial work in my personal work, and vice-versa.”

It was the ‘I never throw anything away’ that interested me. I know a lot of creative types work that way, and I think even I do, to an extent, especially if we are talking about visual, material things that inspire me. I’ll tuck away a square inch of paper because I’m sure one day it will be just what I need. But when it comes to writing I really do not like to be an indiscriminate pack rat. Side note: Pack Rats are an actual genus of rat. I never thought the term was scientific.

So, starting circa 1996 (6th grade for me) I started to write a diary. By the end of High School it was something I did daily, if not several times throughout the day, and I had filled a dozen journals with everything from who I ate lunch with to reaction to Columbine and 9/11. College was a swift departure from daily writing, though I do recall writing lots of poems whilst listening to econ lectures (poetically reflecting my grade…). It seems like when I was young I used writing to process situations that are now quite easy for me to deal with. I still find myself compelled to write when I am trying to get to the core of some life conundrum, and I still find it useful, but I am not often driven to that end, and when I am it is brief.

I kept those diaries for years, but a while back I began to purge diaries. Usually it happened when I was doing some major cleaning or moving. I’d think “Nope. Don’t need that bunch of drivel,” and I’d toss it. Eventually I threw away all of them. I used to think they’d be great for my children to read until I realized that the things I though as a child are not the things I want to give my children unfiltered, though I think the process improved my ability to remember. In short, I grew out of the attitudes and beliefs. But also, I was a terrible writer. Nothing I wrote to myself was meant to be read or was worth reading again.

I don’t write a lot of poetry. I used to, but I’ve made a deal with myself that I have to write something long and finish it before I can write any more poems. In the process of getting new laptops, I did a similar letting of old poems. Some were really quite terrible. Some I spent some time with and, after an epic hiatus from them all, it was easier to do the right thing. Certainly at the time I was like “THAT is amazing! That is the best bunch of words ever!” but with enough time I forgot they were mine; I forgot any emotions I had applied to them, I forgot how painstakingly I’d scribbled them and I could cut out anything that now, years later, did not strike me as awesome.

I have also read that when writing stories, a good way to begin editing is to cut the first 3 pages from a novel or 3 paragraphs from a short story: you’ve had time to get your thing going and get into the substance. The first 3 pages are often a structure for the writer but not for the reader. In longer writing, too, I like to delete things that don’t work. Maybe I will throw them in another document or at the end if I really like it but am not sure where it fits yet, but getting to the point where you are certain enough of what you want to say, and how you want it to come about to just slash entire pages is, I think, a great arrival.

I don’t see any point in holding on to words that don’t work, even if there are a lot of them. Of course a good passage could be pruned into another project, even if it doesn’t work in its birthplace. But it is good to throw things out.