James Meek on the writing of journals
For much of my life I've kept a journal, writing at irregular intervals – sometimes every day, sometimes with gaps of months between entries. A journal lies somewhere between reporting and fiction. Like reporting, it is a record of things actually experienced. On the other hand, the journal-writer is free to voice opinions, to speculate about what others are thinking, to record his inner thoughts, and in that sense, it's more like a novel. But it differs from both in that it has no beginning, no middle and no end; the journalwriter isn't trying to impose a narrative on life.
It's surprising how little use the journal is as material for a novel. If I've written something down once, I'm reluctant to deform it by rewriting it to insert it into another, fictional text. It does help remind me of a mood. I sometimes wonder whether the journal adds to my memory, or erodes it by providing an alternative way of recording the past. I see that I recorded here how, when the wind blew, the Afghan men would take the corners of their scarves in their mouths. I put the same detail in We Are Now Beginning Our Descent, a fiction. But did I remember it, did I lift it from my journal, or had I forgotten the thing itself, and only remembered reading it in my journal at some point after it had happened?
