Dear Diary

I was never a "dear diary" kind of kid. I once thought that girls who wrote in diaries were either stupid if they thought a cheap little brass lock could really keep their mothers away from their secrets, or that they were hoping someone would read what they wrote between the flowery pink covers. In the first place, nothing would keep my mom from reading my innermost thoughts, if she found them written down "in plain sight," (i.e., under my bed in a shoebox marked PRIVATE). In the second, what's the point of writing in a diary if you hope someone will read it? You couldn't be honest, not totally honest. So, I never really got into diaries, though I did try to have a notebook like my hero Harriet M. Welsh from Harriet the Spy. All that honesty backfired on Harriet, and I lost interest in writing half-truths.

Then I discovered the most famous diarist in literature, Anne Frank. When I was twelve years old I read her diary for the first time, like many twelve-year-olds. I read it in the mouldy bedroom of the one-bedroom apartment I shared with my mom . Her beautiful words made me feel rich. When I was in my late twenties I visited Anne's room in Amsterdam. I actually stood in front of The Diary and I swear I couldn't breathe. My mind took in every detail: The red checkered cover, the slant of Anne's adolescent girly writing, the picture of her and her sister Margot at the beach pasted to the page. I think that Anne began writing in her diary with the same vain illusions with which lots of little girls write in theirs, and hoped subconsciously that someone might read it and know she was special. Later I think she wrote in it with the hope that someone would just know that she lived. Now the world knows that she lived and that she was incredibly special. Funny how things turn out.

When I first heard about blogs I thought they were just glorified diaries, or worse, a forum for the opinionated to blab about their views on everything (I'll admit that appealed to me somewhat). I still think they can often be both. I do understand the cathartic benefits of writing--if I didn't, I probably wouldn't be a writer. The wonderful thing about writing fiction is that you get to be as honest as you want about everything (you HAVE to be honest to be good, in my opinion, but more on that in another post) and you get to channel all that honesty through made-up characters! Brilliant. This blog, on the other hand, will be just me. Typos, grammatical errors, contradictions and all.

I want this blog to be a springboard for me every morning (or every other)--the all-important "warm up" that will prepare me for the mental workout of writing for real. I plan to share my thoughts about being a mommy and being a writer, because I can't have a blog about one without writing about the other. Being a mommy makes me a better writer, and when I'm writing I'm a better mommy.

So sneak into my room, search through my drawers and under my bed. Read my diary. I'll try to write like no one's watching.

- Tiff