Beginnings, Endings and Disclaimers

I just filled up another journal notebook. This was volume 51. Volume 1 was begun when I was thirteen years old. So for those of you doing the math, that's 51 volumes in about 30 years, since I started around December of 1978 (when I got a blank book for xmas and decided that it should be a journal). The last 25 volumes were filled during the past ten years.

I don't know what it is, but I have this thing about beginnings and endings...they ought to be special somehow, they ought to be marked or noticed in some way. So whenever I begin a new volume of the journal, the first page always starts with a sort of where-I-am-now entry. When I finish a volume, the very last page is reserved for a summary, where I write about where I've been during that volume, whether there were any huge life-altering events, or whether I had any life-changing epiphanies. And then there is the little ceremony of naming the volume, and taping an index card on the front with the title, the dates, and the volume number written in permanent marker.

The last thing I do is tape my Standard Journal Disclaimer on the inside of the front cover...this is an open letter to anyone who might find the damn thing after I'm gone...I'm paranoid about my mother reading my journals and thinking she's raised a pervert...it's one of my Mortal Dreads, to borrow Harlan Ellison's words. Not that I have a bad relationship with my mother or anything...it's just one of those little things that keeps me up a night.

My Standard Journal Disclaimer goes like this:

Jazz's Standard Journal Disclaimer (version 1):
The following should be understood by anyone attempting to decipher the ramblings which lie herein.

1. This is not, strictly speaking, a diary. I always thought of it as a writer's notebook or a writer's journal. In these pages, the lines between truth and fiction often blur imperceptibly. Some entries are traditional diary entries; others are pure fiction. Many fall somewhere in between.

2. The writing is often cathartic. Entries are often emotionally charged. I write in the heat of anger/frustration/annoyance/(insert your own emotion). It's better than strangling someone. Or breaking something. And provides a wealth of raw material to be mined for my fiction later on.

3. It is practice. It is where I play with ideas and characters that may not be all bunnies and flowers. Things I need to work out or understand. So if it seems, for a while, that I'm obsessed with something unsavory, well, it's probably because it's part of an idea for a story or character. I have these thoughts on paper so that they can be mined later. You who don't write don't need such devices. But I do. I can't possibly remember every scene that's ever played through my head, can I, now? Especially when the movie never stops.

4. I never asked anyone to read this stuff, so I make no apologies for what you might find here. Remember only that living and personal growth are dynamic processes, and the best you can hope to glean from these pages is a snapshot of my thoughts, my process, at any given moment. The journal speaks of who I have been, not necessarily who I am.

5. If you're reading this, I'm probably dead.
I wrote this for me. Not you.
You hold my soul in your hands.
Come into my garden and play for a while…
Happy Hunting…

Writing Prompt: If you keep a traditional paper-and-pen journal, chances are that unless you've left explicit "Chuck it All in the Bonfire" instructions to be carried out by someone you trust implicitly, someone is going to get their hands on it after you're gone. What would you want that person to know before they read it?