This is the week when diarists begin to skip entries, while the truly committed write ever onward.
There's something both comforting and compulsive about keeping a journal. One of my family members faithfully filled notebooks for 70 years, driven by a need to record details of his life, even though he never shared them.
Joel Hirschhorn understands that drive. The Academy Award-winning composer and best-selling author has kept a diary for more than 25 years.
After his recent move from Westlake Village to Agoura Hills, he joked that his diaries take up half the house he shares with wife, Jennifer Carter, his co-author on "Titanic Adventure: One Woman's True Life Voyage Down to the Legendary Ocean Liner."
Hirschhorn's diary serves as confidant, psychiatrist and, most of all, means of keeping millions of memories from vanishing, he said.
"When I look at them now, during moments of depression, the diaries offer reassurance by bringing back wonderful highlights of my past," he said.
"Sometimes, we all get a feeling our lives have blown by, that we haven't lived fully. Keeping a diary lets us know how vibrant and rich our lives have actually been."
He also finds the writing cathartic, allowing him to express his feelings honestly. As a teenager, he found it a way of analyzing his life and his problems. Later, diaries became a running soap opera, detailing every fight and reconciliation through his first marriage.
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When his memory blanks out on some less-than-flattering events, the diary nails them, he said.
From both a personal and professional perspective, creative writing teacher Claire Robey considers keeping a journal a valuable tool. The Oxnard resident encourages her students to use them to bring out their creativity, she said.
But she didn't keep a journal until after her husband's death, when support groups didn't help her get through her grief.
"Someone gave me Julia Cameron's book, 'The Artist's Way,' and it was the most helpful thing to get me through this awful time," Robey said.
"I wrote down all the bad things, the rotten things I was thinking--how angry I was at the world and at my husband for leaving me this way."
She went through the book twice, following all the writing exercises, and said it made all the difference.
