I’ve been reading David Sedaris’ diaries, Theft by Finding. Reading a writer’s diary is something of a guilty pleasure, like being invited into his apartment and rifling through the medicine chest, not that I would ever do that. Sedaris is so brilliant at the telling details that it isn’t surprising to find the diary filled with them, with hilarious dialogue, with life’s indignities and absurdities. What I find so moving in reading the entries is feeling how essential they were in the formation of the writer. Not just because they supply material — that’s the least of it. Every single diary entry no matter how ordinary or extraordinary reveals the Sedaris mind at work, like looking into the gears of a beautiful clock. You understand how writing is living.
Do you keep a diary?
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Betsy Lerner 
“Do you keep a diary?”
No. I did from ages 11 through 18. It was no great shakes as a piece of writing, though it did provide material I could use later, after I had learned how to write.
I keep meaning to…….
I stopped once I went from diary to deadline.