• Forest for the Trees
  • THE FOREST FOR THE TREES is about writing, publishing and what makes writers tick. This blog is dedicated to the self loathing that afflicts most writers. A community of like-minded malcontents gather here. I post less frequently now, but hopefully with as much vitriol. Please join in! Gluttons for punishment can scroll through the archives.

    If I’ve learned one thing about writers, it’s this: we really are all alone. Thanks for reading. Love, Betsy

I Could Hold You For a Million Years

I just went into my daughter’s room and she was writing in a journal. Be still my heart.  I asked if she was writing wonderful things about me. No. Anything about me. No. She says she wants to get back to writing everyday. Join the club. Actually I do write every day, but I don’t want to gloat. Is there anyone more obnoxious than a person who loves to declare that she gets up at 5:30 am every day and writes until 10:30. Yes, I can go fuck myself.  

What’s in your diary?

10 Responses

  1. “What’s in your diary?”

    The ghosts that haunt me.

  2. Lately? My epitaph.

    No! The prickly looking orb hasn’t slithered under my doormat yet.
    But, I am of the age when one begins to assess the value of the choices I have made throughout my life.
    I am lucky more than lost.
    I want my family to know that.

    Back to editing. If not now…when.

  3. Thanks for starting my day with a good laugh. I don’t keep a diary, but I do remember a line from my diary when I was about 10 years old, the only line I remember (and can’t believe I’m telling this here, but hey):

    “I was reading about sex today and can’t wait till I mature!” (if I only knew then, haha)

  4. Glad you asked! Happy to share last week’s favorite journal entry:
    “This afternoon, a woman almost drove her car into the side of my SUV because she was distracted from her efforts to manipulate a cigarette past her surgical mask.” (and I claim first dibs to use this detail in a future bit of writing)

    Wishing everyone a good weekend!

  5. Haaa! I so laughed out loud at that.

    Not one thing is in my diary/journal b/c I don’t keep one – and I think the reason for that is, I have NO idea what to say to myself.

  6. I don‘t write a journal as that since I discovered Bullet Journailing – an entry in week 14: „quarantine time‘s over tomorrow night. I planned to read A LOT and meditate more often these days. What I really did: homeoffice – work takes longer because C. and I have to share the laptop computer, laundry, cook, phonecalls to all my relatives close by and far away.“

  7. I started one at age 13. First real kiss.
    Had a job as a carhop. Looked 16 years old. Dysfunctional family. Engaged at 17. He made me burn it in the street. Cried,stopped writing. Very abusive life. NOW I’m writing a memoir. Saved descriptive words on scraps of paper for years. Burning desire to write, someday. Hope to finish it this year. DJ

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