The Meta Journal Workshop

Finding creative inspiration in your past diaries and journals

Photo by Fa Barboza on Unsplash

I wrote about my childhood diary a few weeks ago and it got me thinking about how I could use my extensive collection of diaries, journals, and personal ephemera as inspiration in my life, art, and writing.

For the next few months, I’ll be sharing writing prompts based on what I’ve mined from my old diaries. You can use these prompts to spur your own writing too. You don’t have to be writer, aspiring or otherwise, to use these prompts. They are useful on those days when you don’t know what you want to write in your diary or even as visual art inspiration.

Today, we’re going to use our old diaries to find characters to write about. So go pull out your old childhood or high school diary. If you don’t have yours (A number of you admitted to burning your past diaries!), you can pull out an old school yearbook or just sit a spell and conjure up a classmate, friend, or even a bully from your elementary or high school years.

Let’s begin.