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Dear Diary

5th February 2018 by Helena 1 Comment  

I am reading, well listening to, The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. Part of the novel is told in diary form. The protagonist not only tells the story by means of her diary, but she goes back into her diaries to confirm facts or assess feelings she had at the time. I have also started to read Virginia Woolf’s diaries, which are a lot less confusing than her books.

The former Vanity Fair editor Tina Brown has just published her diaries, full of salacious gossip and fabulous descriptions such as this one of Jackie Onassis: “Her face is always slightly out of whack with her expression, as if they are two separate entities at work. She has perfected a fascinated stare.” A whole host of writers have kept a diary, including one of my all-time favourites, Evelyn Waugh.

There are two types of successful diaries; an interior monologue written by someone fascinating and amusing or, as in the Tina Brown example, meetings with famous people at glittering events we can only dream about being invited to. Very few people can combine the two, Alan Clark, the Tory MP, managed to. His diaries are among the best I have ever read.

With the bar set that high, I have always found the idea of keeping a diary faintly terrifying. When I was (a lot) younger I did. I still have it, unfortunately my teenage daughters unearthed it recently. It could have been entitled ‘Diary of the world’s most stupid person’ – literally page after page of unadulterated drivel. I’m sure there’s a quote from some film along the lines of ‘you’re never so stupid as when you’re talking about yourself’? Anyway, that was me.

But there are several upsides to a diary. For example, it would be a fabulous resource to go back over in times of need. All that material, all those things that happen every day that could inspire something. Or would they? Would I have anything interesting to say? How would I describe today for example?

“I woke up at 5.30am and had no idea where I was. Oh yes, I’m in France where it’s been raining solid for 24 hours. I had some awful nightmare Chelsea lost 4-1 at Watford. Oh wait, that wasn’t a nightmare…”

I guess though the point of a diary is that you wouldn’t, in the manner of a repressed Victorian lady, simply describe the events of the day, the letters you’d written or the weather, but it’s somewhere to write about things you don’t want to tell anyone. Perhaps that’s why Oscar Wilde said: “I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read on the train.” Although rather irritatingly he didn’t actually write one.

But I think rather than writing my own, I might just read other people’s…


Filed Under: Life, writing Tagged With: diary

One thought on Dear Diary

  • 3d mink lashes amazon says:
    20th July 2018 at 2:11 am

    Very interesting info!Perfect just what I was searching for!

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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi-based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor-in-chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She is working on a thriller set in Sweden as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

In 2022 her short story The Japanese Gardener came second in the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize. One of her stories was also shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize. When she’s not writing, she works as a headhunter for the media and entertainment industry for the Sucherman Group. 

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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