Yet the same impulse connects them and a new generation of diary keepers the desire to make sense of life and leave a record of its passage. From today s perspective I realize how good it was that it ended. Every week, Kurland and about 20 other women gather in the Cambridge Center for Adult Education to discuss memoir writing. Also, today s journal is more likely to be reflections tapped into a computer rather than daily events scribbled in a leather-bound book. Others write for themselves.
People keep journals during life-threatening illnesses, midcareer changes or for therapy.
Traditional distinctions separating memoirs and journals are blurring. Memoir writing might be as much about the present as the past. Jaffe is amazed at the number of 20-somethings who want to write memoirs. I make discoveries when I m writing memoirs. Today, there are no rules or limits to keeping a journal.