Question on Keeping a Journal

gem1122 · Mar 18, 2008

My current WIP is written in the form of a h.s. student's journal assignment for English class. He's reluctant to write at first, but he ends up liking it.

Anyway, it's been suggested that I try keeping the journal, but dropping the fact that it's for school. One reader said, "Some teenage boys keep a journal -- not many, but it's not out of the question."

Here's my question: Is this true for teenage males? I'm male, and I kept a quasi-notebook/journal in high school, but it wasn't until I was assigned a journal (as a college freshman) that I really started writing in one regularly. And I know of no one else who has. That doesn't mean they don't, but I kind of doubt many of them do (which is why I added the 'assignment' aspect of it). And my narrator doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would keep a journal on his own. Maybe, but it would be a stretch, unless I did some rewriting to his character.

Males, did you keep a journal as a teen?
Females, did you or do you know any males who kept a journal as a teen?

Thanks everyone.

DWSTXS · Mar 18, 2008

If you did it, it probably means that another 100,000 teens did it too. Males included. They just may not admit to it.

gem1122 · Mar 18, 2008

DWSTXS said:
If you did it, it probably means that another 100,000 teens did it too. Males included. They just may not admit to it.

That's a good point.

Dale Emery · Mar 18, 2008

gem1122 said:
Males, did you keep a journal as a teen?

I was just out of my teens when I started. 20 or 21 years old.

Isaac Asimov, early in his autobiography In Memory Yet Green, mentions that in order to write about his life he had to reread the journals that he had kept for years. Asimov was my hero at the time -- I owned about 100 of his books and had read more than half of them -- so I decided that I ought to start a journal, too.

I kept a diary for a day or so when I was 11 or 12. My mother read it and made fun of something embarrassing I'd written, and that was the end of that.

Dale

Valona · Mar 19, 2008

I write a journal entry sporadically. I didn't start, however, until I was much older than a high schooler.

I have a son, however, who has written a detailed daily journal since grade school. But, realistically, I don't think most boys do this. The number would probably be less than 1% IMO.

Velma deSelby Bowen · Mar 19, 2008

I've known a number of teenage boys who kept journals. They tended to spend more time hiding them or disguising them as art books or something else, something more "male," than the girls did.

Arisa81 · Mar 27, 2008

Yes, I knew at least one teenage male who kept a journal. And from looking at the other's answers, I'd say it's not uncommon at all.

Question on Keeping a Journal

gem1122

We can pickle that

DWSTXS

Mr Mojo Risin...

gem1122

We can pickle that

Dale Emery

is way off topic

Valona

Velma deSelby Bowen

I miss the mountains....

Arisa81