Sarah Dessen: I was always starting journals and
then losing interest in them after a few entries. I did love to write fiction, though,
even in high school when I was at my lowest academically (I was not the most stellar
student, then). The stuff I wrote, I realize now, was really depressing. Lots of bleak
descriptions, death, all that. I think everyone has a certain amount of that kind of
writing to get out, so I'm glad it did it then. I'm fascinated with web journals, though,
and I'm dying to start one but I worry I'd get totally caught up in it and never get
anything done. So I'm holding off. For now.
Garth Nix: I wrote stories and I designed
role-playing game scenarios but I never wrote a journal. Looking back some of the stories
were quite autobiographical, but they were always written and structured as stories.
Laurie Halse Anderson: Yes, I wrote incredibly bad
poetry, and whiny, self-indulgent journal entries. Everything has been burned, I am happy
to report.
Meg Cabot: I wrote constantly as a teen. And I
still have all the journals I kept, which are not as helpful now as you might think, since
all I ever wrote about was boys and how unfair I thought it was of my mother to make me
take typing. Plus my refusal to get braces, which I now regret.
Walter Dean Myers: I've been writing since grammar
school. I wrote poems at first, then graduated to short stories. I never kept a journal. I
wish I had.
Chris
Crutcher: I never journaled. I still don't. I didn't write much as a teenager.
