Portal to a Forgotten Land: Finding Your Character’s Voice In Old Diaries

I recently found an item that I assumed was lost to time: My “Snog Log.” Snogging , if you’re unfamiliar with the term, is British slang, common in the 90s, for making out. It’s apt for the type of kissing we do as teens, conjuring the wet slugs of tongues, the mouth wiped on the back of the sleeve. Snogging. It sounds like medieval torture. My Snog Log spans four years of my life, from my first kiss at 13 to 16, when I’m on my 83rd (if we trust in the Snog Log’s accuracy). Each boy (and one girl) is rated out of 10, at least, at the beginning. The kiss is dated and there’s a column for any “notes.” It is delightful, absurd, heartbreaking, an anthropological artifact of teen sexuality, or at least my own. #8. Gareth. 8/10. 21 yo!!! Town. #15. Adam. 7/10. Wandering hands. #45. Joe. Some London geezer TWAT. #60. Aden. Pierced tongue! What I exclude from the log is as interesting as what’s on the page. When I lose my virginity at 14 to an 18-year-old who I’ll never see again, I write: Shag etc. German. When an older friend of my sister’s climbs into my bed one night, I write: Scary—interesting. I returned to this ephemera not as a memoirist in search of past truths, but as a fiction writer trying to access the inner workings of a young girl’s mind. The snog log is tucked into the back of an old diary. I was a compulsive archivist as a child. I kept notes passed in school, every birthday card I was ever sent, numbers scribbled on napkins from boys I’ve long ago forgotten. And I wrote diaries, starting from as soon as I could hold a pencil. While these are for the most part a litany of boy crushes and girl cruelties, they do offer my adult self material. I returned to this ephemera not as a memoirist in search of past truths, but as a fiction writer trying to access the inner workings of a young girl’s mind. My debut […]

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