What’s the Point of a Diary If You’re Not Lying in It?
On Anaïs Nin, literary self-mythologizing, and why personal writing should always be slightly dishonest.
If you’re not lying in your diary, you’re just journaling, and journaling is for people who don’t know how to edit.
A diary is not a record of events; it is an act of creation. The best diarists know this instinctively. Anaïs Nin knew it better than anyone. Her diaries were not mere confessions but performances, half-lit mirrors where the truth shimmered, distorted but no less real.
Nin understood that life is not lived in a single register. Her diaries are a study in contradiction—one moment, she is in love; the next, repulsed. She is independent yet wholly consumed by those around her. But contradiction isn’t falsehood; it’s literature. She rewrote and edited her diaries, sculpting herself into the character she wanted to be. And is that really so dishonest?
People love to be outraged by the idea of a diary that is not entirely factual. But fact is not the same as truth. Diaries, at their best, are emotional truths, shaped by mood, by desire, by the need to impose a narrative on the chaos of daily life. Nin was not interested in being objective—she was interested in being immortal. She once wrote, “We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection.” But why stop at tasting? Why not rewrite, reshape, embellish? If we can curate the lives we present to others, why should we not do the same for the versions of ourselves we leave behind?
Nin herself was a master of this. She edited her diaries before publication, removing, refining, turning herself into a protagonist. She blurred lines, shifted timelines, made herself more alluring. She called it shaping reality. Others call it lying. The truth, of course, is that all personal writing is selective. Even in confession, there is curation.
The danger, of course, is that history will take the performance at face value. That the diary, once private, will harden into biography. But this, too, is a kind of truth. A diary is not a static object. It lives, it breathes, it deceives, but always in service of something larger than the mundane details of existence.
But also…if someone is writing a diary…they can write it however they like without feeling like they’re not doing it right. The fun of personal writing is to be free in what you write. Lie if you want, but the first comment about journaling felt a little too targeted at people simply living. I write a diary to remember, not to embellish and create memories that didn’t happen.
Diaries expected to be published: sure, do what you want to get as many eyes on your work as possible.
Diaries to be kept private: embellish if you like, but don’t feel as if you have to in order to be creative. You can write a diary creatively without lying. Do what YOU want to do, not what other people think you SHOULD do.
No hate to this post itself, it was beautifully written, but simply this is what came into my head as I read it! I might have COMPLETELY missed the mark too which if so, please feel free to tell me and I’ll happily delete my criticism haha. All the best xx
Loved this endlessly