On Helen Garner's diaries and writing for oneself
Cathy has written a really wonderful piece on Helen Garner’s diaries which you can read at the link here:
"It seems an almost universal symptom of diarists, especially women diarists, to feel, at some point, like frauds, impostors, people who will never amount to anything, who lifelessly trot out old themes because they have nothing new to say ... Only the process of rendering her experience into language seems to prompt the diarist to take herself, her life, her experience, and her written voice seriously—it certainly seems to have expanded H’s sense of identity."
Do check it out.