Keeping a diary today is all the more interesting if you can illustrate it yourself, and you can. It is not necessary to have an expensive camera to do it, either. Photographs always help, of course; they liven up the story and recall to you details of experiences that would ordinarily be forgotten. But if you are not lucky enough to own a camera, even a little cheap one, and if you have no artistic talent to speak of, you can still make your diary more interesting by drawing little stick sketches on the margins or in the text to illustrate what you are trying to tell.

Drawing stick sketches is an easy matter. Anyone can do it. After a little practice you can get considerable expression into your figures. For example, see the figures on the page opposite and in other places here and there in this book and note how-easy it is to show the various kinds of expression by curving the lines in the right way. Try some of these figures and see how well you can draw them with a little practice.

Did You Ever Consider This? Here we are living in a world that seems all planned. Things go along in perhaps a humdrum way. We sleep. We eat. We work. We play. Things happen to make us sad or glad, worried or gay. How can we escape this monotony? Easily! All of us have been given a very fine gift - our mind is a stage. We need not be bored at all, if we know that, at will, we can have a splendid performance to amuse us. You don't even need to close your eyes to do this bit of magic. You can put on any drama you please and change it into a comedy at will.

Think of all the elaborate rehearsals you have already had and how great an actor you were in the parts you chose to play. Any deed, no matter how great! Any plot, in any setting! How were you so well able to take the different parts? It's because you are a person who notices things, who has eyes, ears, and all the senses trained to observe the things about you. While looking at a baby, a sailor, a policeman, you have been collecting the most outstanding characteristics of each and finding words in that great mountain of ready-made ones to describe your feelings. You have noticed how each person walks, talks, holds an object, uses his hands. And you have no doubt played games in which you have successfully imitated various people. You have unconsciously come to know when a child is impudent, lovable, smart, cheerful, unselfish, and how to portray each type. In your hours around the campfire or your quiet times at home you have pantomimed the weary hiker, the street cleaner, a person caught in the rain, someone combing his hair, and so forth. It has been grand fun but did you ever try to put it in writing?

Some Interesting Things To Do

1. Write a rhymed letter to a friend telling of a few amusing incidents. Illustrate it yourself or use pictures cut from magazines. Read it to the class before you send it.

2. Which of the two books mentioned on page 478 have you read to date? After "tasting" the sample, which one sounds best? Does your library have copies of it?

3. Start a class "round robin." It may take a week or so to have people jot things down during their spare time, but you'll enjoy it as it comes down the home stretch with each one's notes added.

4. Save the best letters you get from now on. File them in a box or paste them in their envelopes right into a scrapbook, so that you can remove the sheets at will.

5. Make models of letters for all occasions - friendly, business, condolence, etc. They will serve as an up-to-date guide for your correspondence of the future.

6. If you haven't already started a diary, start now on the type you enjoy. Keep it for at least a month.

Helpful References

Bowman, J. C, The Adventures of Paul Myers, E., The Social Letter. Bunyan. Webster, J., Daddy Long Legs.

Books Of Famous Letters

Center and Saul, Books of Letters for Young People. Cheney, E. D., Louisa May Alcott: Her Life, Letters and Journals. Collingwood, S. D., The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll. Colson and Chittenden, Children's Letters. (Letters to children by famous persons.) Epler, P. H., The Life of Clara Barton.

Franklin, B., Autobiography. Harlow, A. F., Old Post Bags. Hewins, C. M., A Travelers Letters to Boys and Girls. McEvoy, J. P., Father Meets Son. Overton, J., The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls. Roosevelt, T., Letters to His Children. Stewart, E. P., Letters of a Woman Homesteader.

Art Helps

Best Maugard, A., Simplified Human Figure. Blake, V., Way to Sketch. Doust, L. A., How to Sketch from Life. Foster, W. R. M., Fun-Sketching. Geen, E., Pencil Sketching. Guptill, A. L., Sketching and Rendering in Pencil.

Smith, H. K., Blackboard Story-Telling. Lutz, E. G., Practical Drawing. Lutz, E. G., Practical Graphic Figures. Oehler, B. O., Figure Sketching. Patten, M., The Arts Workshop of Rural America. School Arts Magazine.

Famous Diaries

The Diary of Philip Hone. Theodore Roosevelt's Diaries of Boyhood The Diary of Selma Lagerldf. and Youth.

Diary and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys.

Try Your Hand at Jotting Down Your Interpretations.