What to write in a diary when you don't know what to write

"Nothing happened today" is information about the day, not the absence of it. The block is almost always the same: waiting for a day worthy of a diary.

And it's the ordinary days that pay off most a few years out. You'll remember the extraordinary one on your own; the Tuesday in September you won't, and it's that one that rebuilds what your life was like back then.

Questions that always have an answer

• Who did you talk to today, even briefly?
• What annoyed you, however small?
• What did you eat, and with whom?
• What was the first thing you thought about when you woke up?
• What did you put off again?
• What made you laugh?
• What did you stare at on your phone for longer than you wanted?
• Did anyone say something that stuck with you?
• What are you waiting for this week?
• What has changed since last month without you noticing?
• If today were a note to yourself a year from now, what would it say?

Start with the last thing that happened

When no question helps, describe the last ten minutes: where you are, what you can hear, what you did before opening the diary. It's the dullest possible opening and it works nearly every time, three sentences in, you're talking about something else.

Don't write for the future

Writing while imagining a reader is what turns a diary into an essay. Nobody is going to read it. Write it ugly, write it repetitive, write the gossip, that's what will be good to re-read.