Keeping a Journal

When I began making a living as a journalist, my father [John Cheever] often suggested that if something disturbed me, I might try writing about it. Keeping a journal helped him a great deal, he said. Putting experience down on paper made it seem less chaotic, less depressing, more sympathetic. "I write to make sense of my life," he used to say.

Susan Cheever, Home Before Dark, 1984