''Ongoingness: The End of a Diary'' is a 2015 book by

Sarah Manguso Sarah Manguso (born 1974) is an American writer and poet. In 2007, she was awarded the Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize Fellowship in literature by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her memoir ''The Two Kinds of Decay'' (2008), was named an "Edit ...

. Manguso kept a journal for 25 years, producing an 800,000-word-long document. In ''Ongoingness'', she explores and reflects upon her reasons and motivations for journaling – her obsessive need to document every incident in her life because she was afraid she would forget the details later, and using journaling as a

coping mechanism Coping refers to conscious strategies used to reduce unpleasant emotions. Coping strategies can be cognitions or behaviours and can be individual or social. Theories of coping Hundreds of coping strategies have been proposed in an attempt to ...

for dealing with low-level

anxiety Anxiety is an emotion which is characterized by an unpleasant state of inner turmoil and includes feelings of dread over anticipated events. Anxiety is different than fear in that the former is defined as the anticipation of a future threat wh ...

. She also explores her change in writing style with time – her earlier entries were detailed; now they are brief; while she used to write in the past tense, she now uses the present tense.

References

* * * * {{cite news , last=Beck , first=Julie , date=February 27, 2015 , title=When Diary-Keeping Gets in the Way of Living , url=https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/02/when-diary-keeping-gets-in-the-way-of-living/386321/ , newspaper=

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

, location=

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, access-date=March 1, 2015 2015 non-fiction books American memoirs Graywolf Press books