Not really. I know many great male writers who keep diaries and their life journey as a record of their life for the next generation.
Uh, but if you read Jeff Kinney's Diary of Wimpy Kid, it was told that Greg Heffley had actually asked his mother not to buy a book that had a diary written on the cover. Because he will not write a diary, but JOURNAL.
It turned out that this boy was embarrassed if his friends caught him writing diaries. So he called it a journal.
Almost all famous writers have the habit of keeping a daily journal.
Ahmad Fuadi once mentioned that if the journals were stacked it could be 1 meter high. Agustinus Wibowo, author of the travel book Titik Nol, said that he re-copied all of his handwritten journals in electronic files. Real intention, huh!
After having lost my enthusiasm for writing a diary because it was read by other people, I began to pour my heart into a diary since I was separated from my parents. In 2018, I was boarding alone in Bandung. There I started writing my diary again.
Until now, his diary is still there. Duh, the contents are terrible if I open them up. How childish I was 25 years ago. I never wrote that I wanted to kill myself because I did poorly on campus. Strangely, the problem of my life at that time ...
Since the development of social media, diaries have become more open. There are no more diaries that are locked and make people feel frustrated because their contents are found.
Status on social media or stories on blogs is easily written by people so that many people can read. The more you read, the happier you have a diary.
Now the diary is not just an outpouring of the heart that no one else should read, but it has added value such as revealing historical facts (Diary of Anne Frank) or for entertainment (Diary of Wimpy Kid, Raditya Dika's diary, pouring out hearts in My Stupid Boss).
Many diaries are intended for publication. In my opinion, there are conditions for a diary that you want to publish.
First, the writing is beneficial for the readers. It is not just a statement of alay by a million people without any solution that can be an inspiration.
Second, it has entertainment value that can arouse emotions in readers. Is it funny, sad, or even scary.
So yes, not all personal notes need to be published in book form either. This is if you really want the book to sell well and be read by many people, such as world-famous diaries.
hopefully useful .....