My diary collection is dwarfed by Sally MacNamara Ivey’s. She has read more than 10,000 unpublished diaries and spent 35 years collecting them. She keeps nearly 1,000 in her Washington State home.

This year, I resolved to write more regularly in a diary. My inspiration came from Anaïs Nin, my favorite writer and a prolific diarist who kept a daily journal from age 11 until her death at age 74.