Ongoingness

Ongoingness: The End of a Diary is a 2015 book by Sarah Manguso. Manguso kept a journal for 25 years, which culminated in 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 for dealing with low-level anxiety. 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 earlier, she now uses the present tense.