Ongoingness

Ongoingness: The End of a Diary
First edition
AuthorSarah Manguso
LanguageEnglish
SubjectReflection on journaling
GenreMemoir
Published2015
PublisherGraywolf Press
Publication date
March 3, 2015
Publication placeUnited States
Pages144
ISBN978-1-55597-703-0

Ongoingness: The End of a Diary is a 2015 book by Sarah Manguso. 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 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, she now uses the present tense.