August 9th, 2015

Dear Diary,

Hello! My brother says that if I want to be a writer when I grow up I need to write alot of the time. So I'm gonna write everyday. This is my new journal. You're my new journal and I'm going to write everyday about the things that I did in my day.

I don't really know how to write to a journal. But I guess I'll tell you about my day.

I really like to swim in my pool and I have a friend across the street named Max and he really likes to do that too, so today we went swimming in my pool and we sat at the bottom of the deep-end holding our breaths and trying really hard not to float to the top so we'd wave our arms to try and stay on the bottom. Its a game. So what you have to do is just sit there on the bottom of the pool which is a 12 foot deep-end and thats pretty big and pretend to drink tea and cookies. And thats the game. So we just have these pretend cups of tea and pretend cookies and whoever can't stay under the longest loses.

I won. I always win.

After we swam in my pool my mom made us macaroni and cheese so we ate that and then we went for a bike ride. I wish I had pegs on my bike. And then we watched this movie called Toy Story and my favorite character was Woody. The movie ended and we went back outside and it was starting to be dark and Max's dad called him inside by whistling out the door and I always thought it was cool that Max got whistled at and I wish maybe my mom would call me inside with one of those triangle dangle bell things cause I'd feel like I was from the prairie or something and farms are probably fun.

I think you need a name. I don't want to write Dear Diary because thats girly. So I'll give you a name and write to you everyday. So I'll give you my nickname at school, which is Eros, and I like that name. So from now on I'll write to you, Eros.

My brother Arty might not like that because he says that journals should be "authentic" but I don't really know what he means by that. This is my birthday present from him cause my birthday is yesterday and so I'm writing in it today. This was my favorite present because I want to write stories when I grow up. So Arty said I should start by writing down my thoughts in a journal and being as descriptive as I can because stories need descriptions, he said.

Okay, Eros, I need to stop writing now. Its dark and Mila wants to come up on my bed and sleep with me. Plus, my hand hurts.
Bye!

-Lynn