Weekly Writing Boost #3
Start (or keep) a writing notebook
Keeping a Writer’s Notebook
I am an information fiend and I collect it like crazy, telling myself when I go down a rabbit hole that it’s not procrastination, it’s important for my writing. Which is true, just not when I’m supposed to be writing. Anyway, all that information has to go somewhere and organization is not my strong suit. (Though somehow I managed to birth a daughter who used to do organizing for a living. And, come to think of it, a son who has a graduate degree in Math, which is even less my strong suit. Go figure.)
Enter the writer’s notebook. I’m a fiend for notebooks, too. And the idea of a writer’s notebook sends thrills of delight up my spine, even after all these years of being a writer and maintaining one in some form or another. The ideas these notebooks hold! The possibilities! The future stories! It’s a mind-boggling delight. I have this vision that all the notes and ideas contained within a writer’s notebook combine and recombine and breed like rabbits when we aren’t looking. Which is one of the chief values of keeping a writer’s notebook.
Because we writers must have a notebook to keep all those ideas in or risk losing them.
What goes in a writer’s notebook?
Everything. Anything you want to remember, anything you’ve seen or heard or smelled or thought about. A quote, an idea, anything. And everything.
But what form should it take?
A few years ago, I would have insisted that your writer’s notebook be analog. Because there are so many wonderful journals and notebooks out there, why would you do anything else? (I’ve listed some of my favorites in Resources below.) Plus, we have the romantic image of writers carrying their journals around, ever at the ready. The whole ethos and branding of Moleskine notebooks is built around this. (And I do love me a Moleskine.)
But these days many of my notes are links I want to refer back to and that’s too onerous to copy onto paper. So I’ve started an entirely quirky system which somehow works for me: I make monthly lists. I start a new Word doc for each month and any time I see a link, a quote, an idea, a snippet of dialogue, anything, I transfer it to my monthly list. I’ve started using keywords with hashtags to make it easy to reference with a search. At the end of the month I put them in a folder all together where they can make like rabbits and breed new information.
This is likely way too simple for most people and for those of you with more complex brains there are many great note-taking apps out there. See list in Resources.
Sometimes a writer’s journal takes a form more akin to a commonplace book. A commonplace book is really just a writer’s notebook only for normal non-writing people. It serves much the same purpose as a writer’s notebook, a collection point for external information you want to track. Which also send shivers up my spine to consider. It’s like your own personal library of knowledge.
And of course, there is the ubiquitous bullet journal, which is a whole system of planning. For my money, the brilliance of the bullet journal is the index. It’s such a simple thing to adapt for your writer’s notebook or journal, just number your pages and create an index page at the start of the book. (See links for both the bullet journal and the commonplace journal in the Resources section.)
I must also note that I am inveterate journaler and my journal often functions as a writer’s notebook, too. So my writer’s notebook has both an analog and a digital element and that works fine for me. Which is the point here—you do you and find out what works best in your writing life.
The Boost
Your job this week, should you choose to accept it, and I think you should, is to do one of the following:
If you don’t already have one, start a writer’s notebook for all of your ideas. One of them may be a seed for your future best-selling novel and you don’t want to lose it.
If you already have a notebook, recommit to using it. (If you already use it religiously I’m preaching to the choir here. But you’ve probably not read this far anyway, because you don’t need to.) Pull it out, dust it off. Is your current notebook still working for you? If analog, do you need to go digital? Or vice-versa? Do you need a smaller book you can carry around with you? Or something bigger?
And now write something in the notebook. You might want to put your name and the date and your email address in case it gets lost on the first page. Turn the page and write down something that happened, or observed, or heard, just to get the notebook started. And then, have at it. Because, remember:
“My idea of a writer. Someone who is interested in everything.” ~ Susan Sontag
And that should be you, too! (Pretty sure it already is.)
Resources
My favorite journals to use for writing notebooks: . Stalogy (this is a daily planner but I currently use it as a journal.) Moleskine. Nuuna (expensive as all hell, but soooo cool.)
Tiago Forte writes about building a second brain, and has written a book by the same name. His process is a bit complicated for my brain but it has a lot of value and he offers a lot of knowledge about various resources out there.
Note-taking apps: Notion, Evernote, One Note, and so many more. Google “best note-taking apps” and you’ll find a ton.
Excellent article on commonplace books.
The late Denis Johnson’s commonplace book. I hope this link to the PDF works, if not leave a comment and I’ll send it to you. And who knew that Denis Johnson did morning pages? Okay I have to include the Twitter (shudder) thread about him here, too, it’s too good not to.
Ryan Holiday (love this dude) on commonplace books.
The bullet journal. But do not, I repeat, do not look on Pinterest or do a search on Instagram for the bullet journal. Because people make all kinds of elaborate pages and set-ups and that is not what a writing notebook is about.
An excellent article on what to include in your writer’s notebook, even if it is an ad for Masterclass.
I like this article too, especially the quote, “The perfect notebook is the one you have!” (And I’d add “and use.”)
Now go cultivate your notebook!
Previous Boosts
f you enjoyed this post or found it helpful, please feel free to share or subscribe. I write a longer piece about writing on Thursday, sometimes Fridays, so let’s just say the end of the week.I’d love to have you part of the community! Free subscribers have access to all my articles on Substack, while paid subscribers can expect classes, zoom Q and As and more. Eventually, I’ll shift these boost to the paid option, too. I will admit to not being totally ramped up with the paid offerings yet, but they shall appear soon.
Love this! Thank you, Charlotte!