All posts tagged: taking notes

Why Keep a Notebook?

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Why should you keep a notebook and carry it with you?  A notebook reminds you that you’re a writer Carrying a notebook teaches you to pay attention A notebook gives you the chance to write even if the only time you have is just a few minutes. Taking notes is also a creative act Carrying a notebook encourages you to be creative “The constant use of the notebook keeps you working and writing and provides a mine of material to be used down the road. Keep anything pertinent to your development as a writer:character sketches, found poems, observations, all of the preliminary stuff for the first stages of the writing process. What you write down now goes toward all the writing you will ever do.”  — John DuFresne   photo credit: VeRoNiK@ GR via photopin cc Advertisements

Writers and Their Journals

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There are various ways to keep a journal, and a variety of reasons why a writer must keep one. Poet, essayist and playwright Shiela Bender poignantly remembers a day during Ron Carlson’s writer’s workshop in the summer of 1994. It was the day when Carlson went around the room and asked each person to describe the his/her writing journal. On her turn, Bender had to confess that she kept a box where “scraps of paper on which I have written things – bank deposit slips, napkins, other people’s business cards, other stuff.” When asked how she uses the box, Bender replied that she goes through it every now and then when she’s in between projects or when she’s stuck on something she’s doing.

Digging Through My Journals: Lessons on Choosing the Right Journal

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After journaling for decades, I recently hit a plateau and could not get the pen to move on the paper as fast as I used to. After a few months of touch and go, I decided it was time to take a closer look at my journaling habits and perhaps incorporate a few changes here and there. To do that, I thought of going through all my journals – those that I hadn’t burned. I had burned many journals simply because I felt they had served their purpose. The remaining ones were written during the past eight years.  I hadn’t decided what to do with them – it’s not yet their time to get burned, apparently. The notebooks had been stored in a cabinet in my room and it’s been a few years since I’ve looked at them closely. It was surprising to see that through the years I had written on spiral notebooks in different colors but all of the same size. I had forgotten about these notebooks, but upon seeing them again, I …