If you’re a writer, you probably have a ton of little notebooks scattered around your house. If you’re in the kitchen making some ramen and inspiration strikes, you need a place to jot it down, right?
I don’t know if this is true for all writers, but all the writers I know have an unhealthy obsession with notebooks, and I’m no exception. I thought it would be fun to show you my most active notebooks.
First, let me explain the purpose of mine. Each of my notebooks has ONE purpose. Exactly one. If I want to make notes about my first book, it goes in its notebook. If I need to jot down an appointment or goals for the week, they go in my bullet journal. I find that if I have general notebooks for anything I happen to think of my notes will get lost in the noise.
However, this means that instead of one notebook for everything, I now have several, and unfortunately they aren’t always in the same room as me. This means a lot of running into my office any time I get a thought, but it guarantees I’ll be able to find the thought when I need it!
So let’s take a look.
First, my bullet journal. I know that these are very popular right now and I admit that I got swept up in the bujo craze. However, this book goes beyond helping me keep track of goals and appointments. I’m a pretty crafty person, but I’m not very good at taking my time when it comes to little things like writing, drawing, and coloring.
When I was in college, maybe 2 people would bring laptops to class. The rest of us had to write so furiously to get down every thing the professor said that sometimes there would be a small paper fire. Okay that’s an exaggeration but the point is that for 5 years my goal was to write as quickly and legibly as possible so I wouldn’t miss anything, and it’s a habit I’m finding impossible to break. When I write something down, I go so in half-cursive, half-print, sometimes skipping whole words or letters. My signature is the basically the first letter of each name with a moderately sized squiggly attached.
In short, every time I have a pen in my hand I just lose all sense of meticulous care that I show with everything else, so I figured a bullet journal would help. I have to do all sorts of line drawing and writing and coloring, things that I would usually be too frustrated to finish because they take too long. Obviously, as you can see from the picture, I have a long way to go. But I think this will help me be better at taking my time, writing well, being neat, etc. If I ever create a monthly spread without a single mistake I’ll let you know ASAP, lol.
Next are my WIP notebooks. This is where I keep all of my character notes, word building, revision plans, and anything else I think of that pertains to a particular novel. I find that if I keep all of them in one journal, I never lose my thoughts. It’s also just really fun to look at the evolution of a project all in one place.
The black journal contains all the notes for Love is a Pale Flower, my first novel. The green is for The Weavers, my second. You may be able to see some brain storming in the pictures. Also pictured, my weird cursive/print hybrid handwriting.
This is my Q&A a Day notebook. It’s got a new question every day with 5 spaces underneath. So you answer a question every day for 5 years and you can go through and see how much your answers have changed. I LOVE stuff like this and I’ve been having a lot of fun keeping up with it. You can find it on Amazon, click here.
This one is just for fun. My best friend got it for me for my birthday. It looks like a wood block. I haven’t written anything in it but I keep it on my desk.
Okay, those are my current notebooks. Let me know if you guys have a ton of notebooks too!
By the way, today is Cheeto’s birthday. Happy birthday!
Paper Cats 