The Writing List: Keeping a Notebook(s)

Or - why have one notebook when you can have four of them???

We all have blank notebooks that sit around unused. I certainly did.

I’ve kept a daily journal off and on since the age of 12. Wide-ruled single subject notebooks kept a dutiful record of my routine throughout my teen years before I moved on to fancy bound notebooks in my twenties and early thirties to hold tickets stubs and business cards and postcards and more free-form writing. I’ve saved countless journals full of research for novels-in-progress and spiral bound reporters’ notebooks full of notes from press conferences and interviews.

But around late 2019, I stopped keeping a journal. I made notes in my phone and wrote emails to myself and saved images in Instagram that called out to me. I sketched and painted but none of it was saved in one place. It was all a mess.

A lot of this had to do with me finally committing to writing a novel, bit by bit almost every day. All of my energy was getting funneled into somehow just finishing a book - no matter what.

Last January, I told myself I would post book reviews to a dedicated Instagram account. I posted a handful of reviews and then gave up - the very visual medium of Instagram just wasn’t right for talking about books. And last spring, I bought a sketchbook to take with me on a hike of the West Highland Way in Scotland and I didn’t even crack it open.

I can’t quite explain what shifted but a few months ago, I opened up that blank sketchbook and started sketching. Without throwing away the bad sketches or stuffing the good ones away in some random spot. That’s the sticker-covered black notebook on the left in the picture above. Now all my sketching is in one place - a reminder that art is like writing a book. There are good days and bad days and you just get it all done to sort it out later.

And that’s when I realized I could create an entire separate sketchbook for my novel-in-progress (seen on the right in the picture above).

I’d found myself sketching out maps and pictures of mountains to help figure out the logistics of a scene. I had archival photographs and current travel photos saved in a hundred different places. Some of them so evocative I wrote scenes based on them - like this one….taken in the exact year and city I’m writing about…

CREDIT: G. Eric and Edith Matson Photograph Collection

The notebook is also the storage spot for all of the workshop notes from my weekly writers’ group.

And that led me to a solution for the book reviews I wanted to post on Instagram. I created a separate book journal that I will post here when I do a monthly roundup of books I’ve read. It’s a spot where I can write honestly about books - what worked and what didn’t without sounding judgmental about authors I hope will someday be colleagues.

If all of this seems too intimidating for a new year’s resolution to start a journaling habit, I highly recommend the new Journal app . You can easily pull photos, apps and lists into daily entries. It’s a very easy way of jotting down memories along the way.

So now I don’t have any more blank notebooks…..I have four filling up very quickly! When I’m blocked on my novel, I turn to a sketchbook and those in turn give me ideas for scenes.

I would love to hear in the comments below about your journals/sketchbooks/notes or your attempts to start one in the new year.