Taking Note

I have a dilemma.

Most authors who write long hand have a favourite pen and notebook. I’m no exception when it comes to the pen, but the notebook is a whole different story. Don’t get me wrong, I love notebooks. Maybe I love notebooks a little too much…

I’m pretty sure I mentioned before about my borderline hoarding of office supplies. In particular I’ve mentioned my stash of notebooks of varies shapes, sizes and thicknesses. But I never mentioned the problem of what happens when you have too many notebooks to choose from. You tend to use several of them at the same time.

The picture shows just a few of the notebooks I have on hand. The spiral bound white one on the left is the one I took with me to my writing courses and then I used it occasionally when the writing group was doing weekly prompts. I don’t know how much writing I’ll be doing at the retreat, but I think this one will be staying home – I’m hoping there’ll be a new speculative fiction course starting up in a month or two and it would be great to be able to keep all my notes in one book.

The two off-white notebooks just below it are, to date, unused. One is labelled “Unicorns” and the other is “A Hobbit’s Journal.” These are made out of parchment and lavishly illustrated. And . . . they’re too pretty to use. I want to brush up on my calligraphy and then fill the unicorn one with unicorn stories and poems. You know, the ones I haven’t written yet. And I have no idea what to fill the hobbit one with, I just know it has to be worthy.

To the right of the fancy notebooks is a plain, black spiral bound one. It’s for jotting half-formed ideas down, or random thoughts, or mundane stuff I don’t want to forget. It’s like a catch-all of lists and poetic phrases, notes and reminders. I have three four of them on the go – they’re handy to make notes in when I don’t want to dig out one of my more important journals – I can transfer the words later to their appropriate place.

To the upper right of that notebook is one that looks like a large steno pad, which is exactly what it is. This is where I used to develop an idea until it was ready to work on, or record changes I want to make to a story. This is supposed to be only for novel length ideas, but sometimes when I start getting an idea on paper it turns out there’s not as much to it as I thought.

As I come to rely on the computer more, I kind of fell out of the habit of using this one for my ideas. Which is a shame really, I like looking back at my hand written notes and seeing an idea develop. It’s just not the same on the computer screen. Nor is it the same if I print the notes out and stick them in a file folder. There’s just something about having them written in a notebook…

To the left of this one, the most colourful of all, is my personal journal. Yes, I like a pretty book to record my life in. I try and update every couple of days, but more often it’s about once a week. Any longer than that and I’m in danger of forgetting things.

Finally, to the left of the personal journal is a plain black spiral bound one. It’s similar to my catch all notebook, but it has a hard cover. This is my writing journal, such as it is. I’m still kind of struggling as to how to make the best use of it. I look online for a glimpse of what other people are doing, and their journals seem to be so much more. I know I should probably just ditch the soft sided ones and put everything in my writing journal, but I don’t want it to look messy. Must be my OCD kicking in.

I find I enjoy writing in a spiral bound notebook. I like that I can fold it easily so I’m only seeing one page at a time. When I’m editing I use one of my full size spiral bound notebooks that I stock up on at the dollar store or the back to school sales. They’re great because you don’t have to worry about losing any notes – they’re all bound together. And if you do want to stick a page in a file folder you can just rip it out without having to worry about others falling out.

All in all, I have a lot of notebooks, and each with a purpose. Sometimes a couple with the same purpose, but still.

Which brings me to my dilemma. What notebooks do I take with me on the retreat?

The journals for sure. And maybe the soft-covered black one for random notes. I have a binder with some short stories I’ve printed out to work on in my spare time, so I guess I’ll take one of my full sized, spiral bound notebooks for editing. But what to take for the workshops?

Someone who’s less of a notebook fanatic than I would just use their writing journal. That’s what it’s for after all, isn’t it? And maybe I will use it for impressions and thoughts on the retreat itself, but for an actual workbook I need something else. Something like a full sized spiral bound notebook, but one that’s a little nicer than the cheap dollar store ones.

Guess this means a trip to the book store for a new notebook.

Gee, what a shame! ;-)