If you’re a writer, I would expect you quite likely already know what I am going to write here, regarding notebooks. But there may be little things you have thought about before. If you’re not a writer, or don’t call yourself one yet, keep reading, you may one day join the ranks of the ‘world of writers’ and could find the information useful and interesting.
So, firstly, notebooks are excellent places for scribbling random ideas, thoughts, interesting now words, and a variety of other things. For instance, if you’re writing a novel, your notebook can be a useful place to scribble plot ideas, or some possible twists or red herrings for your novel. If you write non fiction, the notebook can be useful for noting down possible ideas for chapters, research, and so on.
I’m a novelist, (or trying to be one), but mostly I’m a poet, and I write random poems in the various notebooks I have. Going back to my novel-in-slow-progress, I have written down many short snippets for the novel I want to create, pieces that will go in the book, eventually.
But at the moment, I am putting together a chapbook, which is a small poetry collection of 15 to 40 pages. This collection has a theme, which is very personal to me. It is all about my right ankle, which I broke at the end of September this year. I want to have something in writing, looking at various aspects of what having a broken ankle is like.
So, to notebooks. When I was in hospital, a good friend of mine dropped in for a visit, and she gave me a present. This present was a notebook, which I was thrilled to receive. I have that notebook on the sofa next to me at the moment, and I was so happy when I opened it up earlier today, and looked inside.
You see, I’d already written 18 poems to go in my chapbook about my ankle, and thought that might be enough, but this notebook has two poems in it, that I can put into the chapbook! When I put all of the poems together, and include an introduction, that will make for a reasonable sized chapbook.
The great thing about notebooks is that when you have a few of them, you can go back and look in them, and discover interesting bits of writing that you’d forgotten about. I’ve found little gems of poems sometimes, and that is so thrilling, realising that yes, you are actually a fine poet, because that poem was yours!
If you want to put together a poetry collection, either a smaller chapbook, as I am currently working on, or a bigger poetry collection, always find as many of your notebooks as is possible, to bring some of your older poetic gems out into the public’s eye!
And sometimes those older notebooks can show you good things about how far you have come in your poet life, when you cringe at something you wrote many years ago, but you can now easily see ways to improve the earlier work, and turn it into something publishable.
Notebooks are also useful for writing down interesting and quirky little things that happen too. Sometimes these things can end up being funny little poems, fun to share with others when times call for amusing little things to share.
So if you are, or would like to be a writer or poet, get some notebooks, and use them as often as possible. That way you will always have material available for your writing, and you will always have something to do, write something in your notebook!
If you have any words of wisdom about notebooks, I;d love to hear it, leave a message here!
Carolyn Cordon - Creative 