The Power of the Writing Notebook

All writers have different ways of approaching their writing. But the one things that seems to be common among all writers are the journals and notebooks they keep. I told one of my authors that I was blogging on this so she sent me a notebook she actually started before she started doing this professionally.

She told me she started some of this writing as early as high school. None of these are actual complete stories, but as describes it, "story starts."

 

She also has a notebook where she keeps other lists. These might include lists of names, historical events she might write about later, or even story ideas.

 

 

In Monica Wood's book, THE POCKET MUSE, she describes a notebook she keeps of words. "It's a tiny spiral notebook with lined pages, six by four inches in which I keep lists of words. Not phrases,, not quotations, just words." For her, this is her go to guide when she is writing. The simple process of writing those words down that she discovers in other novels she reads eventually adds to her vocabulary.

 

I was recently at a writer's conference and the other key note speaker spoke of a notebook she keeps with her all of the time. I believe she said she kept it in her purse. This notebook was for great phrases she thought of when sitting in traffic or before appointments. In her case, there were a lot of similes and metaphors. Again, this is a "go to guide" for her when she is writing and stuck on what to describe the room her characters are sitting in, and so forth.

 

So what writing notebooks do you keep? How do you use these to insure your daily writing goes as planned!