Notebooks and Targets

I am a terrible person. Last week, last Wednesday in fact, I intended to write a post about the food festival that was in Nottingham last year. It came back this year and on Wednesday, all excited, my friend T and I got on the bus expecting to try lots of tasty food. Sadly it wasn’t to be. The food festival was gone and we were left staring at the square in total disbelief. We didn’t really know what we were going to do with ourselves.

Then we decided to do what any self respecting writer would do and went looking for notebooks. I love notebooks. I’ve said this a dozen times and I’ve often shown you pictures of them. I have changed in my approach to buying notebooks though and I realised this on Wednesday, when we were walking through all these stationary stores, staring at some beautiful creations and yet I didn’t really want to buy any of them. It used to be that I saw a notebook that I vaguely liked and I’d buy it without thinking. But that’s all changed. I’ve realised that for me to buy a notebook now, it needs to speak to me on some level. I know it sounds corny but unless I have that desperate urge to get it then I won’t buy it. If I think ‘meh maybe it’s alright, maybe I’ll get it’ I won’t buy it. There has to be that punch in the gut, that ‘Oh my god I need it’ moment or I don’t spend my money.

It’s the same approach I take with my stories too. Unless the idea won’t go away I won’t write it. I won’t even plan it. I make a note of the idea, sure, but I don’t go back to it unless I’m pulled back to it, my mind racing with a dozen ideas. I don’t know if that’s because I’m changing as a writer, or because I’m becoming a grown up. I do know though that I like the new attitude. It means I’ve not got dozens of works in progress plaguing my mind and running on my computer trying to get me to split up my attention.

But enough about my crazy new attitude towards notebooks and stories. I just want to talk about the notebooks. Look aren’t they pretty?!

I'm not the best at photography I would like to add.

The first one, the one with the colours and the bird, I got from Wilkinson’s for a couple of pounds. It might have been less than that actually, I’m not sure, I lost the receipt. It’s small, it’s slim and for the price the paper quality isn’t that bad really (It turns out that there's actually an entire range of things with the same pattern/theme... type... thing). I have in fact already begun to write in it for some stuff regarding something I talk about below. I’d include pictures of my writing but it’s a bit scrawly and hard to read. Besides, the pages won’t stay open enough for me to photograph.

The second one, the brown plain looking one, (Actually called a Kraft A5 exercise book I have just learnt,) is from Paperchase. Most of you probably know that Paperchase is known for being a bit pricey when it comes to anything that they have to sell. That’s why I was so surprised when I saw that it was only £4. I grabbed it, I bought it and I’m already getting around to using it. The paper is gorgeously creamy, there’s a lot of it and the cover’s pretty hardwearing despite it being so plain. I think by the time that I’m done with it the cover is going to be battered to pieces and covered in doodles. It’s weighty and for some reason I’m totally in love with its plainness.

Bask in the majesty of my amazing handwriting

The writing on the cover at the moment is all me by the way. It’s connected to something I mentioned last post, about Autharium, the indie publisher community that I recently joined. They were asking for member contributions to the blog that they run. I decided that I would offer to write a series of blog posts about publishing a book, from concept to release, in six months from the perspective of a newbie writer. It’s the six months bit that scares me. I’m hoping though that it might finally encourage me to finish something and get it out there. My introductory post goes up on 13^th May and from that point onwards I’m going to be posting my progress and hopefully working to deadlines as I go.

That doesn’t mean that I’m abandoning this blog though. On the contrary, I plan on updating this blog every week with a little progress report. The Autharium blog has had a lot of response to the request for contributions so my posts may be spaced far and few between. But I want that added responsibility, besides the whole working to deadlines and aiming to be done in six months (as if that wasn’t enough pressure, I’m clearly a crazy person), of being reportable to someone else, to have to explain what I’ve done each week.

It should be interesting. We all know that I’m not the best at sticking to a reliable schedule or staying on track for posting. But I’m hoping that I can manage it this time. There’s a lot to share each week, or at least I hope that there will be. So I’m just going to try to do at least two posts on here a week, one for the progress and one for my general jibba-jabba and nonsense. And we’ll see how long I can keep that one going.

Journal, journal, journal, notebook - it's all about organisation... and other blogs

I've developed a strange obsession with journals and notebooks in the last week. I've always had a weird love of the things but I think this odd love peaked on Friday when I found a use for 4 previously unused notebooks in half an hour. Now I have a big pile of the things.

I already had one journal, for writing everyday thoughts in and just generally rambling and exploring my thoughts, a turquoise number with magnetic clasp and holes cut out with bright yellow fabric underneath that I got for £30 from Warehouse, pretty pricey but it's held up ridiculously well all things considered. I got it in May and began using it pretty much instantly. Before I was never much for keeping a diary, always losing interest after a few weeks. But I've been writing in my journal now at least once a week for the last 4 months. Nice to see I can stick with something. Now though, in the space of a weekend I've acquired two more. One is a writing journal, where I explore everything writing related, particularly for Geniania. It's basically where I jot down thoughts on stuff I need to research, carry out writing exercises and other writing related things. The other is my art journal. I only started it yesterday and it's basically where I do doodles and sketches and other artsy things, whether it's trying out a technique or sketching out that picture I've gotten stuck in my head. I already had a sketchbook but it's a bit too big to be carting everywhere. These two are roughly A-5, both plain black, (one with faux suede on the cover and the other with a strange smooth pleather type stuff) and can fit in most of my handbags, at least the ones I use during the day anyway which is when I would use a sketchbook or journal.

Then there's my notebooks. I had just the one originally, a black Moleskine notebook that was pretty cheap (you can find it and other notebooks here. I have to admit the colour a month planner is looking very tempting) and I used it to set myself tasks for the day. I'd also just down quick lists of things I needed to do. It's where I wrote my monthly targets too as well as points of research. It was, and still is, my all-duty notebook that I find myself doodling in a bit more then I should. Then I thought.. you know what I need somewhere to put those little lists that are just a bit general. So I found a little slim notebook and turned that into my 'Little Book of Lists'. It's a tiny Oxford A-5 notebook that fits easily into any bag I own so it can go everywhere with me, just like the Moleskine. Finally there's the stripey jotter notebook where I write down any interesting suggestions and creative exercises that can help with my writing. It's pretty basic and I used to use it for lectures about my creative writing dissertation so it only seemed fitting that I use it for notes on the creative writing process. Another one that I forgot to include in the picture is my page layout notebook. It's basically white with about 4 signatures of A-4 folded in half. I hope to one day use notebooks that I've bound myself but finding lined paper in the right dimensions and sizes is proving to be tricky. I have this feeling sometimes that what a person writes in says a fair bit about them. As does what they write/how they write it. I plan to explore that in a later blog though.

In other news I've been reading the blog of a remarkably artistic person who lives in Tuscany, Italy. She binds the most beautiful journals and includes numerous tutorials and illustrations. It's thanks to her that I can now understand how to create coptic stitch books. Her name is Linda Tieu and her blog is just full of ideas and thoughts. You can check it out here. I particularly like how she structures the week of blog posts, especially the creative progress/workspace pictures as well as her descriptions of current projects. Just reading it gets me in the mood to create and to share with readers my absolutely awfully cluttered workspace. I say workspace but I mean collection of shelves and the end of my bed.

I'll probably explore more of these thoughts in later posts, I think that this one's been pretty big for today, particularly given my knackered and hungover state.