There isn't a writer alive (or one I know) that doesn't have a ridiculous collection of notebooks.
I have them all. To prove it, I emptied the bottom desk drawer of them and took photographic evidence. The green velvet one? From 2009 and has been written in. So far, though, the others are still empty. I don't, however, have that belief anymore that I have to wait for an idea that is "good enough" to allow me to use a pretty notebook. (That belief is related to my propensity to write in my books; they're tools, not sacred artefacts!)
But, more often than not, when I start a new writing project I crave organization over anything else, and so the majority of my writing notebooks are for taking research notes and they tend more toward the spiral bound, containing tab separators, cheap-as-possible side of things. I currently have 3 of them going. So, yes, like any writer I have a collection of unused notebooks. They'll get their turn.
- Pretty ones given as gifts with the idea that they'd inspire you to write something just as beautiful.
- Travel notebooks purchased for that long train/plane/car journey to the Grand Canyon/London/Tokyo Disney so you could write about your experiences and pass your insights down to your descendants so they would know your poetic wanderlust.
- Sturdy, writerly notebooks chosen because they made you look serious and scholarly as a new university student.
- Silly little notebooks that fit into a purse or pocket (well, if you wear guy clothes) to be ready for those amazing thoughts that come at you ZOOM POW out of the ether.
- Leather or fabric bound, tactile, their thingness a way to connect the abstract of words to the act of writing.
I have them all. To prove it, I emptied the bottom desk drawer of them and took photographic evidence. The green velvet one? From 2009 and has been written in. So far, though, the others are still empty. I don't, however, have that belief anymore that I have to wait for an idea that is "good enough" to allow me to use a pretty notebook. (That belief is related to my propensity to write in my books; they're tools, not sacred artefacts!)
But, more often than not, when I start a new writing project I crave organization over anything else, and so the majority of my writing notebooks are for taking research notes and they tend more toward the spiral bound, containing tab separators, cheap-as-possible side of things. I currently have 3 of them going. So, yes, like any writer I have a collection of unused notebooks. They'll get their turn.
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