Here it is, in all its splendor. It's my little notebook. I think, now that I've fully disclosed it before blog and everyone, that I need to chuck this notebook and get a replacement.I used to be so good about carrying a little notebook. It had a plastic cover and three metal rings inside, and detachable paper that you could refill. It was about the size of an index card. I used to scribble in it when I was on the bus in Chicago. Sometimes I took it to bars and tried to write things in the dark. That's where I got all of my poems. When I needed to write, I just flipped through and connected the dots.
Now I've been using the uncharacteristically pink and cheery notebook that my daughter received in a goodie bag from a birthday party. She'd already gone through and stamped a turtle on most of the pages. It fell apart within a few weeks.
When John Gallaher was here, I noticed how often he wrote things in his little notebook. I'm not talking about a moleskine here or anything--it was a little notebook. I may just have to splurge and buy myself a new, more functional notebook this weekend.
Dear readers, I invite you to either discuss your tiny notebook, or your lack of a tiny notebook, or to post a picture of your tiny notebook, or to post a picture of your lack of a tiny notebook (if that's possible).
What's the best kind of tiny notebook? What do you write in there?
10 comments:
I used to use the little notebooks, but I just use a full sized pad now. I need the space to get sloppy, scribble, cross out. Significant margins to play in. I regard them like Twitter--neat, but not for me.
I have a tiny notebook, 95cents at the school's bookstore. I take it to my classes to doodle and ponder and scribble while I should be taking careful notes on why they started putting tits on crucafixes during and after the Black Death. I can't take a fullsized notebook. I tried that for a while but there was too much space, intimidating.
-A
Mary, I still have that little jeweled turquoise one you gave me back in the day... that thing has seen MANY a bar!
Not tiny notebooks, but beautiful ones here:
http://www.papayalicious.com.
I have two!
I guess I'm going to spoil the notion of the tiny inexpensive note book. I've used them. My problem is I went thrrough them too fast and then they would get scattered about hopelessly.
These days I have a nice leather journal my wife gave me and I carry it about everywhere. It's the size of a Trade Size book and I buy refills for it that can go on my bookshelf when completed.
I write drafts, jots notes, ideas, mundane entries about my day/life in general. All of which at some point could find it's way into a poem. It's easier for me to go back to past entries that way.
Somtimes when I come across an older poem of mines / or draft that sometimes befuddles me, I can go back to what was going on at that point in my life and it will suddenly clearify what I might have been thinking.
I've never done the "notebook" thing. Maybe in the future I might, but I find that I don't really write by looking back at scribbles or ideas. Maybe that's because I've never had a notebook?
I'm a bit boring here -- and stereotypical. I just have a little black notebook. I go through 2 or 3 a year and usually find them on the bargain rack at bookstores.
I have two, sort-of. Number one is a lovely journal. Friends love to give me journals so I have a stack on a bookshelf for when I fill one up. Right now, it is light brown leather with ties. It goes in my bag whenever I carry a bag.
For hiking, bag-less days, etc. I carry 3x5 cards and a pencil. I was always loosing small notebooks, or filling them up and forgetting to replace, or hiking in the rain and ruining them. 3x5 cards work better for me. When full, I toss them in a box on my desk.
I used a little notebook for a while, carrying it in my purse wherever I went until I used it up. At the beginning of June, in preparation for a week-long trip, I bought a small spiral bound notebook to use as a journal. I used it twice on the trip, and have since taken it to more places than the small ones. It is now my "little notebook," and I begin my poems there.
I used to have little notebooks that would run out of paper too quickly. Now I have a fat little one from Paperchase that has lasted me a good year (but might last a more prolific writer a few weeks!) Have to have the small notebook because I find I forget bigger ones at home, and then have to do the scribble on receipt/napkin/bank statement thing.
Love the Moleskins, but who can afford buying them regularly?
I love my little notebooks! The only problem I have is that the covers tend to rip off (so I try to always buy the ones with plastic covers now) and then what to do with them later. I have several boxes filled.
Oh well.
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