Memo Book
Posted on May 22, 2007
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I have recently taken to carrying a small notebook in my back pocket wherever I go. (This would be more effective if I remembered to always have a pen with me, but I’ll work on that.) It’s one of those little Mead memo pads. The 60 page, 5″ x 3″ coiled-at-the-top books. I actually bought a pack of five for under $3 the other day. This one happens to be blue, but there are red, green, and black ones in the pack as well.
Hopefully, the observations and ideas that I record in this and future notebooks will result in an increased creative productivity. I haven’t written a new poem in weeks. It would have been months, but I managed to crank two out a couple of weeks ago. I have since performed both of them, and I’m running short of material that hasn’t been seen several times before.
I’d share a couple of observations from the new notepad, but it’s pretty empty at this point, and contains nothing even remotely substantial (though, who’s to say that these seemingly trivial notes won’t inspire something interesting in the future). Instead, I will pose a couple of questions to the creative types out there: do you carry a notepad (or a sketchpad, if you’re a visual artist)? If so, what do you use it for. Is it mainly for jotting down notes and ideas, or do you tend to write fully formed works in it (albeit in the form of a rough draft, I would assume)?
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7 Responses to “Memo Book”
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Leaving the house without my notepad and a pen (and, increasingly, my camera) is like leaving without my wallet and my keys. They’re essential. To me, a notepad is just for ideas and sketches. It’s a mobile recording device. It doesn’t work for extended writing. I’ve got a set of those red composition books ($0.70 each, 60 pages, wide margins and line spacing, no coil, just like the ones you prolly used in grade one) that I use to develop ideas more fully.
And then there’s the typewriter. Bless its unforgiving soul.
There’s something inherently romantic about typewriters. I think, at least for me, it’s the tactile nature of pounding on the keys. A keyboard and a word processor just aren’t quite the same.
I’ve been meaning to find a nice old (working) typewriter at an antique store or pawn shop, but never quite find one that I like. It would be nice to sit at the kitchen table and pound away on an old typewriter. Hell, even better would be to sit out on the balcony with an old manual Corona or something and just give ‘er.
I have a whole collection of notebooks at home, organized by subject, for when I feel like being obsessively autodidactic. I also carry around a nice pocket sized moleskine, mostly because I wanted one when I was a kid and always romanticized them. It has ended up being filled with random observations and essays to myself. Naturally I use the graph-paper one, since not only does it provide lines to write on, but nice verticals for when you want to tabulate things. Quantitation, bitches, is where its at.
Have to agree with the graphpaper Moleskine. I use a ruled one now and it isn’t the same.
Re: Typewriters. Manual ones are the only way to go. They’ve become a fetish item for writers and finding an old one that works decently and, more importantly, that you can get ribbon for, is becoming more difficult. Olivetti still makes an “office style” manual typewriter. The thing that I really love about them is that they force you to keep writing, keep moving forward. It’s difficult (not impossible, however) to edit on the fly. Do you think the word processor has changed the writing process in a dramatic way? Could you see yourself tackling a novel-length manuscript on a manual typewriter?
@allan: Why does it not surprise me that you have a miniature library full of notebooks? Pretty cool, though.
@Mike: I definitely think that word processors have change the writing process. No, I can imagine tackling a novel-length manuscript on a manual typewriter. It would drive me insane. Sometimes, I can’t even bare to write poems on a typewriter, because I can’t easily re-arrange the lines as I go.
Still, there is something to be said for a device that forces you to continue moving forward. You may have to rewrite the piece later, but it sure forces the writing of the first draft along.
@Both of you: Moleskine notebooks are pretty awesome. I’ll get one for myself one of these days. Or maybe I can con someone into buying it for me as some sort of gift.
Go to U of A Book store for the best prices on Moleskine. I’m almost done my first –with graph paper (5″ X 8″)! Next up is the one, the same size, with blank pages.
On novels — I’d love to try writing an entire first draft of a novel in long hand. No editing, or very little, only the forward movement…that velocity. Right now, I’m on draft 7c!!! What the hell does that mean?!?!? There is no first draft, not really. It’s so easy to circle around, re-work, move things….Sure, at some point in June, I’ll have a first draft but much of it will be draft 10 or 20, the later portions, draft 5 or 6. The whole thing, draft 1. Ridiculous! The next book, all long hand. In the cheap cahiers from the dollar store…
That’s going to be quite a feat, Thomas. It would definitely be interesting to attempt.