Notebook Addict of the Week: Stefanie

Aside from notebooks, one of my other great loves is books. So I completely identified with this week’s addict’s linking of the two : Bookish people tend to like books with words already in them as well as books that are blank and waiting to be filled by their own hands. I know I do. [...]

“They remind me of my heart’s desire…”

From a lovely essay about using notebooks, by Elaine Fletcher Chapman: Most writers I know work from notebooks. I carry mine with me, as Jason Shinder was known to advise, along with a folder of poems I am currently revising. Even on my shorter commutes, I carry the pair. They remind me of my heart’s [...]

Notebooks in Magazines

A few notebook mentions and images culled from magazines recently: First, from a New Yorker profile of playwright Annie Baker:   From a New Yorker article about Thom Yorke of Radiohead and Atoms for Peace:   A Smythson diary makes a cameo appearance in a fashion spread: This is truly spectacular: a collection of journal/scrapbook/sketchbooks [...]

Kevin Barry on the Keeping of Notebooks

This is from my latest favorite essay about keeping a notebook, by Irish writer Kevin Barry, author of City of Bohane: Stationery stores are for me places of huge erotic frisson. I traipse grubbily around the aisles in my long coat and when I think nobody is looking, I have a surreptitious little sniff at [...]

Fifty Shades of Grey Writer’s Journal

Here’s one notebook I don’t think I need to own, a writer’s journal tie-in to the bestselling Fifty Shades of Grey books by E. L. James: “Fifty Shades of Grey: Inner Goddess: A Journal” is to be published May 1 and is a writer’s journal, seeded with quotes and inspiration from James’ trilogy. Some of [...]

Notebook Addict of the Week: Allie (again)

This week’s addict is back for a second time in the spotlight. The last time I featured her collection, she was only 14 and might have had the highest notebook count to age ratio of anyone I’ve featured. I think this may still be true! In her own words: I’m Allie, now 15 years old, [...]

Rediscovering Notebooks

I loved this blog post in appreciation of using notebooks. The author talks about how she used notebooks as a kid, but gave them up as she grew older, feeling that it was somehow immature to be scribbling down her thoughts and ideas and the emotions of youth. But fortunately, she came back to the [...]

A Theater Critic’s Notebook

Spotted in Time Out NY magazine: “…most nights I’m sitting on the aisle, craning forward and scrawling illegible fragments in my notebook.”

Notebook Addict of the Week: Renee

This week’s addict emailed me a photo of her collection and says “Since I work all day at my computer doing medical transcription, I usually prefer to get away from the computer at the end of the day and do my creative writing longhand in various journals (for the first drafts, anyway). The journals in [...]

Keeping Your Creative Ideas in a Separate Notebook?

Suw Charman-Anderson has an interesting article at Forbes.com about the best ways to use a notebook for creative endeavors. She refers to another series of blog posts called The Entrepreneur’s Notebook, which brings up a controversial approach: I’ve always used my notebooks for everything, whether that was notes from a meeting I was in, to [...]