How Great Novelists Use Notebooks

There was a neat article in the Wall Street Journal the other day about the writing habits of some well-known novelists. I’m sure it will come as no surprise that many of them mention notebooks! Orhan Pamuk: “Mr. Pamuk writes by hand, in graph-paper notebooks, filling a page with prose and leaving the adjacent page [...]

Notebook Addict of the Week: A Teenage Novelist

Here’s a notebook addict who used her collection to accomplish something amazing: A Wisconsin teenager named Cayla Kluver kept notebooks, lots of them.  These colorful spiral notebooks are the kind you get at the local pharmacy or supermarket.  Nothing fancy, but the perfect canvas for personalizing, or maybe writing a narrative.  On those pages, Cayla [...]

The Euphoria of Buying a Journal: Andorra, by Peter Cameron

Last weekend, I read a wonderful novel called Andorra, by Peter Cameron. It’s elegantly and beautifully written, with some lush descriptions, including this scene, which takes place right at the beginning of the book, just after the narrator has arrived to start his new life in Andorra: I decided to visit the stationers. The front [...]

The Blue Notebook, by James Levine

I like the look of this forthcoming book! What a beautiful cover. The Blue Notebook is not available until July 2009, but here’s a teaser: An unforgettable, deeply affecting tribute to the powers of imagination and the resilience of childhood, The Blue Notebook tells the story of Batuk, a precocious 15-year-old girl from rural India [...]

A Victorian Journal Full of Dark Thoughts

From Affinity, by Sarah Waters, a dark and moody novel of psychological suspense set in the Victorian era: I saw her looking at the pictures I have pinned at the side of my desk, and then at this book. I had closed the covers, but had my pen between the pages to keep the place. [...]