Today I spent some time thinking about the notebook conundrum.
My fellow writers probably already know where I’m going with this. And for those that don’t: the notebook conundrum is something every author comes to face over the course of their life. Basically, apart from books filled with words, our favorite things are books without words. The best time of the year is back-to-school time because everywhere we go there is an abundance of notebooks, binders, paper, pens, and pencils. We love anything we can get our hands on that will help us write our next great story.
So, our family and friends stock us up with notebooks. Beautiful notebooks–some with leather bindings and clasps, or intricate patterns along the front and sides. Notebooks that obviously had a lot of care and effort put into them, given by someone with care to a very special writer in their life.
And we never touch them.
Oh sure, we say we’ll get to them eventually. We even put them out on display near our desk or on a bedside table. But every time we open to a crisp, blank page we cringe.
But, why? You might ask. If writing is really so important to us, if blank pages are really so exciting, why would we ever be hesitant to fill up a beautiful notebook with our words?
I’ll tell you exactly why. It’s because they are beautiful.
There are a couple reasons I can pinpoint why writers love to hoard notebooks and then never fill them. And their crisp, beautiful newness is probably first and foremost on the list. Writing is, in a word, messy. Our first draft of something is rarely ever what goes to print; we love to cross out words and write new ones over the top, and once we’ve run out of space we just go clear into the margins. We draw arrows from point A to point B, and maybe something ends up so mortifying for us to ever again lay eyes on that we tear it up and burn it and then spread the ashes high on a hill overlooking a graveyard.
Or maybe I need to chill sometimes…
The point is, we are so attached to the beauty of a fresh new notebook that we would hate to “ruin” it with our scribbles.
But on the note of beauty, there is another reason I can think of for our love of notebooks that remain blank. It’s the feeling of possibility that hovers around them. A new notebook sparks excitement in a project and screams of concepts like new, and adventure, and someday. It’s not the thought of filling them that excites us, but rather the feeling we get knowing that they are vessels for worlds and characters that could be. Whether we eventually fill them or not is irrelevant–their true purpose is clear: to drive us to keep creating, to keep imagining. An empty notebook is an open doorway to something magical. To yet undiscovered stories; to our potential as writers.
And so, if you have a special writer in your life, by all means get them a notebook. They will love it. Just know that if it’s beautifully crafted they will most likely hold it in reverence by never writing down a single word. However, if you want to make sure they get some use out of it, might I suggest a typical spiral-bound notebook with a blank cover?
— C.M.
Night Owls, what kind(s) of notebooks do you like to use to store your ideas / brainstorm / create in?
