All my creative good intentions or projects start with a blank notebook. Whether its a story, my history masters, a new RP campaign, a new character even my trip to GenCon, the first thing I think is....what notebook should I use? I have bought, used and stockpiled dozens of notebooks, plain, lined, square, dotted, spiral bound reporters style, soft A5, hard backed A4, cheap ones from the pound shop or beautiful artisanal ones purchased from bookshops and museums.
The thing is, I don't use them very well. My dyspraxia makes the physical act of writing aggravating and occasionally depressing because my hands won't form the beautiful letters I see in my head. When I try and write at a speed that keeps up with my thoughts my writing degenerates rapidly, at its lowest ebb is a mere wavy line, like a forlorn heart signal on an ECG moving towards an arrest. While some projects have actually had the notebook remain a useful and practical adjunct, most have seen a bare few pages used before I progress to managing in my head or online. Of course once used for one purpose I can't make myself repurpose it, new project new notes!
It is occasionally frustrating, it clutters, its wastes paper it wastes time. The practical part of me knows I would be better taking those notes online, that I don't actually need the notebook and that I rarely get my monies worth in terms of pure utility. That practical part got annoyed with me yesterday when it caught me eying a really expensive blank journal in the Stationers 'to use for my new masters' and it told me, in no uncertain terms, that if am going to get a notebook (which was really a waste of time, since I would do it all online anyway) a visit to the pound shop or the supermarket or even a search of the house would yield one that would serve for making notes; rather than an expensive, metallic clasped journal I would never do justice to. I stopped myself from spending then, but I am sure I will be back.
A little reflection as to the reason for my 'notebook ritual', or as my friends who have had to drag me out of the stationary isle might call it 'my notebook problem' leads me to the obvious conclusion; the books fill a psychological need not practical one. To me a blank notebook is a promise, the blankness of its pages represent fields of unfulfilled potential. When I buy the book, I promise myself to commit to the project, the moment I start writing in it, I show my seriousness to myself. Afterall if I weren't serious, I wouldn't have written it down. Even the fact I know I rarely use them to their full potential just adds something to the sacrificial commitment. On some level, I think 'if I am going to 'waste' a fine an expensive notebook, I best make the sacrifice worth the while'.
When I was at the Gencon writers symposium, one of the panellists said 'all writers have their rituals' I guess this is one of mine.
Which leads to the question for my new masters: what notebook should I use?
No comments:
Post a Comment