Notebooks

Typing With Wet Claws: Plot Pants Puzzle Edition

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Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. Anty is on a tight schedule today, with hunting for food (she hunts at a place called the “supermarket”) and writing things. She has some research to do for some upcoming articles, and then there is book work, which she thinks really ought to come first (I agree) but she also likes to be the strangest person in the Laundromat, so she likes to do the laundry early. Laundry time is very good time for Anty to sort through ideas in her head, and, if she has her headphone in, and keeps her head down and pen moving on the paper, people generally leave her alone to do exactly that. Well, sometimes, almost-grown-ups ask her how the machines work. If the owner is there (he was not there today, but the custodian was) she will chat with him some.

This week, Anty  has a lot of feelings about what happened to Morgan and Garcia on Wednesday’s Criminal Minds, (or what will apparently not be happening between them in the future, because the writers decided to…what? Oh, sorry. Anty says no spoilers, so I will stop there.) but she did not have to write an article about that, so I cannot give a link to an article that does not exist. What I can say is that she and Uncle had a grumbly conversation about it yesterday -they are both on the same side, so it was not an argument- which showed Uncle’s impressive grasp of romantic arcs and character dynamics, as well as genre expectations and creative choices that limit options once a path has been chosen. Spend enough time around Anty, and these things tend to rub off on a person. Or kitty.

As Anty’s mews, I spend a lot of time around her. Pretty much all of it, except when she leaves the house, since I am an indoor kitty and only leave the house when it is v-e-t time.  It is not v-e-t time now, so I have an up close and personal view of her creative process. When writers get to know each other, they will often ask if they are pantsers or plotters. That means, do they make things up as they go, with no firm plan (or a very loose one) or do they plan things out ahead of time? Anty has come to learn that she has to give a different sort of answer to that question: she is a puzzler. That does not mean she stares at  a blank screen or page and puzzles over what comes next. Well, not all of the time.

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these all fit together

What it does mean is that Anty does not always work from beginning to end. That may sound crazy to some -it did to Anty, at first- but that is how her brain works. Finding things that look like her story also help give Anty visual cues. Since Hero in Her Last First Kiss is an artist (she wanted him to be a musician, but he said no; Anty did not mind too much, because when characters tell her she got them wrong, that means that they are alive inside her head, which is  a good thing.) the visual cues are even more important. They are another piece of the puzzle, and working in notebooks that look like the story helps her feel connected. That is why she is going to hunt at the craft store for some toile patterned cardstock so she can make better dividers for the binder where she keeps important story information. I like that, because I get to play with the strips of paper from the bottom of the cardstock; they are really fun toys. Anty holds one end and wiggles it, then I bat the other end with my paw. Sometimes, I get so into it that I even go back on my hind legs. Since my balance is sometimes special, sometimes, I fall over, but I get right back up, because I like to play that game. Falling over is worth it.

Anty is like that with writing. At one point, she thought that being  punster was the ‘real’ creative path, and she tried that, but she soon felt like she was lost in the middle of the ocean, and did not know what was going on. Some of the stories during that time did not make it. Then, she tried plotting, and that worked better, but the stricter she tried to be with it, the more restrictive it became, and then she found that she could not move. Well, write, the same as when she tried to pay strict attention to word count. I think those actually happened around the same time.

This week, she played with index cards and listed scenes, then transferred that to her binder, color-coded, so she could see where she was missing things and what had to happen when. It literally can be a puzzle, when she sits on the floor with her index cards, or puts sticky notes all over her plotting board. When she can see what is missing, then finding out what goes there is a lot easier. That is probably why she has lots of sticky notes all over her notebook pages, because when the puzzle pieces start fitting together, they really start fitting together. Something that comes clear to her about the end of the book could fill in a hole about something she did not know near the beginning, so she can go back there, put down a sticky note and come back to it on the next pass.

I do not mind this at all, because it means more paper for Anty, which means more toys for me. Granted, I am in one of those learning how to play again phases, but Anty says that fits with her relearning how she works best. I guess that means we are in sync. That is about it for this week, so, until next time, I remain very truly yours,

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Until next week…

Skye O’Malley Hart-Bowling
(the kitty, not the book)

More-ning Pages

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The rare Thursday entry, the natural product of having Monday’s entry on Wednesday. Blogging three times a week is a discipline that works for me, keeps my brain focused, so when I fall behind, I’m antsy until I’m current again. This entry should do it. Once again, no idea in mind, so winging it for the second day in a row.

Right now, I am in my comfy chair, laptop on lap desk. It’s not raining any longer, though we had a downpour hit shortly before I had to leave the Laundromat, freshly dried laundry in two, Crocs on my feet and raincoat left behind, because it was brilliant sunshine when I left the house. Go figure. “Helpless,” from Hamilton, is playing on my headphones. Very historical romance-y song there, both in setting and content.  I have notes for today’s work on Her Last First Kiss, and will likely need to make a timeline, so I can track the progress of important items -what is where, and when?- and I’m looking forward to that.

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morning pages

 

I normally don’t like to have a lot of bleedover with my notebooks. The notebook above, by Punch Studio (part of my Paris notebook fixation; there is apparently a NY themed version of this same book, and I  must have it) is my morning pages book, which means whatever I in my head goes down on that two page spread, and, when I get to the end of the second page, I am done. Doesn’t matter where I am. That’s it for that entry. I got this book in October, and it’s been one two page spread, every day, no matter what. So far, so good.

Here’s the thing, though. Sometimes, those rambles concentrate themselves fairly quickly. Like this morning. I don’t know if it was some alchemical convergence of my free-associating brain, the fact that I had not yet consumed caffeine, the recklessness of putting my Paris travel mug next to my Union Jack mug, which was next to my English muffin pizza breakfast. or what, but novel stuff started spilling onto my pages. I’ll copy it later, into one of the HLFK books, maybe take only notebooks and not laptop to the coffee house later on (though I sweat like an addict in withdrawal at the thought) and track the progression of some objects that are important to the story. Who has the X at what point, what state is it in, and  how do we all feel about that?

My blood hums at the thought of this, and -aha, that’s where I’d intended to go in the first place, yay me- diving deep into what needs to be accomplished in a particular scene gives me electric energy. I can do this. I do this. This is what I was created to do. Natural habitat and all that other good stuff. When you’re in the right place, creatively, you know it. I’d originally planned to call this entry something like “Skating on the Surface and Diving Deep,” but if a title makes me cringe, that’s a pretty good indication of what it’s going to to do my readers.

My readers? Ulp. I have readers? That is not what my earning statement says for the last mumblemumble unit of time, but that’s okay. As with any muscle, the more I use my writing muscles, the stronger they get. Which is one of the reasons the disciplines of thrice weekly blogging and morning pages every weekday are disciplines that I want to keep. Doesn’t matter what’s on the page, as long as something is. It’s easy to put it off. Amazingly easy to put it off, but, as my mother always told me, the more I do, the more I will want to do. She was right. When I let myself into Hero and Heroine’s world, I want to stay there. As a family member, as it were, not an intruder or even a guest, which is one of the reasons I know I’m writing the right book, at the right time, and in the right way.

these notebooks have nothing to do with HLFK
at least I think they don’t.

 

These notebooks don’t have anything to do with Her Last First Kiss (at least I think they don’t) but they spoke to me, and thus, they had to come home. There will be  hackage, possibly over the weekend. Hacking a notebook is an intuitive process for me, one that lets me dive happily into the realm of sticky notes and drawing frames, letting color dictate my path, the feel of the book, its covers, its pages, the spiral binding, in the case of the above, tell me what they want to be. Total pantsing on notebook hacking, which makes for a good contrast with how I need to know things about the characters and stories to fully grasp what I’m doing with a novel in progress.

My minimum for these winging it entries is seven hundred words (word count is not a problem with me for nonfiction or editing; go figure) so I am going to wrap this for now. There’s my Buried Under Romance discussion post to write, and then I have a date with Hero and Heroine. I think they’re going to show me an interesting time.

Monday Morning Brain Dump, With Notebooks

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Urgh. Monday morning again. I have shown up at the keyboard, which is an achievement when I’m coming off another night of no sleep. I hate insomnia. Brain races a million miles an hour, but will it focus on something useful, like the WIP? Nope. Not a chance on that one. Late night Pinterest pinning sprees are about as close as I get on that front.

Most recently, I started my Pen and Paper board, which is here. Not enough caffeine in the world to figure out why my computer says I can’t share the screencap I took of my own Pinterest page with myself, so click on the link to see all the pretties. Pens and notebooks, that’s it.

Since I’ve become more serious about my interest in notebooks, I’ve been doing more research, and my wish list is growing. Moleskines are still my workhorse, supplemented by Picadilly and Markings -I really need to do a comparison post/video on those soon- but I have found I’m not as immune as I used to be for the other brands out there.

The newest “must try this or a part of myself will forever mourn” item is this. Leuchtturm 1917 A5 Medium hardcover notebook in berry, with lined pages. Need. I love that the pages come pre-numbered. I love the color, which goes perfectly with my laptop. I honestly can’t tell if the pages are white or ivory. I strongly prefer ivory, but if this paper takes fountain pen ink as well as I’ve heard it does, I am willing to make an exception. I also have a strong thirst for a large Moleskine Volant, a format I hated in the 3×5 size, love in the mini, and now want to revisit in my preferred size, 5×8. Gray is first choice for color, purple second, though there are new colors that look interesting, too.  The books may have to go into a leather cover, because the plastic feel of the books themselves feels off to me, but perforated pages all the way through? I have to give that a try. Maybe blank pages, rather than lined, but lined might be all right also.

There are actually a lot of notebooks I haven’t tried yet, and the whole fountain pen world? Only dipping my toes into that. Which reminds me, I’ve never even held a dip pen, but the mere thought of that makes me feel closer already to the eighteenth century people currently taking up space in my head. Hero and his letterbox and his sketches, (I seriously cannot draw worth beans, and I’d originally wanted him to be a violinist – I also cannot play the violin- but nope, he went right for pen and ink, so here we are) and Heroine and her ledgers (that, I can get. Keeping track of stuff is important) and my natural affinity for longhand make this an appropriate pastime.

Certain notebooks work for certain things, I’ve found since I’ve become serious about the habit, and no, any old notebook won’t do. There was a time when I thought that was the case, and I was wasting time and money and mental energy by using pretty paper (or making plain paper pretty) but I’ve found that’s not the case. It’s a natural and needed part of my process. Using notebooks has taught me a lot about the way I write fiction. Slap something on the page, anything, and get it moving. If I don’t like what’s down there, I can change it. I can rip it out. I can tape it together. I can cover it. I do not have to be perfect on the first try, which is a misunderstanding I’d been laboring under for longer than I care to admit, even here.

It’s okay to say, “this isn’t working. I’m going to try something else.” The thoughts, feelings, images, words, stories, all of the above, that I want for project X may not come at all on lined paper, but move to dot grid and work in boxes rather than paragraphs and :angels sing: there we go. Pen and paper matter. An old Japanese proverb says that a poor workman blames his tools, and there is some truth to that, but finding the right tool can make the job all that much easier.

 

 

 

 

 

Talking With Wet Nails

annabowling 1 Comment

New title for video blog posts today . These will now be under the heading, “Talking With Wet Nails,” because it’s catchy, and that’s my best attempt for a title today. Still need to come up with an appropriate graphic, but that’s a problem for Future Anna.

Note that I am not actually doing my nails in this post, because that would be awkward, messy and probably boring. I did, however, stumble into the captions function, so we’ll see how that goes.

I’m hoping to make this a more frequent feature here, as part of my effort to stop being as quiet as I have been lately. This also means I only have to write-write one blog per week, as Skye still has Fridays. Innovative and labor saving. I like that.

 

 

TLDW (too long, didn’t watch) :

Typing With Wet Claws: Happy Mew Year Edition

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Hello, all. Skye here, for the first Feline Friday of 2016. This is the day when Anty usually moves into a new planner, if she has not done so already, but this year is different. Anty does not have a new planner. I am not entirely convinced she will not end up buying one after all, but in the meantime, she is making her own, out of a notebook she has only partially used. Anty’s two words (well, really, phrases, because they each have two words in them) are: Clean Sweep and More Layers. Making her own planner could be considered a way of combining both at the same time.

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Plain notebook, pre-hacking

When Anty was thinking of getting a Moleskine planner, she thought she might get a red one (and she still might; I am not sure she won’t) so she will be using this red hardcover Picadilly notebook instead. It also reminds her of the red Moleskine in  Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares, which was one of her best reads of 2015.  Anty likes it when things she uses every day remind her of things she loves, so this fits in there nicely. She had used about half the notebook before moving on to others, but she did not want it to go to waste. Now it will not.

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Anty liked the layout of the other planner, so she used that as an inspiration, and used a vintage office supply stamp to put in the dates. It is so old that it does not have 2016 on it, so she will add that later.

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Here is the same layout, with a different color added for each day. With different colors, Anty can tell at a glance which day is which. If they are all the same color, her eyes see it as one big block, which is not helpful. This experiment also reminds her that it is time to get some new highlighters.  She may try adding color with another medium, because highlighters are very bright, and that is not always restful for her eyes.

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After Anty counted out fifty-two pages, so that each week would have its own page, she remembered that other planners also have monthly grids. She had not accounted for those, and she had already started the first weekly page, so she could not put those in the front, or she would have to re-count pages. She does not like counting things, so she put the grids in the very back of the book (or next to the back of the book. Her last page is always her ink test page.)  She used rubber stamps to make the grids. This process has a learning curve, but Anty is smart. She used masking tape to cover the really messy grids and then stamped over that. She thinks she may actually like that better, so she may go back and re-stamp them all that way. This is a work in progress.

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Remember when I mentioned that Anty does not like counting things? Well, this is why. She got the grids all stamped out, some on masking tape, and then counted to make sure she had everything. She did not have everything. One year has twelve months, not ten. Maybe she wanted to leave out summer, because it is her least favorite season? I do not think seasons work like that, but I cannot fault her for trying. Here is a picture of what she used to make the grids, in case you are curious. The clear block lets her see exactly where she is putting the stamp, which is very useful, as her depth perception is sometimes, ah, creative.

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Starting over fresh and adding multiple layers makes Anty very happy. This year, she wants to challenge herself and take better control of her time. Having a planner that is tailored to her individual needs and tastes should take care of both of those things. She will likely change her mind several times and maybe even re-do the whole thing a time or two, but that is how she learns best, so she does not mind. She will probably share pictures of how things progress  on the planner front. If this works well, then she can make another one for next year. She also has a pocket sized version of the same red notebook, but she has not done anything to that one yet, as she has developed more of an affinity for the 8×5 size over the past year. She still has a lot of pocket sized books, though, so we will see what she does with those. Hm. Maybe they are really kitty-sized books and are actually for me? I wonder what I could do with those.

Anty needs the computer because she has to get back to work, so that is about it for this week.  I wish all of you a happy mew year and remain, as always, very truly yours,

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Until next week…

Skye O’Malley Hart-Bowling
(the kitty, not the book)

 

 

Course Corrections

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This is one of those posts I started several times, erased, started over, thought about, thought about skipping, realized I was out of writing quotes I had not used yet, muttered bad words, etc. I ingested candy corn, which I have recently discovered I do not hate, learned the hard way that the maker of said candy corn does matter (live and learn, right?) checked on under-the-weather-family member, almost tripped over Skye, almost tripped over Skye, almost tripped over Skye (cat people, you know how that goes) and finally came to the conclusion that this is One of Those Days.

We all have them. In my case, day could have gone on Schedule A or Schedule B, but life happened, and we ended up going on Schedule C, which meant no schedule, because nobody had counted on Schedule C, and I Hate Days With No Schedule. Hate, hate, double hate. Seriously bothers me to the point of irritability. Can I get a ballpark figure on when anybody wants lunch at least? Desired menu items? Give me something, people? No, nothing? Oookay. This is why I have an office (which does not, contrary to popular belief translate to “storage area.” We’re working on that.)

I work on a daily to-do list, which makes time a lot easier to manage. Days like this require course correction. Grousing about how things are not going the way I wanted them to go only takes me so far. It does not get the current ms written or the completed one edited, nor does it write blog entries. If there is one writing related thing on my list that I can control today, it is getting this blog entry written and posted. Sometimes, life is going to get chaotic, and the only sane thing to do is to call a time out. For me, that means getting away from the chaos and retreating behind office door. One of these days, I am going to have to make a new Writing Cave sign. Even on days when I’m not able to get to the keyboard, I can write in my longhand notebooks, both all purpose and for each project. Staying in touch with the stories that way and the discipline of putting pen to paper helps a lot on days like this.

Creativity starts, for me, with showing up. Butt in chair, pen on paper, and, as a former writing group facilitator often said, the process begets the product. In short, get the pen on the paper, keep it moving, and content will come. I’ve found that almost always works. Sometimes, trusting ourselves as writers is scary business, hypercritical gremlins picking at our clothes and whispering in our ears how we’re not good enough, they’ll all know we’re only faking it, don’t quit the day job, other writers do it better, and, in fact, so well that there’s no need for us. They’re wrong, of course, but we still hear them, and it’s still a big nuisance.

The notebooks in today’s picture were all purchased or received with love, and begun with good intentions, whether attached to a particular project or as an all-purpose book. Each one of them has some to several pages, but not more than 25% (math is not my strong suit, so probably an even lower number than that) filled with…something. Either I realized I was going in the wrong direction, that book wasn’t as good a fit for its intended content as I thought it was at first glance, or I flat out wasn’t feeling it anymore. In any event, there they sat, stuffed out of the way so I wouldn’t be reminded of Yet Another Failure.

Until today. There I was, at my desk, casting about for something to photograph, and there was the tiny pink Moleskine, my attempt to satisfy my longing for its full size version (and to be a handy dandy reference for one of those back burner historicals.) This led to the spiral pink notebook (similar reason) and the red-violet with the silver heart (too cool on the inside, with blank and lined pages both) and the blue deconstructed Studio Oh! book that I started using as a catchall book for Her Last First Kiss, then set aside when I found the right one. The Papaya! Art “Fearless” (hah) book that I’d forced myself to write anything in, then abandoned because that felt forced and plain and downright disheartening…you see the pattern here. I did, too, and stared down this sampling of notebooks that didn’t  (not the only ones, by any chance) and had a revelation. They weren’t ruined forever.

Nope. What are we talking here, a few pages? I love all these books. They’re pretty. Why do they have to be abandoned because I made a mistake or two in the early pages? News flash: they don’t. It’s okay to rip or cut pages out, glue them shut, staple, tape or paper clip them together if I think I might want to refer to them in the future, and start all over, fresh and brand new. I’d be thrilled if I were to receive brand new copies of these as gifts, so why not give them to myself? I can start fresh and fill them with the sort of art and writing I do now. I like that idea.

If that can be true about the physical notebooks themselves, it can also be true of the stories that go inside them. Okay, my first try at Book X didn’t turn out the way I wanted. I walked away, or it did. Maybe we decided on a mutual break, but there are still some parts, a character, an idea, a relationship, a setting, whatever, that hasn’t gone away, no matter how deeply I tried to bury it. Why not take that bit and make it into something new? What would I be losing? Nothing. What do I have to gain? Books, my friends. Big, sprawling tales of love long ago, and happily ever afters for all.

Sometimes, course corrections can take us to where we were always meant to be.

Typing With Wet Claws: Almost Anty’s Birthday Edition

annabowling 4 Comments

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. This is a special week, so I wanted to have a special picture today. Tomorrow is Anty’s birthday. In case you are wondering how much Anty likes her birthday, it is very close to this:

Because I was born wild, with no humans around to record these sorts of things, we do not know my birthday. The shelter people said I was about ten months old when Mama and Anty brought me home, so we count ten months back from the day I was adopted and use that when a vet needs to know these things. Anty is also adopted (I do not know how people shelters work when getting human kittens to their parents) but she does know her birthday and even the time she was born. That was eight in the morning. Anty was a morning person right from the start. Her mama and papa got a phone call very soon after that, to tell them Anty was born and it was time to come get her.

The way the story is told, Anty’s mama had to go on a plane by herself because Anty came sooner than they thought she would come and Anty’s papa still had to be at work. One would think humans could be more understanding about things like that. They probably would be, now, but this was a different time. Family lore says that Anty’s mama got very worried on the plane ride back, because she fell asleep on the plane and when she woke up, she could not find Anty. At least not her face, which should have been sticking out of the blanket in which she was wrapped. Anty was all right (as you may have guessed, because she is here now) and had squiggled herself down to the very bottom of the blanket. I do not blame her. When I was first brought home, I huddled in the back of my carrier, too, and I was a big girl of ten months. Anty was only three days old and had no idea what was going on.

She likes to think she has learned a few things since then. Like how to write good stories. She did teach a cat how to blog, so that is something. Anty really likes birthdays in general. They do not always have to be hers, which is good, because birthdays are one to a human every year. She gets  equally excited about Uncle’s or Mama’s birthdays, and she even likes my adoption day (that is in December, and she says that allows her to tick “Christmas kitten” off her bucket list. I am glad I could help her with that one.) This one is hers, though, and she is glad that it happens in her favorite time of year, October. The days get shorter, nights get longer, leaves turn pretty colors and pumpkin flavored things are everywhere. It also means Halloween and Thanksgiving are coming up, and then Christmas, which is her favorite day of the whole year, even more than  her own birthday. It counts as a birthday, though, and an important one for people who believe the way our family does.

This birthday is Anty’s, however, and, for her, it is the start of a whole new year. She likes to mark the start of a new year with new notebooks. Here are two.

Future story receptacles?

Future story receptacles?

Both of these notebooks are blank right now, but they will not be that way for long. The solid blueish notebook is a Moleskine, and has a soft cover and dotted pages. That will be a new thing for Anty to try. Well, she did try dotted pages once, but the pages were a funny whitish color and hurt her eyes, so she had to give that notebook a new home. She is interested in trying the dotted pages on Moleskine paper, which is a nice, soothing ivory.

The other notebook is by Punch Studio, which makes very very pretty stationery. Anty has been accumulating a lot of Paris-themed stationery, but here is the funny thing; she does not have any Paris-set ideas right now, so she is not sure why. She knows why she collects peacock-themed stationery (they are very pretty birds and probably taste good, because they are related to turkeys. I have recently started eating turkey, in case you are wondering, but Anty collects peacock things because they are important for a future book.) but the Paris thing remains a mystery.

There are some other things in this picture, taken on the desk that Anty had wanted fro her own since she was a very young human kitten. Now it is hers, so that is another life goal reached. The stuffed bunny in the corner is Happy Bunny. He says “let’s talk about me” when Anty squeezes him. She says he is good for focus. The big square thing is a stress cube. It is good for squishing when Anty needs something to do with her hands. Sometimes that is a lot, during the part of writing when she stares at things that are not there and has to think really hard. The fact that there are sticky notes and papers around these books are proof that they are going to be written in very very soon. The solid notebook will become her all purpose computer bag book once the current one is filled. As for the pretty Paris book, she does not know. It has pretty page inside, three different designs repeating. Anty thinks this might be a good book for morning pages, as it is easier to write on pretty pages than completely blank ones. She is not sure yet, though.

What she is sure of is that it is time to read Critique Partner Vicki’s chapter, so that is about it for this week. Until next time, I remain very truly yours,

Skye O’Malley Hart-Bowling
(the kitty, not the book)

Until next week...

Until next week…

Inside (and Outside) My All Purpose Notebook

annabowling 4 Comments

Art is about honesty. It’s about an individual’s expression of her own, unique vision. You don’t tell another adult what she sees. She stands at a different vantage point from you.

–Judith Ivory

First hot tea of the season at my favorite coffee house, all purpose notebook in my computer tote is going to need reinforcing with packing tape (which will then need distressing, because packing tape, while sheer, is also crazy shiny, and I  may give myself eyestrain merely looking at the taped cover. Using this notebook has taught me two important things: One) I love the smooth, unlined paper in PaPaYa! (the exclamation point is part of the name) notebooks, and, Two) cahier style notebooks are not made for sticking in computer totes if one does not want serious wear on the covers of said notebooks.

For those who are new to Typing With Wet Nails, notebooks, for me, are Serious Business. When I find one I like, I hold onto it, get others of its kind, and, as soon as humanly possible (unless there is a natural waiting period, as there sometimes is) figure out exactly what I want to use that particular book for, what sorts of inks, in what colors, go with it, and if it’s going to be in my purse, tote, next to my chair, bedside table, etc.  It’s both an art and a science. I have gone so far as to seal a notebook in a Ziplock baggie full of baking soda for a week in order to save the book from permanent damage from what we shall call pet odor. So, really, there are not a lot of things I won’t do to preserve a notebook. As with this one.

cover scuffage

cover scuffage

Keeping an all purpose notebook, for me, is essential. While I have several notebooks, each dedicated to a particular project, the all purpose book is the workhorse of the bunch, travelling with me every day from house to Laundromat to coffee house, on the road, etc. I like the cahier style for portability -slim, light, I can bend the cover backward an flex it in my hand when I need to fidget. The gorgeous PaPaYa! art makes me drool, so this was a natural choice. I wasn’t sure, at first, that I was going to like the unlined pages, but they do elicit a different way of writing than lined or gridded pages, and I have come to accept that they have their place in my repertory company of notebooks.

The binder clip is a must. Notebooks coming open in purse or tote drive me bonkers. They have to be closed-closed, and stay that way until I open them. Binder clips work for either cahier style or spiral bound notebooks. The hardcover books I favor tend to have a built in elastic band and stay closed that way. As does the softcover Moleskine I have in reserve, a lovely teally turquoise number with very faintly dot-gridded pages. I haven’t tried that one yet, as it’s not yet that book’s time, but it will come when it comes.

Notes from CRRWA meeting with guest speaker Karen Rock

Notes from CRRWA meeting with guest speaker Karen Rock

Binder clips are also excellent for holding said cahiers open when I need to refer to a two page spread at once. Pages above are from Saturday’s CRRWA meeting, with guest speaker, Karen Rock, whose fabulous presentation on maintaining quality under deadlines is definitely pertinent to my interests. I picked up the tip about drawing a frame around an unlined page to make it less intimidating, which dramatically changed the way I use unlined pages. This also works on gridded pages. I haven’t tried it on dot gridded pages yet, but that will happen soon. The frequent changes of ink colors is a newer practice, but keeps my magpie brain happy. I used to change colors with only each session of writing in a particular notebook (unless it is a one pen only notebook – we will look at those later) but, recently, I’ve started changing colors with each topic which my brain has apparently taken as a signal to go faster.

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Sticky notes are a must, in any notebook, and yes, they do need to be color coordinated. Artist’s kid here. Color palettes are important. If the colors don’t agree, I feel restless. For a long time, I thought this was being picky, but it’s part of the way I work. If the colors work together, my brain is at peace and I can concentrate. The all purpose pen I have with this notebook is a promo pen, picked up at a conference. It’s clicky, which is good, but it’s also white. White goes with my laptop keys, and the cord from my headphones for the laptop, but I recently rescued a pink promotional pen from an already filled spiral bound notebook, and that needs to be moved over, because pink pen goes with pink laptop, which goes with pinky purply cahier with pinky purply sticky notes inside it. Putting sticky notes directly in the notebook, permanently on a page so that I can get them directly there and not have to fish around in my purse or tote for same, is another game changer. Choosing what stickies go with what notebook helps me bond with the book, as well as makes it easier to employ said notes. I employ a lot of them.

One of the things I like best about having an all purpose notebook is the freedom to jump in and muck around, do whatever feels natural at the time, whether it’s drawing frames on the page, or switching inks, figuring out where the sticky notes go, how the paper feels, how it performs under heavy or light use, etc. I’m at a place where, rather than trying to chase down a method that works for me, I’m going to do what I do, and, when I’m done, figure out how I did it. The fact that it means I get to play around with pretty paper onto which I throw my brain droppings is a plus.

Video Blog Q & A

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Monday’s post on Tuesday again, small (very small) improvement on camera technique (hey, I’m still learning, but at least no big giant head this time) and my first time answering reader questions in video form. The most common questions I get asked are:

  • What are you writing?
  • What are you reading?
  • Do you keep a journal?

First two answers are pretty straightforward, the last one less so, and answer number one is actually more what I write in, but it’ll do for now. I am trying to be more conscientious with updating my Goodreads currently reading list, but it’s usually fairly accurate.

“What are you reading?” is an interesting question to ask someone who reads a lot, because that doesn’t always only mean books from a bookstore or on Kindle. I am also beta reading a historical romance by a wonderful author I am honored to know personally, and critiquing a futuristic romance for another writer friend. There’s also First Look assignments for Heroes and Heartbreakers. There are magazines, notably RT Book Reviews, Romance Writer’s Report, and Art Journaling for me. There’s first time reading, rereading, skimming, planned reading, reading that just happens, looking over my own older notebooks or files for bits of tid I’m going to need, or for a boost when I see how far I’ve come. There is a reason my first ms lives in a storage unit in another state.

If I’m watching a movie or TV episode on my laptop or the DVD, I like to have captions on, and there’s a fair deal of reading even when I play Sims 3. Reading blogs, reading email, reading Facebook posts, reading instant messages, reading pretty much anything that comes into my field of vision. Street signs, pizza boxes, anything. It’s an occupational hazard for the reader/writer, so narrowing it down to only books makes the answer a lot shorter, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

Hauling out the notebooks in which I am writing is about as close as I’m going to get, right now, to talking about what I am writing in them, at least here. I do need to talk about works in progress, but selectively, to one or two writer friends. Then I babble, sometimes incoherently, they listen, and reduce all that babbling to the root of the matter, or ask questions that help me figure things out.

Did I mention I love questions? Questions are the best, often unlocking doors I not only didn’t know were locked, but didn’t know were there. So, questions are fun, and always welcome.

Maybe next week, I will have the camera at a non-funhouse mirror angle.

Orphaned notebooks

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When I walked away from the table, there were bruises on the unheard lyrics of my yet-to-be-born songs.
-K’naan

Today, we are experiencing technical difficulties. I had a photo of orphaned (and one not really) notebooks all set to go, but my usb cable has gone rogue (or stayed in the coffee house when I left yesterday.) I think that’s rather fitting. I’ll add pictures when I retrieve or replace the cable, but the pictures aren’t the most important things.

Today’s quote comes from Somali-Canadian renaissance man, K’naan, and speaks of a record deal that didn’t work out. I first saved the quote to go along with the post on stories that wouldn’t make it all the way, but it’s here with the post on orphaned notebooks, because I can feel the loss of the words that won’t be on those pages. Maybe they will be on other pages someday, but the books remain, some pages filled, more pages blank. Each one was picked or recieved as a gift with great joy, started with the best of intentions, and then…

…well, if I knew what happened then, I could probably find a way to leverage that into something financially successful, because I would pay to figure out how to make that not happen again. The connection between a notebook user and their notebooks is a special one. Non-notebook people may not get it, and that’s okay. More notebooks for us. Sometimes, it’s the feel of the paper that calls out for a specific story, or the cover, the binding, the maker, the need for something calm and practical or fancifully wild. Whatever the draw, even the draw of finding something out later, every notebook is wanted, at first. Those that find their way to me, but are not a good match, I like to rehome to someplace they will be loved, or at least used. . Some, I alter, some I leave as is.

But the books. I know. This would be easier with pictures, but, in a way, the lack of pictures works. It’s an ephemeral thing, this connection to notebooks, and not always easy to identify. I do know some; the magenta bonded leather Markings gridded notebook, which I’d been beyond excited to get, to succeed its black, burgundy, and tuquoise predecessors as my all purpose book, is among those. Life events happened while I was getting ready to get to know this notebook, and I haven’t been able to unattach them. Bad juju, as some might say. That happens. There’s an older historical romance, by an author I admire, with a setting I love, that I had to put aside because of a life event that happened while I was reading halfway through, and I know I won’t be able to go back to that book and finish. It’s tainted. Regrettable, but it happens. Will I go back to the magenta notebook? Maybe. I’d like to think so, but it’s not time yet.

The black Picadilly cahier, I went into with high hopes, as Picadilly has sturdy paper, is great for everyday use, and if I could find 5×8 cahiers, my then-go-to all purpose format, in a much lower price than Moleskine, that would be great. It would, probably, except that I can’t get used to the slick covers of these books. One of my favorite things about the Moleskine cahiers is the cardboard covers and the way they feel in my hands. Sorry, Picadilly. Even hacking this book with a paper band to fool my hands (it didn’t) couldn’t make me love this. I try, now and again, but I know it’s not a Moleskine, and it feels like it’s, well, trying too hard. This does rather tie in with things I’ve learned about my own writing, so I get it. Probably as much psychological as tactile.

There are notebooks in which I started stories that I realized I was writing because I wanted to prove something to somebody else (oh silly younger me) or because I “should” be writing X, Y and Z, but the fact remained, I didn’t want to, and so the connection wasn’t there. So, I stopped. I used to feel like a failure when I got to that point, when a perfectly lovely notebook got put to the side because I wasn’t feeling it anymore, but now, I see things differently. Knowing when to walk away is part of the creative process. It’s not failure. It’s identifying something that doesn’t work. As my MIL says, “I’ll know not to do that again.”  Wise woman, that one.

So why keep these orphan notebooks around, if they didn’t work the first time? One of my reasons is my resolve to use what I have. Solves the problem of storing unused (or partially used) notebooks and the temptation to overspend on new ones. I have these. I can use them. Maybe not for the reason I initially thought (and that gives me knee-weakening tremors in some cases) – like the Studio Oh! book I thought would be my blabber book for Her Last First Kiss, but now, clearly, is not. I don’t know what it is now, but I know it’s not time to put it away, so it will be something. The best thing I can say is that their journeys aren’t yet over. Their times, their purposes, are going to come, and I’m not going to force them. Forcing doesn’t get anything accomplished.

Blank pages don’t have to be blank – many of mine come with grids, frames, lines, even watermarked images. Even those that come pristine from the printer, though, are already filled with possibility. I like to page through them now and again, and imagine the stories or notes that will someday be written there. The voices aren’t dead. They’re only resting.