The Creative Notebook, Post #1
The Creative Notebook, Post #1
Let's keep an autumn notebook!
Welcome to the first post in my Creative Notebook course. I will be posting on keeping a notebook at least four times between now and mid-November, and I will host two accompanying Zoom workshops. The first is happening in a week, on Saturday October 19th from 1-3PM Eastern.
How it works: You can follow along here for free (and potentially sign up for one or both of the Zooms for $40 each). Paid subscribers can attend the Zoom workshops for free and also enter into discussion about keeping a notebook in a private chat. Learn more (and register for the Zoom meetings) here!
[Note: If you’ve been following me for a while, you know that I also wrote a series of posts about keeping a notebook last April. I’ve listed those at the bottom of this post for additional context and ideas!]
And now… on to a new post!
Thank you for being here,
Joanna
Starting Our Autumn Notebook
Categories of Notebooks
I think best in spring and fall. Something about the transitional seasons creates space in my mind, an interest in following my own thoughts and making new connections. Maybe it’s the crisp air. It’s also just the change. Things are afoot. And here in the fall, the veil feels thin. (Note: if you’re into the haunted and spectral, be sure to check out my November 2nd workshop, Spectral Traces.) So, I’m happy to be here with you, embarking on a few weeks of creative play.
What do I mean by a “creative notebook”? The short answer is that it can mean whatever each of us wants it to mean. In April (4/26/24), I wrote about some kinds of notebooks to consider. Below is how I’m thinking of these types of notebooks now. We’re each going to choose elements from the following categories, coming up with our own idea of what we want to do in our creative notebook:
Journals are where I record some of what’s happening in my life, and I let myself reflect on my feeling and thoughts around these happenings. From my earlier post:
It’s sometimes been useful in journals to spill out feelings, a swirl of thoughts, anxieties, to-do lists and just get it all out. (Some people call this a “brain dump.” See also Julia Cameron’s “morning pages” from The Artist’s Way.) I do find that (for me) I can get tired of the “get it all out” technique and start to feel that I’m going in circles or not moving beyond that (toward other writing and/or other techniques for attending to problems). But maybe that’s part of a psychological and writerly process for me, this movement between wanting to keep a journal—that attends to my swirling thoughts and feelings—and wanting to do something else with my notebooks.
Commonplace books are where we collect quotations and passages from our reading, as a record of others’ language and thoughts that feels valuable to us as we encounter it. This type of collecting can help us see what our minds our drawn to at a given time and can form a sort of intellectual history. Here’s the wikipedia entry on commonplace books if you’re interested in their history. And here’s a great essay by
, “The Weight of Words: On Keeping a Commonplace Book.” (Thank you for linking to this essay in a comment on one of my previous posts, Kellie!)Writing notebooks for me have a bit more restraint than what I would call a journal. Here’s how I described them in that previous April post:
I see these as a space to keep some record of my days and collect interesting observations, memories, and turns of phrase, along with the “commonplace book” type passages and quotes. This type of notebook probably began for me when I was in my MFA program for poetry, when I was thinking more consciously about collecting material toward poems. The short version of the difference between “journals” and “writing notebooks” for me is that I’ve found that when I pulled back a little from the emotion and judgment around any events I set down (that is, became less “journal”-y), it was helpful for my writing. I was able to look back through those notebooks as potential material because of a certain degree of restraint. There might be a couple things going on there: 1. The notebooks were about learning to enjoy my observations and inner monologue, so they became both a good record of some parts of my life but also felt more streamlined and easier to “work with”; and 2. I believe I was training myself to let the details speak for themselves, to a certain extent. To not worry about spelling out the subtext (for myself or a potential reader). I believe this has been connected in some ways to putting some space around my anxieties and learning to trust myself and my observations and voice.
Artist’s books/creating a book for yourself/illustrated journal entries
These would be even more stylized than what I’m calling a “writer’s notebook.” They would consciously glean from earlier notebooks and include a visual element. The artist’s book is a creative piece in itself, meant to show a (maybe small) group of others. Connected to this in my mind is Kim Addonizio’s idea from Ordinary Genius of making a book for yourself. I posted about that here, if you want to read more about her idea. I wrote there that I like how this touches on the commonplace book and the journal but also suggests creating something slightly crafted, something creative just for oneself.
We can also consider here the place of the visual in our creative notebooks— do you want to include collage, drawings, color? Do you want to arrange your text into different shapes (akin to concrete poetry)?
Prompt #1: Think and/or write about which of the categories above appeal to you. Are you comfortable playing with the visual in your notebook? (Drawing, collage, color?)
Do you want to have any element of “restraint” in your notebook, in which you collect impressions and images but refrain from too much judgment or thought about them? Do you want to just let it all hang out, as a way of accessing flow and what Natalie Goldberg might call the “wild mind”? (Or perhaps move back and forth between these poles of restraint and freedom?)
Here’s my response to the above prompt: For my part, I’m interested in accessing play and flow and in creating a record for myself, as well as perhaps generating ideas for one or more projects. I will likely move between the poles of restraint and freedom, thinking of this as a space of exploration that includes some pages that are “brain dumps” of thoughts/anxieties and others that are more stylized or restrained. I will include some images in mine. To be honest, though, if I produce more “artistic” illustrated journal pages, I will likely do it in a second notebook (the one I started last year with the deer drawing?). So, will I have TWO notebooks going? A looser one in which I collect ideas and a more stylized “artist’s book” sort of notebook? MAYBE. I can do what I want!! (Uh oh, I’m already balking at any set rules, as is my tendency.)
So, how do we start?: Collecting “Glimmers”
I’ve run across the idea of “glimmers” in various places. Within the past year, I saw it as an idea meant to promote mental health, in which a “glimmer” is the opposite of a “trigger,” and I know that other writing instructors have also used the idea to mean following one’s attention and collecting that which appeals to you. Glimmers, delights, gleanings. The idea is to follow your attention.
Here I am thinking of “glimmers” as moments/sights/phrases that pique your interest. These are the bits of material (from life, from your thoughts, from memory) that your mind snags on for a moment. They could be delightful or they could just be generally compelling.
If you are someone who writes essays or poems, how do ideas come for you? Do you write down things you see or that happen that pique your interest? Do you write down phrases (either from your environment or from your own mind) that contain an interesting thought or that just sound good to you?
Prompt #2: Pay attention this week to that which snags your mind, piques your interest, has a “glimmer”-like quality. Include as many types of snags or glimmers as you can— interesting phrases, sights, gestures, interactions, tastes, smells, textures. Collect at least ten.
Here’s an illustrated journal page I made in January when I was following along with some daily prompts from
’s Substack. As you can see, I made drawings on different pages and then pasted things together to make one big “journal entry.” Don’t worry about creating a finished product though— just collect impressions!OK, happy notebook-ing!
Love,
Joanna
P.S.— Paid subscribers can look for an email about posting their thoughts and/or “glimmers” in the chat space soon!
More ideas for your notebooks
I also wrote a series of posts on notebooks in April 2024, which may help for inspiration as we keep our autumn notebook! If you’d like to see the notebook posts I wrote in April, you can find those here:
Keep an April notebook with me? (4/1/24): Here I discuss Joan Didion’s “On Keeping a Notebook”; tips for developing a studio practice; and the idea of “gleaning” from your subconscious, your relaxed conscious mind, your memory, your environment, and the interaction of all these.
April notebook check-in (4/5/24): Checking in about following your “noticings” and being intentional about writing down observations. A prompt on stylized journal entries inspired by writing by Rachel Zucker from The Pedestrians.
Notebook check-in 2: Hermit crabs and lists (4/12/24): Collecting fragments; list ideas; a model of a “how-to” hermit crab piece
Notebook check-in 3: The monostich and epigrams from Mom (4/19/24): On collecting one-liners. Examples from Frank O’Hara and from me/my mom.
Notebook check-in 4: Some final thoughts (4/26/24): On different kinds of notebooks and the value of moving between freedom and constraint.