How I start a new notebook

by DRM

I want to assure you with all earnest­ness that no writ­ing is a waste of time — no cre­ative work where the feel­ings, the imag­i­na­tion, the intel­li­gence must work. With every sen­tence you write, you have learned some­thing. It has done you good. It has stretched your under­stand­ing. I know that. Even if I knew for cer­tain that I would never have any­thing pub­lished again, and would never make a cent from it, I would still keep on writing.

If You Want To Write, Bar­bara Euland

I have just started a new work­book. I use a large, soft-covered Mole­sk­ine note­book with unlined pages as a place to record ideas, research, sketches and other mar­gin­a­lia that make up the things I do as a writer. The note­book was the inspi­ra­tion for this blog, in fact. I thought that it would be inter­est­ing to share some of the things that I encoun­tered and cre­ated while work­ing on dif­fer­ent projects.

When I begin a new note­book, I sit down at my old type­writer and type out excerpts from Bar­bara Euland’s book about writ­ing. The one at the top of this post is the first I type and maybe the most evoca­tive for me.

When I am done typ­ing the excerpts, I re-type the last para­graph of Joyce’s The Dead. Then I take a scis­sor, cut the pages to the size of the note­book and paste them in with a glue stick.

As I type, the old keys click­ing and clack­ing, I get happy. I feel cen­tered and pur­pose­ful. The joy is child­ish. Euland’s words are my per­mis­sion, my affir­ma­tion, my launch­ing point.

Joyce’s para­graph is a reminder about what can take your breath away. Music lives in words. The images, the con­no­ta­tions, the mem­o­ries, the asso­ci­a­tions all build together to bring you to a moment of clar­ity, an under­stand­ing of what life is about.

These are my two start­ing points: joy­ful exu­ber­ance that comes with being given per­mis­sion to play and breath­less desire to move some­one else that way that Joyce’s story moved me.

Those two points cap­ture the pur­pose of my work­book. Part of what I need is a place to keep track of ideas. But I also need the work­book to remind me what I am reach­ing for when I write, the simul­ta­ne­ous expe­ri­ence of com­fort and exer­tion, the ever-deepening under­stand­ing of what Life is.

If you have ever thought about writ­ing, or desire to be con­fi­dent and excited about cre­at­ing new things, you should read Euland’s book. It’s been a great friend to me.

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