For a long time I thought I couldn’t be a writer because I didn’t have the discipline or even inclination to keep a notebook. If I had read this back then, I would have thought, “There it is. Proof that Mary Dansak is a writer and you’re not.” I still have to stifle that voice, but at a certain point I just had to move on and not worry about it. I do enjoy the detail and feeling you put into your writing, which obviously comes at least partly from recorded notes. But nowadays, I kind of think my poetry and my blog are functioning as my notebook, and that will have to do for me.
Notebooks are LIFE! I’ve been keeping them since I was 12 years old, unfortunately most of my writing from grade school was lost to the rats in the “rat house”. But I have several notebooks I’ve moved with me through my married life. I’m trying to get brave enough to go back and re-read them & get them in some sort of order.
For a long time I thought I couldn’t be a writer because I didn’t have the discipline or even inclination to keep a notebook. If I had read this back then, I would have thought, “There it is. Proof that Mary Dansak is a writer and you’re not.” I still have to stifle that voice, but at a certain point I just had to move on and not worry about it. I do enjoy the detail and feeling you put into your writing, which obviously comes at least partly from recorded notes. But nowadays, I kind of think my poetry and my blog are functioning as my notebook, and that will have to do for me.
I am still intimidated by people who write profound things in their notebooks. I just keep a log! Whatever you are doing is working!
Thank you.
Notebooks are LIFE! I’ve been keeping them since I was 12 years old, unfortunately most of my writing from grade school was lost to the rats in the “rat house”. But I have several notebooks I’ve moved with me through my married life. I’m trying to get brave enough to go back and re-read them & get them in some sort of order.
Happy to know I’m not the only notebook weirdo.
We are legion!!
You think and act in dimensions easily enough to map our entire Universe! I’m astonished, Mary Dansak. All in a good way.
I loved this post so much I subscribed! ❤️ 📚 🖊️
Welcome! Nice to meet another notebook fan!
11 active notebooks? Are they for different subjects, such as one a dream journal? Or for note-keeping, all of them?
From a notebook nerd, here you go!
1. THE active everything journal. My lifeline.
2. Dream journal.
3. Morning Pages
4. Craft of Writing notes
5. Box Turtles, Hooligans, and Love Sweet Love notes
6. G&L Horse and Cattle Ranch notes
7. Planner/Calendar
8. Red Diary (sharing with my childhood self)
9. Freelance Gigs Notes
10. Journey in Place/Naturalist Notes/Class Notes
11. Writers' Group/Mystic Order of East Alabama Fiction Writers
:)
There! That sated my curiosity. Thank you, Mary. Beautiful!