#SOL23: Writer’s Notebook
Today was Day 29 of A 30-Day Writing Habit 2023
A Mary Oliver quote, “The Poet Always Carries a Notebook”. Link
This Grant Snider Comic. Link
And then QuickWrites for 3 topics from earlier writing.
All three of my topics centered on notebooks.
I’ve come to writing notebooks lately. I had a diary once upon a time. I wrote in it often, but it was not a daily habit. I write more consistently now, but in a variety of notebooks. I leave one in a bag and then scramble for another notebook to write in. I don’t have a series of neatly numbered notebooks on my shelf. I have many notebooks stacked in a pile. Most have some dates on the cover. Most of the years from 2014 to the present are recorded on the covers of at least one notebook. Some years have multiple notebooks. Few are used from front to back in their entirety. Many have been used for demonstrations for writing work with students and teachers.
I pick one up and thumb through it. I appreciate the table of contents. I can locate writing topics and find ideas that I want to revisit. Other notebooks are not so user-friendly. I want a control F search feature. But that doesn’t exist.
And some . . .
seem to consist of lists or notes. Worthy writing endeavors but not writing notebooks.
Does a Writer Need to Keep a Writing Notebook? was the title of one of my Quick Writes.
Should I Keep a Writer’s Notebook? was another Quick Write
and the final was Pros and Cons of Writer’s Notebooks
Keeping this habit going is going to require that my process is replicable, easy to access, consistent, and re-visitable. How will I pull topics from my Kindle Scribe? I can email notebook pages to myself and collect them in a file. Or two. Or three. Is that efficient? Effective?
Why do you keep a writer’s notebook? How do you revisit ideas/topics? What’s your medium/platform?
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Thank you, Two Writing Teachers, for this weekly forum. Check out the writers and readers here.
#SOL23: Writing Habit
It’s January. I check my email. Some days I read a specific email message before morning coffee. On other days I wait until the brown go juice has squeezed the sleep out of my brain. Then I copy the quote for the day and check for the mentor text. It’s #ASDWWrites. It’s a 30-day writing challenge. It’s response writing. (@shelfietalk and wakelets from chats at https://wakelet.com/@shelfietalk )
I don’t have the topic in advance.
I can’t store a couple of blog posts as drafts if the writing doesn’t come easy.
I’ve missed some days.
I’ve gone back and filled in the gaps because I’ve left blank pages in the notebook in my Kindle Scribe. The empty page with a day and date reminds me that I’ve missed something. Something that I committed to doing.
Daily reading and/or writing is a habit. Since the pandemic, I’ve made it a habit to start my day with reading, writing, or both. The writing may be blogs, tweets, DMs, or notes to myself. The reading also varies from saved documents, blogs, research, books, directions, and quilting tips.
Dictionary.com offered this definition of HABIT.
As I reflected on the first 20 days of this daily writing, I wondered if writing was truly a habit. In other words, if I missed a day was it still a habit? How many days could I miss and still have it be a habit?
What if I missed a day or two because I was involved in other writing work?
So it wasn’t that I didn’t write . . . but just that I didn’t write to the daily prompts because I was writing a lot “to take action” for another project?
And I did go back and write LATER.
Reading and writing are customary practices. Daily habits. Some days don’t allow for an early morning response and my schedule is discombobulated and the habit does not demand completion before I sleep. Postponing to another day helps keep some people/tech/device balance in my days. It’s not about “having to write right now” but about completing the task.
Hmmm. . .
Am I hedging my “Habit”? Does a habit have to be 30 consecutive and distinctly different days? Who decides? What does this say about agency and choice for our readers and writers in school?
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Thank you, Two Writing Teachers, for this weekly forum. Check out the writers and readers here.
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