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I've been creative writing all my life, though with various haitus(es) along the way. IFrom 2010 I started this blog and enjoyed sharing writing and other information with everyone. illness and bereavement supplied the more recent hiatus.

Thursday, 19 August 2010

Noteworthy Advice


Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within (Shambhala Library)Natalie Goldberg’s 'Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within' gave me some really commonsense advice about note books, plus many other writing advice gems. I have always loved stationery, the look of fresh, crisp blank pages waiting to be used and the smell. Yes I have been known to stick my nose in books and sniff, (though some chemical paper treatments leave an acrid taste on the tongue and back of the nose!)
Unfortunately, since I hated my handwriting and wanted my notebooks all to look  perfect and beautiful, naturally the idea of sullying such perfection with my banal scrawls presented a huge barrier for creativity. 

Inhibition Central, you might say! Yet while a smart, pristine note book demands reverence and pride, a scrappy old school rough book can be scrawled and scribbled in without any qualms.

Now why didn’t I realise this before?

 Since I read Natalie Goldberg’s advice, (which I’ll let you read for yourselves it’s so brilliant and also has more sound advice about choosing notepads in it) I now buy cheap spiral bound A6 sized notebooks with elastic fastenings and use flexi grip ball pens attached to them for writing down my novel ideas. I can carry them around with me wherever I go. It has helped free my writer-within and keeps all my ideas in one place.

So do you use scraps of paper, expensive moleskin notebooks or scruffy notepads?
Posted by scribbleandedit.blogspot.co.uk at 09:57

4 comments:

  1. Jayne19 August 2010 at 19:38

    Hello Madeleine! Thanks for coming by my blog, and I think your name is perfect for a writer. I can picture it on the shelves already! :)

    As for the notebook thing, oh I hear you. I have several untouched gorgeous notebooks, and tons of battered ringbound scrappy ones. Guess which are the ones with the ideas in!

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  2. scribbleandedit.blogspot.co.uk19 August 2010 at 20:23

    LOL! Thanks Jayne. Yes I'd love to own a moleskin notebook (poor mole), but I can imagine it looking at me reproachfully and defying me to write something neat and profound in it!
    Madeleine x

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  3. Amanda20 August 2010 at 09:27

    That's a very good point, Madeleine. I know exactly what you mean about keeping our lovely notebooks pristine. x

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  4. scribbleandedit.blogspot.co.uk20 August 2010 at 10:08

    :O) Thanks Amanda
    The other great thing about notebooks is looking back and seeing how many more revisions of a poem or story I made than I remembered before it was finally completed. It's a really interesting journey.

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