My Writing Notebook Ecosystem

I'm doing it, I'm hopping on the train and sharing the ecosystem of notebooks I use for my writing. At some point I may also share a general notebook ecosystem, probably not including those in this post. There are notebooks lying all over my house, it honestly could take a little while just to round them all up. Luckily, when I'm working on a draft, I keep all my writing notebooks on hand for easy reference. 

General Notebook

This is what I keep pretty much everything in. It functions as a journal at times, but mostly it's random ideas, snippets of dialogue or description, and maybe some things about my day. Every now and then I love to do a collage in it--I love the way it bulks up the pages and makes the notebook look just as lived-in as it is. I started this several years ago, and the current notebook I'm in is labeled as Notebook 7. It used to take me less than a year to fill one up, but this one is taking much longer--I haven't really figured out why, yet. I'm trying to get back into filling it with more short fiction and writing sprints based on any kind of prompt I can find that I like, and record more of the important moments in my everyday life. 

Holloway Notebook 

This notebook is pretty much exclusively for world building in the primary setting I base my novels in. I use this for location descriptions, maps, character work, and anything pertaining to the world that may not pertain to the specific draft I'm working on. Timelines are an important part of this, as well as dates of birth of each character, and some information on how they relate to each other. 

Outlining Notebook

This is a notebook I picked up at Marshall's on a discount, and I'm obsessed with it. I love the style, the size, the date labels--it's perfect for outlining full drafts in. I always write out the key components of each scene to make sure I'm not forgetting anything during my actual writing process. It also helps me slow down and think about what's happening in the moment, so I can take my time in the scene rather than worrying about what comes next. That's my main problem during the drafting process; my scenes come up short because I get antsy and just want to push through it, leaving big gaps and holes for the readers. I always make sure I date the page I start the outline on, and the page I finish it on, just to get a general idea of how long it takes me to work the outline. Additionally, way in the future, it helps me figure out when I find a random outline which draft it belongs to and if it was created before or after the writing of that draft, letting me know how accurate it is to the actual work. 

Draft-Specific Notebook

This, of course, changes based on what I'm working on. Right now, it's this tiny spiral bound notebook from the Dollar Tree. I chose this one because my intention was only to work on a third and final draft of this piece, and I could likely fill this little notebook up just with that and not have to worry about wasting a larger, nicer notebook. It's quickly proving to be larger than this notebook, but we'll deal with that issue as it arises. Here is where I work out subplots, character arcs, wants lists and some plot exercises. I also use it for story-boarding, and whatever random information that happens to come to mind related to the draft that wouldn't fit anywhere else. It's messy and covered in sticky notes, some of them even taped in, just how I like it! 

Keeping all these with me, especially when I'm traveling somewhere to write, can be a little much. All of this used to just be on the computer, but I'm learning not to trust computers as much as I once did, and it also is proving to help my process moving to a more analogue system. This is especially helpful when I need to write notes in the margins. I thought I would miss just being able to retype a sentence to include the forgotten information, but I love the look it gives the pages to have it scribbled down somewhere. It feels much more representative of my real thought process, and the creative work I'm actually putting into the project. It's absolutely worth the extra space it takes up, and I don't foresee myself switching back any time soon.