In my life, I’ve been given multiple notebooks, many with the intention of ‘journal’, ‘gratitude book’, and even ‘thoughts’. No, they did not end up as the intended dreaded journal, gratitude book, or thought book.
They ended up as my first draft stories.
The first notebook started it all. It was my eleventh birthday, and I’d received a beautiful peacock-feathered and gold journal. It was too beautiful to write in, I thought. I called it my dream journal. The first dream I wrote in it is an odd one. I dreamt I was a character from a show I’d watched, and my sister and friend were the other two characters. We began by discovering a hidden closet in an unfamiliar house. Then we were trying to defend it from my five-year-old cousins. Very very strange dream.
Other dreams are recorded in the ‘dream journal’ as well, from microwaving water in a blender to driving into a creepy cemetery-seriously, my dreams are strange-I wrote the dreams I had into the book.
And then I had this one dream. It was in my neighborhood, and I was trying to hide from my sister. Then these two girls with wings took me to a strange house, and I remember the door kept changing shape. I was worried we would get stuck inside forever, but the girls were able to fly out the chimney with their wings.
It was from then on I wanted to write. My dreams were just peeking into the realm of creativity, and so I began writing my first novel in the dream journal. Since then, I’ve used 12 notebooks, each with the same purpose: Write.
Above are all the notebooks I have currently, in order of when I got them. One of them has three separate sections of three different books. It also has several different pieces of information written down where I can go to remember them. (Because as an author, it’s hard to keep everything straight!)
There will never be enough notebooks, I say, because there are never enough stories in the world. Even now, my fingers are itching to go back to my current notebook, and start scribbling away.
How many notebooks have you used for the same purpose? How many stories are trying to get out of your head? Leave a comment below!
Stay Magical,
1 thought on “Never Too Many Notebooks”
I am also very much a pen and paper sort of person– don’t get me wrong, I also love technology, but when I want to get an idea out I want a good old-fashioned notebook!