Take some time to tell us all about your writer's notebook. What does it look like? Where did you get it? How did you decide upon your selection? Does it have lines? No lines? Have you written anything in it yet? Did you decorate it on your own? What size is it? Is is something you feel comfortable holding and writing in? Did you dig it out from somewhere or make a special shopping trip? We will put these out at our next class and see if we can guess whose is whose! So, describe it as well as you can!
I got mine at the NCTE (National Council for Teachers of English) conference in New York City. I knew I was in the market for a new one, but I am always searching for that perfect one of the time! I spied it from far away. It was at a booth in the vendor's section. It was wildly colorful with funny faces mocking famous authors and artists. On my first glance I could not tell who was who, but thoroughly enjoyed looking and seeing who was who! I liked the smooth feel of the cover and how it felt cradles in my arms. It fulfilled the needs I knew to be essential of having blank pages and a spiral binding. What I was not sure about was the direction that the book opened. In the end, I went for it, relieved that I would not have to decorate this one..as my creativity seemed to be waning in this area as of late. And so I bought it, on the spot and just recently have started filling it with goodies. So far, so good. I like how it starts out with my travels, one of my goals for the year! I like carrying it and using it...although I am still not wild about how it opens, I am pretty much loving it. Do you think you will be able to pick mine out?
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I bought my journal at Wal-Mart! You know…the store teachers spend their lives at! Let’s be honest, I didn’t have time to go anywhere else. I had a journal from last year that I decorated, but it really didn’t work out so well for me. It had things that popped out from the cover and they got squished every single time I put it in my over-packed teacher bag. My new journal is bright and fashionable…even though it came from Wal-Mart I still consider it to be fashionable! It has lines…I couldn’t stand it if it didn’t because then my writing wouldn’t be in a straight line and you all know how I am. (I attached a spider leg last week so that has to count for something) It has a pocket and a few dividers. My favorite part is I can hold my place with the nifty elastic placeholder. In addition, it is easy to tear pages out of the large spiral binding if I wish. Does it have anything in it?…well that depends if this is a trick question that is going to affect my grade. I have the angel and the devil fighting on my shoulders right now. Ok, Ok, I must tell the truth…it is blank because I just purchased it…but it won’t be blank for long so you’re not to worry. The angel won as you can see…she always does!!! Tomasen…I will be sure to pick yours out!!!
This afternoon I went notebook shopping. B.J., I also looked in Walmart, but I couldn’t find one that spoke to me. I did, however, pick up some comfort food for the possible snow day. I drifted into Marshall’s. I found a new shirt. But the journals were just a bit to glittery. As I entered Staples, I knew I needed to be decisive. After all, maybe the PERFECT journal would be near impossible to find. And I was ready to head home. Therefore, I chose a journal that was the best that I had seen to date. She looks like a travel journal. She has pictures of a few places I have actually been to. I like the hard cover. It will give my words a solid place to rest. The spiral bound wire allows the journal to lay flat. I think the size will be just right, not too big to carry around, but large enough to fill with my amazing thoughts. She holds 160 sheets of graph paper instead of line paper (trying to be a little less structured). She has a pocket – good for keeping bits of papers. I did tuck a piece of paper into the pocket. It’s a clipping from a Donald Murray’s book regarding ideas to write about in a writer’s notebook. Now all I have to do is put some words on the first crisp,clean page!
Hi! I left last class with a journal in mind! A friend had given it to me years ago and I always had saved it for when I thought I had something special to write or when I thought I had something timeless to say. Well... I couldn't find it and then I remembered that I had put it under the bathroom sink so that I could "reach" it when a thought came to me. :) Well, did I mention that my faucet leaked all over the place a couple of months ago? It was a beautiful green but... not what I remembered. It just goes to show that whatever or whenever you have something to say- it should be treasured and treated that way. Waiting for the right time to write is not the way for me anymore. But... I searched and I couldn't find the perfect journal. I wanted soft and light and airy. I went to Wal-mart and I finally chose a simple cream colored one (the color of an angel's wings after a hard day-not as whispery white as they were in the morning but just as, if not, even stronger!) I bought it the day before my husband and I brought my dog to the vet for the final time to say goodbye to the best dog in the world. I think the padded cover felt soft and I vowed that the first entry would be about him and how my heart ached. I imagined writing a book about unconditional love and what we can learn from it. Life is truly too short for humans and dogs too. I am not going to wait anymore to write. I am just going to write. But.. if you have started to know me at all... you know that I have a hard time opening up to some. Be patient. Now I am thinking that there is a poem inside me about the color of an angel's wings. :)
I will be using the same journal that I bought for class last year. Truth be told, I haven't written in it since class last year, but, none-the-less, it still sits on my shelf waiting for the day to be picked up again and treasured. Ronnie- I love the way you personified your journal- how special and more meaningful it seems- I'm stealing it! My journal is a brilliant, but muted navy blue color and she also enjoys being one with a hard cover. She is square only in shape and not in personality, in fact, the quote, written in white on the cover, is quite inspirational. Lines? Of course she has lines- without them I wouldn't know how big or how small to write! Although she doesn't lay completely flat when I write I see it as protection from others who will try to steal a peak at my thoughts as I feverishly record them on the page. Now, I did not tell her this but, I did go out and look this weekend at Barnes and Noble for a new journal that may catch my eye, but nothing did. Then, the more I thought about it- I decided I wanted to, for once, actually fill a journal with entries and not just start one and give up. I looked at buying a new journal as unnecesary and totally typical of what I have done for years. I realized that I don't have to start a new journal for each new milestone in my life. I can fill up one with many milestones and have it be a sort-of chronicle of the things I have seen, done, experienced, accomplished.
Kim,
How flattering for you to use my idea. My thinking is that if I give my journal a little personality, maybe I'll think of 'her' as a dear friend waiting with eager interest to hear about my day. We'll see if it helps. Right now my 'dear friend' is sitting on my coffee table staring at me saying Hellllo! I'm waitingggg!. I hope we don't let our journals down.
So, I started the search for the perfect journal and thought it would be a short one. I envisioned running into Staples and grabbing a notebook off the shelf. How hard could it be? My husband and I were out doing errands and I told him it would be a quick stop. Wrong! I was there for quite some time. I'd pick up a journal and flip through and put it back. Then another. Then another. I went to the artists section to look at sketch books then to the writing paper section, teacher section, and formal paper sections. I roamed the store to look at the special displays. I'd carry one around and then switch for another. When my exasperated husband would ask what was wrong with the last one, I would say, "Its just not right. Something about the feel of it is wrong." He thought I was crazy, and I guess I do too. I finally got one that I still am not sure about. There isn't any bonding or personification that has happened between us. Its black with a raised floral texture and decorative brass corner embelishments. It has lined paper (I can't break it!) but it is perforated. That way if I write something great but want to pull it out to use elsewhere, there are none of those hanging shreds. :) It also had to be the right size. It is big enough to write a lot on a page, but not too big that I can't carry it comfortably. Ah...now for the bonding to start.
Ahhh...picking out the perfect journal. To hear everyone else describe finding "the one" sounds like such an art form. I haven't been inspired to bond or carry journals to check for the right fit. What I have done is commit to using one of the many journals I've collected over the years. Something about September brings out the shopper in me. Along with the colored pencils, new folders, and snazzy pens I always manage to slide a few journals into my Wal*Mart cart. BJ, I also live there!
The particular journal that I have made my commitment to is not spiral-bound. Us lefties can't create timeless works of art with that annoying spiral in the way. It IS lined because us lefties tend to write downhill making our works of art look more like second grade work. The cover is smattered with multi-colored, multi-layered polka dots which look a bit like cartoon roving eyeballs. They made me smile which is why this journal actually had been used. To date it houses notes from a Debbie Miller workshop, lists of things I still need to do just begging to be crossed off, and tiny shreds of paper-the only evidence that other writing was once there.
Ronnie-I would love to see the little list of journal ideas you tucked inside your new friend because I'm worried that my pal will remain unchanged with the most interesting writing being the conversion chart on the back cover. Anyone need to convert from liters to gallons?
Gina,
Sure thing. I will make you a copy . Murray calls it his "itch list" - about two dozen questions to ask yourself to discover what you want to scratch next. Just add to your list of things to still do - get list from Ronnie.
Debi,
I'm curious now. Where are some of the other places you've stashed journals for that "moment". I've heard about the one near your bed for those middle of the night ah-hah moments, and one near the toilet. Any others?
I envisioned taking one of my sisters very eccentric looking sketch books that already had a few sketches in it and asking her if I could keep it as my journal. I thought it would be neat to look at her sketches each time I went to draw because I am always so amazed by her talent. Well, it turns out my sister does not give away her sketch books and definitely not ones she has started. Needless to say I ended up getting my journal at TJ Maxx. I didn't think there would be one in there, but I figured why not look while I was shopping. I walked throughout the whole store and didn't find a single journal, but then on the sale rack on the way out I found the perfect journal for me! It is a very light purple with a big pink flower on the front and those colors just screamed my name. Each page has a pink outline and a small flower in each corner which seemed very inviting. It will be interesting to see what my first journal entry will be about. I want to start writing down what people in my life say to me. I often hear words, stories, jokes spoken to me by family and friends and think that I will remember those words forever. Typically by the end of that same week I have forgotten to even to try to remember those words. My journal is small enough to carry around in one of my bigger purses so the plan is to carry it just about everywhere with me to write down all of my daily thoughts which is the title on the front of the journal. I am sure it will not be difficult to guess which journal is mine!
Wow, I am speechless. I feel as though I have no business being in this class. I acidentally grabbed my journal because it was misplaced among the craft supplies (at Walmart of course) that I was buying for the Brown Bag Book Club. Maybe some would call it fate, I think it made my life easier. I really do like the journal, it's bold colored with stripes on one side and polka dots on the other. I like the fact that it was already a little scratched and beat up, it makes it look as though I have been carrying it around and using it for ages. I have started to write in it, but I just don't feel like I have a lot to say right now. I promise I'll keep an open mind and will give this notebook thing my best shot!
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