A writer’s notebook
here we keep the words
housed in safety from the world
wherever that is
Growing up, I always paid some sort of attention to where I wrote and the writing instrument I used. From hello kitty themed diaries, only written in with the matching hello kitty number 2 pencil, to dollar store wide ruled notebooks for English class.
When I think about writing poetry, it was usually on standard 8x11 college ruled paper and pencil. The sheets would be in a three-ring binder next to homework assignments and class schedule print outs. It was a way to physically scrawl out my thoughts and I didn’t differentiate it from the other types of writing I was doing.
During undergrad, I started drafting only in black pen. Blue ink didn’t quite stir my thoughts the same way and with pen it seemed like the appearance didn’t matter to me as much. You can’t erase so you have to just get the notes out. Later, when typing drafts, I would decide if the notes actually made it into the poem.
I’ve tried writing with gel like pens, images of the Pilot G2 coming into view, but since I write as if I’m left-handed those type of pens don’t work for me. I mean that my right hand rests on top of the page so I am often smudging.
Through the years I’ve been gifted notebooks and purchased more than a handful myself. Eventually I turned to this habit of making the notebooks topic based. I couldn’t write poems in the red notebook because that one is for reading notes. The purple one was for anxious thoughts and the blank ones were for some small attempt at art using brush pens. I created this limitation where poetry was strictly designated to its own section.
I found that when I drafted on lined paper like before, I would misplace the poems and never return to revise. It would get shuffled in with papers for work or travel plans. You can’t work on draft #2 if you are physically putting the first one out of sight.
Currently, I’m writing in an XL classic notebook by Moleskine. I was immediately struck by its size and the color, hydrangea blue, in a bookstore after a reading. I don’t know if this specific notebook is what has inspired me, or the fact that I actually bought it instead of staring at it longingly, but I haven’t stopped writing it since the morning after purchase. It’s a new poem notebook and if they never make it to the drafting stage, at least they’re all compiled in one neat place.