My Passion For Notepads - Lynne Garner

By Lynne Garner -

The books I've published as eBooks are all fiction. However when I started to write professionally I was designing and writing projects for a monthly craft magazine. For the first few months I was fine but I soon found myself struggling to come up with new ideas. At about  this time I started to purchase a writing magazine. Although it seemed to cover mostly fiction I hoped it would give me ideas for my non-fiction writing.

One of the first features I read in it was about finding and recording things that would provide inspiration. It suggested you should always have a notepad and pencil with you. I realised this was as true for fiction writers as it is for non-fiction.

So that afternoon I purchased two notepads and since then my passion for notepads has grown and grown. In fact I'm so known for my notebooks I now receive them as Christmas gifts (the stripy notepad and William Morris design notepad), birthday presents (the keep calm and walk your dog notepad), recently my niece even made me a small notepad (the apple motif notepad) and when I feel I need a treat I even buy myself a notepad (Pooh and Eeyore notepads). The problem is when I'm given a lovely new notepad it takes me ages to build up the courage to scribble in it. I don't want to 'spoil' it, I want to admire it. Yes I know how sad that makes me sound. However I take solace in the fact that I'm not the only writer who does this. I've met many an author who has admitted they also have a passion for notepads.

So I was wondering what notepad has been sitting on your shelf, waiting to be scribbled in but you've just not built up the courage?  

Comments

Dan Holloway said…
what a wonderful post - I completely understand the fear of spoiling a notebook - one reason why my best scribblings are always in cheap and cheerful exercise books I'm not worried about.

I have a leather-bound delight from
http://www.legatoriailtorchio.com/ that I brought back from Florence 7 years ago and still haven't used.

You should look at www.immaginacija.com - she hand binds her journals in our local bookstore in Oxford
8 March 2013 at 10:55
Lee said…
I make mine with a cover which fits my current bit of writing via Lulu. Though I buy the lovely ready-made ones too when I can't control myself. I've worked out that I'll have to live till 107 to fill the ones already stored away.
8 March 2013 at 11:36
Kathleen Jones said…
Students on a recent writing course bought me a beautiful Italian leather-bound notebook which I haven't the courage to deface! I'm saving it for something special. It cries out for calligraphy, rather than my unreadable sprawl. But I love notebooks and I have to have ones that fit whatever I'm writing - the cover is very important. Totally with you Lynne.
8 March 2013 at 12:04
Bill Kirton said…
I love them as objects but they've become redundant in my working methods. I record notes on my mobile or, if I've remembered to take it, a digital recorder. I then speak them into the computer using Dragon Naturally Speaking. I do so little writing with a pen that I sometimes actually find it difficult to write legibly. Compared with your methods, Lynne, it's soulless.
8 March 2013 at 12:10
Lynne Garner said…
Thanks for the links - will check them out. Bill I also tap notes into my phone or dictate them into my phone whilst out (often with the dog) and don't have a note pad on me. But it's not the same as writing them down. I find the ideas gel better when I use a pencil or pen.
8 March 2013 at 16:00
Catherine Czerkawska said…
I do this too! I resisted Moleskine for years, thinking it was all a bit pretentious. Then I discovered that I could buy them on eBay a lot cheaper than in the shops. And I was instantly sold on them. I HATE lined paper, always have done, so I buy ones with blank sheets in pale cream. There is something about them that just DEMANDS to be written on. Except that you can hardly bear to start, they are so beautiful!
8 March 2013 at 18:45
Lee said…
Catherine, it's odd, but I only write with a fountain pen when it's in my - till now - one and one Moleskine. Otherwise, I'm quite happy with whatever writing tool comes to hand.
9 March 2013 at 08:05
glitter noir said…
Lord, what a treat to find fellow Moleskine lovers! In the past I've been given one or two pricey premium leather notebooks that I *almost* hesitated to use. But I've been sold on Moleksines for years and have a book shelf filled with them. Catherine, I hadn't thought of ebay, Tks for the tip. But I have found decent spinoffs of the basic Moleskines at half the cost in bookstores and Walgreens (a large US drugstore/emporium). I use the cheaper ones for ideas and workbooks for lines that need more work. But for the actual drafting of a book, I won't use anything but a real Moleskine, preferably reporter style, and a decent pencil. Lee, you remind me of Graham Greene, who also wrote in fountain pen, in a good notebook--my guess is, a Moleskine.
9 March 2013 at 11:16
Ann Evans said…
My everyday notes are written in spiral bound shorthand notebooks, but my pretty notebooks which I'm reluctant to spoil by actually writing in them, are only brought out at night when I'm in bed writing, accompanied by a hot drink and a choccy biscuit or two. It's like all the home comforts rolled into one.
9 March 2013 at 19:20
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