A writer’s notebook is an absolute essential for any type of writer, whether you’re a journalist or a dramatist. It’s an excellent way to keep notes of people or places you want to remember later, or to write in extensively. Whatever you choose to write, keeping a writing notebook will help you write everyday, which in turn will make you a stronger writer, and keep your creativity flowing, preventing writer’s block.
What should you put into your writer’s notebook? There are countless options! What follows is a look at different uses for your notebook, but remember, this list is neither exhaustive nor mutually exclusive – using your notebook for a diverse range of writing will only help you in the long run. The more exercises you try, the more writing skills you test and refine.
Jotted Descriptions, One-Liners, and Memory Triggers
These are quick, short notes you write to yourself, mostly to remember later on when you’re working on an actual piece of writing. You may want to record a line you hear someone say, a lyric from a song, or the perfect story title that occurred to you while you were riding the bus. Anything goes, and it may be very useful to your next story or play!
Morning Pages
Many writers do morning pages religiously. It’s a great way to clear your mind of anything that is bogging you down when you wake up, to help you get straight to the good material later on. It can also help you clear your conscious of emotional baggage in order to face the day with a positive outlook.
Keep a notebook and a pen on your side table. Right when you wake up in the morning, before you leave bed, before you’re even fully conscious, start freewriting in your notebook about whatever comes to mind first. Keep writing for at least 5-10 minutes without stopping to edit or censor your thoughts. What you end up with may be brilliant or nonsensical, but regardless, you’ve gotten it off your chest.
Character Sketches
Another useful thing to keep in your writing notebook is a series of character sketches. These may not only help you develop characters in your writing, but will also provide you with your descriptive writing skills. When you see someone intriguing on the street, take a minute to record what they look like, their mannerisms, how they walk, how they talk, and so on.
To take this one step further, imagine what their name would be. Where would they live? Do they have pets? A partner? What do they do for a living? Doing a full character sketch of this random interesting person could provide you with enough material to write a novel, so don’t take anyone for granted when you go about a regular day in your life.
Conversations
Like the character sketch, conversations are a fantastic and effective way to transition into a piece of writing, especially drama. The next time you’re out at the coffee shop, or at the bar, and you hear two (or more) people having a bizarre conversation, write down what they say. You instantly have a scene from a play before you. Where would a conversation like this likely happen? Or perhaps more interesting, where would it be strange to hear this conversation? This five-minute discussion between two people has the potential to be developed into a full-length script.
Freewriting
Although many of the above ideas and exercises involve some aspect of freewriting, you may also want to use your writer’s notebook for freewriting without a specific purpose, like character sketching. To do this, all you need to do is sit down and start writing about whatever comes out first. The trick is not to stop, to keep your pen or pencil moving constantly for at least 10-15 minutes and let your thoughts flow. When you get stuck, write the last sentence you have over and over again until something new emerges.
As with morning pages, what results from freewriting may not be a finished novel, and a lot of it may not make sense, but the act of writing is beneficial in itself. Like going to the gym everyday to maintain your figure, a writer’s notebook will keep your writing muscles strong and flexible.
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