A Commonplace Proposal — Let’s Bring Back the Commonplace Book

James M. Harmon
Nov 5 · 6 min read
Photo by Noémi Macavei-Katócz on Unsplash

This is part of my 30 Articles for 30 Days series — a personal writing challenge to draft and publish 30 articles on Medium for a month. Taking my cue from the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) project, I’m using the month of November to challenge myself to write more consistently, and to learn about Medium’s online publishing platform and writing communities along the way.

I’m bringing the commonplace book back again!

That should be an easy task because it never went anywhere.

Commonplace books are really nothing more than personal diaries or journals, but to me, it feels a little more elegant and less teen-angsty to ask people, “Have you seen where my commonplace book is?” than “Hey, where’s my diary?”

The only problem is the blank expression I receive, requiring me to explain what a commonplace book is.

So what are commonplace books?

Commonplace books are books of everything — repositories for recipes, famous quotes, doodles, drafts, and anything else that might catch your attention. The collaborative online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, is the digital inheritor of this tradition, and if you’ve ever followed a topic down some rabbit hole, you’re aware of how random and bizarre some entries can be. (Note to self: we need to make Wikipedia After Dark a thing. Who do I talk to in order to make this happen?)

Commonplace books have been popular since handwriting was a thing. All the biggies kept them. John Milton, Francis Bacon, Napoleon, Virginia Woolf, Mark Twain. Some have even been published, including Milton’s and H.P. Lovecraft’s (The Necronommonicon, I assume). The philosopher John Locke even wrote a treatise on how you should use a commonplace book.

But here’s why I’m excited about commonplace books . . .

My problem is that I love writing, but there’s no such thing as a convenient time or place for me to write. I have to make it happen. Ideally, I’d sit at a dignified desk in a mahogany-paneled study, surrounded by my leather-bound books. All the while, I’d be quaffing aperitifs while crafting sparkling bon mots (Or bons mot? Yes, let’s go with that). Oh, the bons mot I’d craft while quaffing aperitifs!

Reality finds me making use of my time commuting on mass transit, and that means finding a system that works best under these conditions.

It’s not as bad as it sounds, actually. If I can get two hours of writing a day, I feel pretty good about my progress, and about myself as a person living in the world. Coincidentally, two hours is about the length of time I have commuting back and forth from the Seattle Metro area. It was in this way that I completed a doctoral dissertation and presentation for an academic seminar.

Mass transit: where all my best writing usually happens. Photo by Alex Iby on Unsplash

Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to try a variety of options: tablets, a tiny keyboard that paired with my smartphone, and laptops. If you’re commuting on a diesel train aboard Metro Vancouver’s West Coast Express, Seattle’s Sounder, or Southern California’s Metrolink, you’re in luck. The rail cars have tables, usually some outlets for plugging in your electronics, and some trains even have free Wi-Fi. All you need is a decent pair of headphones, a long commute, and you’re in business.

Using rail transit, Microsoft OneNote was my friend. To me, OneNote is simply the best all-round notebook. It updates to the cloud automatically, sparing me from worrying about recovering my information after a crash. Plus, it has nice little file tabs (always a plus), and it integrates nicely with other Microsoft software. There are other great note-taking apps, such as Evernote. But I learned how to use OneNote first, and understand all its ins and outs better.

Unfortunately, if you’re taking a commuter bus, balancing a laptop — or worse — struggling from keeping your tiny tablet from flying out of your hands and across the aisle, are not very practical. Especially if your seatmate happens to be Alexander the Great. Dissatisfied with his sumptuous aisle seat, this Manspreader-in-Chief also has his eyes on your personal space as well, and will dig his arms and elbows into your side as you struggle to type only to discover what you’ve written doesn’t make any sense at all. Well played, Alexander!

The Humble Notebook

I’ve found myself abandoning my laptop, tablet, and various note-taking apps in favor of the humble notebook. It just so happens that people frequently give me Moleskine notebooks that I never used because they look so beautiful, and I feel self-consciously twee using them. They seem to shout back at you, “Precious thoughts only! Malarkey need not apply.”

But I thought, why not? They’re only collecting dust.

I researched different kinds of note-taking strategies. Bullet journaling really appealed to me, but I didn’t really keep up with the system for long. Instead, my journal style looks like a combination of bullet journal techniques, and various hieroglyphics that are supposed to pass for emojis, and that’s how I keep my thoughts in order.

As it turns out, journal writing — that is to say, physically making contact to paper with pen — is the best thing ever! Who knew? (Well, medieval monks and scribes, I suppose.) Also, those blank journals Moleskine and other notebook manufacturers make are perfect for what I need to do.

I appreciate the sturdy hard cover, which keeps pages in tact and informs folks in business meetings that I am taking what they have to say seriously — something you can’t quite convey with a ratty spiral notebook.

I also appreciate the freedom the blank notebook provides me. It is my everything book. I use it as a personal planner, keeper of amusing thoughts, reminder of important tasks, and repository for writing prompt activities. Sometimes, I even try my hand at writing.

I keep all my most important thoughts in my journal. (Photo by me, James Harmon)

Commonplace books help me break free from the compulsion of oversharing on social media. Sifting through my notes, I occasionally find a gem worth sharing with the world, but more often than not, I find myself wondering just what I found so amusing that day.

On particularly stressful days where I’m struggling to meet multiple deadlines, sitting down to map my activities serves the same purpose as deep breathing. There is something particularly calming about taking a pen to paper. The tactile sensation of holding a pen and making your mark in physical space — I don’t know. I really don’t. There is something about it that is entirely irreplaceable. Even if you have done nothing all day, and even if everything has turned out for naught, you know you’ve left an indelible mark on the world, and you have the notebooks to prove it.

I love the feeling of starting a notebook, and cracking open the first page. I am no longer intimidated by the feeling that my first thought has to be remarkable, and in fact, try to go out of my way to spoil the pages with something ridiculous.

I love the feeling of ending a notebook, or of seeing that I’m running out of pages. I grow impatient as I count the pages, waiting for that notebook to be finished already so I can put it on my shelf and start a new one. “Why won’t you just die already, notebook!” I hastily scribble onto the final pages, hurrying the process along.

The thing I like best about commonplace books, however, is just how common they are. Everyone should have them, and everyone should use them. Don’t let that notebook boss you around or intimidate you with their creamy, acid-free texture. You tell that notebook what you think about it, and then share with it your thoughts about the world around you. That’s what they’re for.

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