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Keeping a Writer’s Notebook

A practice in better storytelling.

Shaunta Grimes
The Write Brain

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Photo by lilartsy on Unsplash

I’ve kept a single notebook every year for several years. My Everyday Notebook. I use it to do the bulk of my planning, all of my note taking, and pretty much every thing else you can do in a notebook.

Everything from my grocery list to notes about a new idea.

This is my favorite Everyday Notebook.

There’s one thing I don’t do in my Everyday Notebook, though. I don’t keep my writer’s notebook there. I like to have all of those notes in one place, so that I don’t have to dig through my larger notebook for them. And my writing practice would take up too much room.

My current writer’s notebook lives in a traveler’s notebook style cover, with my Everyday Notebook.

My current writer’s notebook on the right and Everyday Notebook on the left. (Photo: Author)

I wonder if you’ll find it interesting to know that I’m not precious about my Writer’s notebooks. When I’m done with them, I’m done. I don’t have a big box of them or anything.

The fruit of those notebooks is in my actual work. There’s a kind of freedom in knowing that no one else will ever look at them. I doubt anyone else will even ever be able to find any of…

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