\u201cIf I\u2019m going to set the literary world on fire, the only way to do it is to rub one word against another.\u00a0\u00a0 \u2018A writer\u2019s notebook is one place to start rubbing.\u2019 \u201d (Wallace Stegner\/Ralph Fletcher)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Journal, sketchbook, notebook, idea log, whatever moniker you assign, it may surprise you how useful one can be, and that many published writers utilize them.\u00a0 For some of us, this item conjures thoughts of \u201cDear Diary, today I\u2026,\u201d yet a true writer\u2019s notebook transcends this plane, building a resource of details, that when consulted on a regular basis, can enhance your writing endeavors.<\/p>\n
Now, unless you have an eidetic memory, allowing you to remember with complete clarity every thought or detail you\u2019ve ever entertained, you need a place to house ideas, quotes, odd facts, lists, snippets of conversations, and words that intrigue you and could one day become details of an inspiring essay. Being a digital immigrant myself, my journals are multiple, page-filled, pen scrawled books, placed on shelves in my office, yet for those of you that are digital natives, yours may be typed into an electronic device and then stored on it or somewhere in the ether.\u00a0 Either way, your notebook provides a place to record, rant, question, and preserve items you wish to retain, revisit, and revise.<\/p>\n
These details we house were termed by the late poet William Stafford as \u201cgolden threads.\u201d\u00a0 His thoughts propose that the details we take in via our senses, when turned into words, especially in a journal, become items we can follow and weave into our written works.\u00a0 So, as you travel through this life, don\u2019t discount the details you remember or come across, make sure you place them in a \u201cjournal\u201d so they can become the threads that lead you to literary richness.<\/p>\n
Okay, still not sold on the idea of keeping a journal? A great place for information on starting one can be found in \u201cBreathing In, Breathing Out — Keeping a Writer\u2019s Notebook\u201d by Ralph Fletcher.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cIf I\u2019m going to set the literary world on fire, the only way to do it is to rub one word against another.\u00a0\u00a0 \u2018A writer\u2019s notebook is one place to start rubbing.\u2019 \u201d (Wallace Stegner\/Ralph Fletcher) Journal, sketchbook, notebook, idea log, whatever moniker you assign, it may surprise you how useful one can be, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/writingcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/writingcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/writingcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/writingcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/writingcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/writingcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/writingcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/writingcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/writingcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}