Launching A New Writer's Notebook.

 This week, I changed over my writer's notebook. Once more with feeling fellow writers...

Mixed emotions swirl around me when commencing a new writer's notebook. The prospect of filling the fresh pages brings with it anticipation, presenting as a prospect to be enthusiastically embraced. Honestly, after almost forty years of notebooks, my delight remains undiminished.

To see newly generated words spread out across previously unmarked pages, delivers a buzz. The very act of capturing the raw stuff of my writing life, delivers order and a sense of accomplishment to my active mind. The harvesting of words and ideas adds to the energy for writing in this new place. I am akin to the farmer ploughing a new field. 

I make a conscious decision to choose a notebook with different dimensions and qualities to its predecessor. Some writers select the same notebook each time a replacement is required. I embrace the notion of change along with the unique shape and form of the potential replacement notebook. For me, the uniqueness of each notebook needs to be respected and clearly established. 

I remain keen to shape this new notebook in a way that highlights its difference from previous notebooks. The contents will add further to the individuality. There will be new discoveries. My notebooks, like people, are all separate entities. I must honour that fact.

This changeover time however remains a bittersweet moment in my writing life. I am confronted with saying farewell to a trusted friend.

I am saying goodbye to a travelling companion, the willing catcher of my thoughts and dreams, my ideas and experiments. 

The notebook just completed has been with me every day for the past few months. Everywhere I have been, it has been right there with me. 

One notebook, I vividly recall,  travelled home with me from Rome in 2019 after my wife purchased it at ‘Manufactus’ notebook shop opposite the Pantheon as a birthday surprise. A beautifully constructed leather-bound notebook with generously thick paper pages. I had to wait to use it as I had just started another notebook at that time.

This precious gift of a notebook, like its predecessors,  travelled with me everywhere. Eventually, it bulged like a well-fed belly. -A notebook crammed with gathered thoughts, and potential treasures to spark more detailed writing pieces. It contained much of the research information that contributed to a much larger writing project. It was with me throughout my Poems of Presence project for Australia Post's Time Capsule. It retained its leathery smell throughout its writing life.




The notebook that eventually replaced it, (another gift) represented a stunning departure from its predecessor. It came from ‘Karst’ a Sydney based company who pride themselves in producing sustainable products. This new notebook was made from recycled, pulverized stone. No trees, water, bleach acid were used in its production, making its carbon footprint noticeably smaller. It contained a ‘paper’ made from stone. 

The resultant product was smooth and durable. When I pick it up, this notebook always feels noticeably heavier in my hand and the pages discernibly different to the touch. Writing in this notebook provided a slightly different sensation, I must say. It was an ideal notebook for the lockdown days of Covid, as it meant I didn't have to carry it about as much as I would normally do with a notebook.

For a short period of time in this changeover process, I  consciously carry both notebooks with me. This is my notebook handover period. There exists for me as a writer, a natural connection, bridging the old and the new. This connection stretches across time, with one notebook informing the other. As my new notebook begins to fill, it will reach a point where it contains sufficient content to travel solo. The older notebook will be gently retired to become part of my ever expanding collection of completed notebooks, stretching all the way back to 1983. 

The recently completed notebook continues to play an active role in my writing life. While it ceases to be my regular travelling companion, I periodically revisit it and all my other notebooks for the purposes of reconnecting and rereading.

 I am conscious of the vital role rereading plays in informing my writing ideas. It will serve as a source for research and re-invigoration. It is from reading old entries, new ideas frequently reveal themselves. I will adopt the role of treasure hunter and text detective. 

It is akin to a reunion with an old friend. I take great joy and renewed pleasure in the reconnection. These notebooks are central to my existence as a writer and educator. All my published work began a tentative and fragile existence within the collective pages of my various notebooks. They are the footprints left by my writing journey, my life's journey.


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