Kiesha Shepard: Notebooks for Life

Notebooks have been called different things by many writers. Some writers call the notebook a workbench or a think-tank.  Other writers might call it a sketchbook or a safe place. I believe the notebook takes on meaning and significance the very moment a writer begins to write. It becomes as unique as the writer, living and breathing each day with the thoughts and feelings of the writer.

My notebooks are my special safe-keepers of my thinking and writing life. Keeping a notebook has made my life so much more fruitful. It brings a fullness to my world each day. The notebook helps me pay attention to life by allowing me the freedom to live and write wide-awake.

For this reason, my notebooks are brimming with many types of entries. There are so many ways that I capture and collect my thoughts of this world in my notebooks.

One of my favorite ways to use my notebook is for collecting on topics. I often make lists around a topic. This helps me think of all the ways I have already written about my topic in the notebook. It also encourages me to try out new ways to write about my topic in order to flesh out what I really want to say. I have discovered that this strategy gives me fresh ideas for weaving in new thinking about my topic.

I organize my collections by rereading entries and flagging them with sticky notes. Each sticky note has a label which identifies that entry by subject, topic, or theme. This is a really handy way for me to refer back to previous entries in order to layer more meaning on whatever topic or piece of writing I’m working with.

I also use notebooks to spark ideas for poems, books, and essays. I am always collecting my observations and snippets of thinking in my notebook. Each entry is so important to me, so I return to the notebook often to reread. So many of my ideas for poems and stories that I want to write start bubbling up in my notebook this way. I am always surprised at how my drafts emerge and blossom from the work in my notebook. For me, notebooks are certainly keepsakes forever!

Invitation to Write: You can use your notebook for life, too! Try starting with the little things around you. Write whatever you see right now around you. It could be living or nonliving. Then, narrow your focus to one of those things and write. Allow yourself the freedom to write whatever comes. You might be surprised at where this writing leads you! Often our best writing comes from something quite simple and concrete in our lives. Our notebooks can capture and hold safely all that writing for us. In this way, the notebook is truly a friend for life!

Kiesha Shepard is a Literacy Specialist at Spring Creek Elementary School in College Station, Texas. She has a giant love for writing and the teaching of writing. You can find invitations to write, teaching resources, and some of her poems on her website Whispers From the Ridge. You can connect with Kiesha on Twitter @kshepard_write or by email from.pens.to.paint@gmail.com, and she also welcomes you to follow the amazing K-4 writers at her school’s writing blog  HERE.

Kiesha has generously offered a giveaway of one of her favorite poem books - EVIDENCE by Mary Oliver - for a reader of this post.  Please leave a comment by Saturday, October 1 to be entered into this random drawing.  Please be sure to leave a way to contact you in your comment as well.

Available at Your Local Book Shop

Please know that Sharing Our Notebooks welcomes all kinds of notebook keepers - of any age and interest - to open up their pages and share their process.  At the present time, I am accepting all notebook entries and am especially hoping to receive some entries from boys and men who keep any kind of notebooks.  If you are interested in writing in this space, please contact me, Amy, directly.

Please share a comment below if you wish.

If you are under 13 years old, please comment only with a parent 

or as part of a group with your teacher and class.

Jenna Kersten: I Am Left Wondering

I firmly believe that we can find the most beautiful moments of wisdom and insight in the minute of the everyday. This sense is something that, ideally, I look for while writing in my notebooks. It is through the process of writing down my thoughts, the beginning snippets of later poems, and quotes that inspire me that I am able to find meaning and significance in the small events that have come to make up my life.

I keep two main notebooks, as shown above. One is my daily notebook. A decidedly solid, hardcover journal, it functions as a brain-dump of sorts, as the site of lists, notes from lectures, reflections from retreats and silly, largely irrelevant couplets. The other notebook acts as my travel notebook because it has a softcover, a pocket in the back to store things I want to save, and is a bit more flexible. I use it to chronicle the moments that occur while travelling, and ultimately will tape ticket stubs, boarding passes, and receipts to the pages, turning the notebook into an informal scrapbook for the hopelessly lazy college student. 

The memories that I tape into my notebooks, like those ticket stubs, are my favorite parts about them. I like writing on scraps of paper hastily found in the moment and this system of writing and taping lets me keep it organized and protected. Sometimes these are snippets of thoughts written in the corner of a playbill or event programme. Other times, these are direct quotes or lessons from people I interact with. 

This past summer, most of these thoughts came from my interactions working with the Franciscan Sisters of Saint Joseph, an order of Catholic sisters who live in a convent not far from my house. I worked at the convent in the kitchen, learning that meaning can be found in the little moments that time would have us forget, like the following tidbits that the sisters shared with me over the summer.

I would usually spend the beginning of each shift restocking snacks and beverages near the buffet line in the dining room. Because of the sheer number of cans of soda and little Lorna Doone packages that I would need to replenish for the sisters, I would make a list on a piece of scrap paper of these things that I would stow away in the pocket of my work apron. On these wrinkled pages about the size of an index card, I would also jot down quotes and lessons from the sisters and general thoughts I’d have while working. 

By preserving these small moments in my notebooks, and journaling through my responses to them, I am better able to find and reflect on the meaning that each day provides, whether that meaning comes from my travels or from the convent. With each new insight, I am left wondering what my notebooks will teach me next.

I have one notebooking strategy that I use for days when it seems that I have nothing to say. To spark some added creativity, I've found that it is quite helpful to leave the bookmark of the journal on the page of the previous day's writing. Little reminders that I have, in fact, written before can prompt more thoughts as I continue to journal. 

What have your notebooks taught you? 

Jenna Kersten grew up in Hamburg, NY and is a former fellow with the WNY Young Writers Studio. She is currently in college, pursuing a degree in English, international studies, and German language, and hopes to use writing to promote positive social change. Visit her online at www.jennakersten.wordpress.com. 

Sharing Our Notebooks will give away one copy of Jenna's favorite book about writing, Anne Lamott's BIRD BY BIRD: SOME INSTRUCTIONS ON WRITING AND LIFE.  Please leave a comment, including a way of contacting you should you win, by Sunday, March 6, to be entered into the drawing.

Please know that Sharing Our Notebooks welcomes all kinds of notebook keepers - of any age and interest - to open up their pages and share their process.  At the present time, I am accepting all notebook entries and am especially hoping to receive some entries from boys and men who keep any kind of notebooks.  If you are interested in writing in this space, please contact me, Amy, directly.

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Jeff Anderson: The Project Journal

A Book with a Bank

Inspiration

Charles Darwin inspired the journal strategy I am sharing. How did this evolve you ask? While reading CHARLES AND EMMA: THE DARWINS' LEAP OF FAITH by Deborah Hieligman, I learned that Darwin’s brain over connected and was over stimulated and often got quite cluttered. Enter Charles Darwin’s solution: alphabet journals—an A journal dedicated to things beginning with the letter A, and a B journal for things pertaining to the letter B and so on. Categorization. The brain loves categories, groups, and classification.

For me, Charles Darwin’s idea evolved into keeping project journals.

Like A Bank

To the point my Zack Delacruz Journal is a Zack Delacruz bank. Since my debut middle-grade humor novel, ZACK DELACRUZ: ME AND MY BIG MOUTH, is the first in a series, I needed a project journal for all things Zack—a Zack Delacruz bank. This project journal became a bank in which I deposited ideas—notes made on gum wrappers, Post-its, or any writable surface I could scrounge up in the wild of the world. To complete the deposit, I tape it into the project journal.

I’ve already finished book two in the Zack Delacruz series (Look for it in the fall of 2016). Now, I am working on book three, collecting and making as many deposits as possible. Later, withdrawls from the ideas the bank will help me add humor and natural textures from real life, which is essential for realistic fiction.

Lately, I’ve begun calling my Zack Delacruz project journal a Zank—short for Zack Bank. That’s right, Zank.

Notes Taped Into My Journal 

(Deposits in my Zank)

Lots of Tape and Post-Its

While drafting this book, I took paper and pen to one of my favorite restaurants, Chris Madrid's, and took notes on everything because I used it as a setting for a scene in ZACK DELACRUZ: ME AND MY BIG MOUTH. Below, you can see illustrator Andrea Miller's interpretation of the scene.

Interior Illustration

by Andrea Miller

Stories need drama and character changes to be interesting. As a former sixth grade teacher, I deposited voices and situations into my project journal. Andrea interpreted those voices and situations into illustrations like the one you see below.  A book has a long journey, from project journal to many drafts, to final draft, to illustrator, designer and completed book.

Interior Illustration

by Andrea Miller

Make a Project Journal

Is there a book you want to write? Maybe you find yourself writing about a particular topic all the time--a friendship or pet or interest? Or maybe you want to start writing about a topic. Do it. Make a project journal for anything that’s worth its own journal to you. Pick a journal that’s right for your subject: Is it short and compact or a long and winding road? Small, large, lined? It’s all yours to decide.

Don’t Forget the Pen

When you go out into the big wide world of wonder, don’t forget to bring something to write with. It may ruin a few pairs of pants, jackets, or shirts, but the collection of ideas will be worth it. When you see something of interest you want to remember or that MIGHT be a deposit in your bank, scrounge for a writing surface, scratch down your thought or observation, and when you arrive at home, tape it your new bank. Make a funny name for it, like Zank, and it will be even more fun.

Me & a Few of My Project Journals

Jeff, a full-time staff developer and writer, shares strategies from his books MECHANICALLY INCLINED, EVERYDAY EDITING, 10 THINGS EVERY WRITER NEEDS TO KNOW, and REVISION DECISIONS with teachers around the United States and beyond. ZACK DELACRUZ: ME AND MY BIG MOUTH is his first humorous middle grade novel. Right now he enjoys talking to students about this new series.

See a fun book trailer for ZACK DELACRUZ: ME AND MY BIG MOUTH by Georgia librarian, Kristen Deuchle HERE.

Follow Jeff on twitter @writeguyjeff
Find Jeff on the web - writeguy.net

Buy a copy of ZACK DELACRUZ: ME AND MY BIG MOUTH at your local bookstore or go HERE for a link!

Much gratitude to Sterling Publishing  for offering a giveaway of Jeff's new book, ZACK DELACRUZ: ME AND MY BIG MOUTH to a commenter on this post.  Please leave your comment by Sunday, November 1 to be entered into this drawing.

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Michelle Haseltine: I am Safe and Free

I write in notebooks. As a kid, I didn’t love dolls and teddy bears...I loved books and notebooks.

My life as a notebook writer began on Saturday November 5,1983.

Ever since that first notebook, I’ve always kept a notebook. The kind of notebook has changed: spiral notebook, hardbound, lines, no lines. 

Ever since that first notebook, I’ve always kept a notebook. The kind of notebook has changed: spiral notebook, hardbound, lines, no lines. 

Today I prefer using a sketchbook for my notebook. The utensils I use to write have progressed from pencils to pens to fancy pens. What hasn’t changed is how my notebook is an extension of me. It travels with me. It’s the place that feels like home. No matter where I am in the world, when I open the pages of my notebook, I am safe and free. 

The most important thing about writing in a notebook is permission. Give yourself permission to allow your notebook what you need it to be. Make up your own rules. The audience is YOU and only YOU. Sometimes you’ll share your notebook pages with someone else, but for me that’s the exception, not the rule. I write for me. The words fall out and I allow it. I scribble. I cross out. I make giant messes of some pages, while others are works of art. It’s me. It’s all me. Problems get untangled in my notebook, ideas are born and nurtured, and memories are cherished on the pages. 

Here are my rules for keeping a notebook. 

1. Write the date, day and time for every entry. 

2. Use lots of color and find pens that fit me and my mood! 

3. If what I’m writing could be hurtful to someone else, be aware of how it’s written. My audience is me, but I think about what would happen if I lost my notebook. I don’t curse and I don’t call anyone names. When I’m mad...I write about how I feel instead of what someone else has done! 

4. Have fun! 

5. Open my notebook everyday. I find if I open it, I will usually jot something down. Making a rule of writing everyday is too much (for me) and then I feel guilty...NO FEELING GUILTY. Maybe that should be rule number six. 

6. No guilt!

Writing in a notebook may take practice if you aren’t used to it. Make it a habit. Start with noticing and make lists. Sketch and doodle. Write a poem. The important thing about notebook writing is that you begin.

Try this: Find a spot you enjoy spending time and bring your notebook. Sit. Watch. Listen. Jot down whatever you notice. Make a list. Sketch. Use your surroundings to inspire a piece of writing. After ten minutes, stand up and walk to another spot. Start all over again. Notice things. Write them down. Live life as a writer. Michelle Haseltine is in her twentieth year of education. Currently spending her days with sixth graders in Loudoun County, VA reading and writing. Michelle is a Teacher-Consultant with the Northern Virginia Writing Project and continues to search for the book she’s destined to write. She can be found at Twitter as @mhaseltine or @haseltineclass and at her blog One Grateful Teacher.

In honor of Michelle's notebook keeping, Sharing Our Notebooks is offering a giveaway to a commenter on this post...a giveaway of an unlined sketchbook, just as Michelle likes to use. Please leave a comment by Wednesday, September 15, 2015 to be entered into this drawing.