One Little Thing: Stephanie Affinito

I’ve had a special love of notebooks ever since I was a little girl. I carried them around with me, stuffed them into my backpacks and bags and piled them throughout the house. I loved them in all shapes and sizes: large notebooks with lines for writing stories, smaller notebooks with blank pages for sketching and drawing and miniature notebooks that I carried with me wherever I went to collect ideas and pass the time. 

One of my favorite childhood memories was when my grandmother took me to the elementary school she worked at to help her organize and stock the supply closet. I was in notebook heaven and painstakingly stacked and restacked the notebooks and writing utensils. I get that same feeling standing in the notebook aisle of my local craft store today. 

I treasure my notebooks and everything about them. My childhood notebooks carried all of my secrets: what I did that day, the friends I had, the stories I wanted to write, the things that made me sad and what I wanted life to be like when I grew up. Fast-forward thirty or so years later and not much has changed. I adore my notebooks and have several that I write in across a single day. 

I write how I want to feel and what I want to accomplish in my morning notebook. My reading and writing notebook holds my thoughts about the books I am reading and the pieces I want to write. My personal notebook captures all of the details of my life I don’t want to forget and offers me a safe place to share my hopes, dreams and fears. My miniature notebook travels with me at all times and is for writing EVERYTHING that I see, wonder about or just don’t want to forget from the day.

But my ‘One Little Thing’ notebook is even more special than any of them. My daughter made it for me with colorful stickers that make me smile each time I look at it. I keep this tiny notebook right next to my bed with a special colorful pen that I write with every night. 

Each year, I choose one little word to guide how I want to feel in the year ahead. This year, my word is ‘love’. Each day, I try to spread love and kindness in my family, my friends and in the world. And each night, I write what I did that day to bring my one little word to life. 

Most days, I can easily think of something I did to live with love and if I can’t, I think about how I can spread love tomorrow. Out of all my notebooks, this one has been the most impactful because it is more than just a notebook. It is a reminder to celebrate life: what makes me happy, what brings kindness to others, what helps make the world a better place. I write in my notebook at night and just knowing that I have a blank page waiting to fill energizes my day and reminds me to do something worth writing about. 

My ‘One Little Thing’ notebook is guided by my one little word, but yours doesn’t have to be. Think of this notebook as a way to celebrate each and every day. Let’s give it a try!

Turn to a fresh page in your notebook. Think about one little thing today that made you happy, that made you smile, that you did for someone else or makes the world a better place and write it down. Then, repeat. Everyday. Not only does this change how you intentionally go about your day, it helps you celebrate the little things and not get too bogged down by the big ones.

My One Little Thing notebook has carried me through difficult times in my life by helping me celebrate the positive, not the negative, and remember all of the good in the world. 

I hope you’ll try a One Little Thing notebook, too!

Stephanie Affinito is a literacy teacher educator at the University at Albany in upstate New York. She has a love of all things reading, writing and coaching and published her first book with Heinemann on Literacy Coaching. Learn more about her here: www.stephanieaffinito.com.   

Stephanie is generously offering to give away a copy of Ralph Fletcher's A WRITER'S NOTEBOOK: UNLOCKING THE WRITER WITHIN YOU. She says, "This was such a powerful book in my own notebooking journey, and I'd love to pass it on." Please leave a comment (including a way to contact you) on this post by 11:59pm on February 2, 2020 to be entered to win.

Available at Your Local Bookshop or Online

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 more 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.

New Year...New Notebooks!

Beginning Again

Photo by Amy LV

Dear Notebooking Friends,

Happy New School Year to many of us!  This year I look forward to spending time here, sharing more posts about keeping notebooks, celebrating the notebooks of writers, artists, and collectors of all ages.

Writing in a notebook can be a funny thing.  At times, I find it difficult to begin. But once I'm off...I'm off, and the more frequently I write, the more at home I feel in my book.  It helps me to set aside time each day to write, and it is during this time that I discover who I am right now, what means most to me on this day now.  My best rhythm is to begin each day by writing three pages, as I learned to do long ago from Julia Cameron's book THE ARTIST'S WAY.  Right now I am writing in this leather notebook.  I love that it is refillable and hope to write in it for years to come.

Tree Notebook!

Photo by Amy LV

I always save the first few pages of a notebook for quotes which I gather from my reading and listening.  These are word treasures.  I tuck photographs, cards, and other snips of paperlife into my notebook and sometimes glue these right to the pages.

Quotes & Bits of Life

Photo by Amy LV

At the moment, I am also keeping another small notebook, one I owned for a long time and kept empty for a long time. This notebook I am keeping for 100 days. I am keeping it for a special project, one I simply call 100 Carved Erasers.

Long Fabric Notebook

Photo by Amy LV

Each day for 100 days (today is Day #39), I am carving an eraser into a rubber stamp.  I stamp each one into this book, four per page.

4 Stamps per Page x 25 Pages =100 Stamps!

Photo by Amy LV

I will use some of these stamps to make cards and perhaps some to make wrapping paper.  Mostly, I like carving them because doing this each day forces me to think in images and to play with shape in new and surprising ways. 

Weekend Stamps

Photo by Amy LV

I am also learning that some designs look snazzy when they repeat, and so I play with the stamps in my big writing notebook too.

Saturday's Stamp 8 Times

Photo by Amy LV

The blank pages of notebooks provide endless possibility and place for play. Last year at The Poem Farm, I shared this poem about how even though I may struggle when facing the blank page, I love it all the same...

I love peeking into others' notebooks and having the opportunity to share many pages here at Sharing Our Notebooks. Please know that I extend this sharing invitation to you, whether you are an individual or a class of students.  If you wish to share pages with readers here, please just send me an e-mail, and I will get back to you.  If you are under 18, please send the e-mail with a parent or teacher as I will only respond to e-mails from adults.

Please make yourself at home exploring this space; you will find many notebook photos and videos and lists of great books about notebooking. And as the year goes on, I'll be tidying and moving things around a bit to make the site even more friendly.

Every page is a new beginning, and I am grateful to my notebooks for teaching me this over and over and over again.

Peace,

Amy

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.

Alex McCarron: Journals & Index Cards

Before I start, I have a confession to make: I used to hate notebooks. I’ve always loved writing, so I heard the advice to keep a journal or a notebook about a million times. I’d buy a pretty journal, and, after a few days, or, at the most, weeks, abandon it on my shelf. I couldn’t tell why—whether I was too lazy, or real life was too boring, or if I just didn’t know anything worth writing down. By the time I signed up for a writing class at my home school co-op, I’d sworn off journals.

At the first class, our teacher handed us each a composition notebook. As part of our homework, we had to write one entry—a page and a half or longer—every day. If we’d filled enough pages by the end of the week, our journal was stamped. 

I started journaling again with all the enthusiasm you’d have for a typical homework assignment. My first entries were mostly lists—favorite books and movies, things I loved and things I hated. After a while I began to write about whatever had been going on that day, and record my thoughts on my writing process. I was halfway through my first notebook before I realized how much I’d started to love it. 

Today, I keep two different kinds of notebooks: a journal and a notebook for everything else. Here’s my current journal:

I usually split my entries in half—one half is a writing log, where I record my daily progress and whine about how hard it all is. The other half is more of a typical journal entry, with anything interesting I did that day written down, plus any thoughts I want to remember. I’ve just started keeping a reading list at the back of my journal. It keeps track of what I’ve read, and each title works like a mini-journal entry—I remember thoughts and feelings I had while reading each book. I write in pen, so my journals are pretty messy!

I use a plain spiral-bound notebook for everything else; lists, homework assignments, and freewrites. Every day, before I write anything else, I sit down and write a page on whatever pops into my head first. There’s no editing, and rarely much punctuation or good grammar.

The photo below is of a freewrite from a couple weeks ago. As near as I can remember, it was inspired by a paper model of Paris. The first sentence is ‘The paper city came in a paper box.’ Not exactly a killer hook, but from there it morphed into a description of the girl who makes the paper cities. All day, she sits in her shop, surrounded by paper buildings, animals, and people. She never talks. So far, this description has stayed in my notebook, but who knows? One day it might become the beginning of a story. Freewriting helps keep my writing muscles limber, and it can be inspiring, so I encourage you to try it if you haven’t already. At the very least, it keeps me writing. 

Though my two notebooks are very different, I keep both of them for the same purpose--to collect things I don’t want to forget. Often, though, an idea strikes when I don’t have time to record it in my journal. For those times, I use index cards. I keep a pile of them on my desk, and more in my purse and backpack. I store used index cards in a shoebox.  

Anything that inspires me goes on an index card. The two cards in this photo have quotes written on them. The first is from Norton Juster: “I found out that nothing is easy—or should be.” I have to remember this constantly! The next quote, “To be one’s self is a rare thing and a great one.” is from The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin. These quotes might inspire a story or the solution to a problem in a story later. For now I can rest easy knowing they’re both stored where I can find them. 

Looking back, I know the main reason I wasn’t successful at journaling was because I didn’t want a real journal. I wanted a picture perfect notebook full of beautiful writing. I didn’t want to be myself (you can’t ne yourself if you want to be perfect) and I didn’t want to collect all my messy, imperfect memories. Now I have notebooks full of them—and I couldn’t be happier. 

Alex McCarron is a 17-year-old student living in West Virginia. She’s always on the lookout for a good story, and hopes to write her own someday.

In honor of Alex's journals, index cards, and generosity here, I will give away a copy of CHARACTERS & VIEWPOINT by Orson Scott Card.  This book has offered Alex a "crash-course in character development", and it will go to noe commenter on this post.  Please leave your comment by Sunday, April 20 to have your name entered into the drawing.