I love finishing notebooks!
Making it to the last page of a notebook gives me an incomparable high. Here are some highlights from my most recent pages. 📓
I’ve been keeping a notebook for as long as I can remember. I have given them various names through the years: “diary,” “journal,” and now, simply, “notebook.”
In my notebooks, I think through problems in my life. I collect quotes and ideas and other things that inspire me. I make a big mess.
Last year, the Cummer Museum invited me to do a reading in one of their galleries. At the time, I was midway through finishing my novel, so I wasn’t ready to read pages from it yet. I asked if I could read pages from my notebook instead. They said yes.
The reading got a fantastic response. It made me want to share more from my notebooks, which is what I’m doing today.
Before I go any further, though, let me tell you a little bit about the notebooks I use. They must be:
spiral-bound (I like a notebook to sit flat while I’m writing, which a Moleskine can’t really do unless you smoosh the spine a lot)
small-ish (the ideal size for me is 7x9” or 8x10”)
lined (I like wider-ruled pages because my handwriting is enormous)
cute (because yolo)
I ordered several notebooks from Appointed last year after resolving to be a little ~fancier~ in 2022, and nothing sounded fancier to me than a monogrammed notebook. They were marked down for Black Friday, so I went ahead and ordered four.
When the notebooks arrived, I was bummed to find that the pages were only lined on one side. Like, how stupid is that? I was so annoyed that I now had four of these notebooks, that I couldn’t even give them to a friend because who would want a notebook with my initials on it?!
I ended up using some of the unlined pages to doodle.
It took me a lot longer than usual to fill this notebook than it usually does. I was on an ambitious deadline for my novel, so most of the time, when I wasn’t working on my book, I just really didn’t want to think about writing at all.
But I did get a few gems down on the page. Here are some highlights from my most recent notebook, January through July 2022. 📓
JANUARY 26
The omicron variant caught Alex back in January. Here’s what we looked like after he recovered:
FEBRUARY 6
Last year, I struck up an accountability partnership with a friend in an effort to write more songs. Since then, I’ve sent her a song a month, but some months have gone better than others:
I have a song deadline with Greta on Wednesday. Sitting here trying to write something new but just don’t want to. Should I reuse an older song?
Then, later that day:
LOL turned out I just needed to write three sentences in my notebook in order to feel motivated. Journaling is magic sometimes. Ended up noodling with an old song, got tired of it, then took a line from a song I wrote in the fall and turned that into a whole song.
MARCH 17
A list of my daily non-negotiables:
coffee
hip-stretching
walking
eating three meals
moisturizing
catching up with Alex
looking at the sky
laughing
I’d be willing to bet that a dumb little list like this one exists in every single notebook I’ve ever kept. It’s a way to re-center and remind myself what I need.
APRIL 13
Now that we’re in the thick of humid summer here in Florida, reading this entry feels more like reading a fantasy novel:
It’s been a lovely several days. The weather has been stunning—sunny, clear skies, temps in the 70s, windows open, people on bikes, green-blue water at the beach. Alex and I ate outside at Al’s Pizza yesterday, got pedicures, and biked to Rob and Sarah’s house for cocktails. (Rob has gotten very into whiskey.) I never feel sad when the weather is like this.
There is a dog who lives on 1st Street in a second-story apartment who is all white and gigantic, like a big fluffy cloud. Alex and I refer to him as “The Floof.” He presses his black nose against the window and stares at the world with judgment-filled eyes. We’ve started to joke that a sighting of The Floof means we’ve been on our best behavior.
The Floof had a friend with him today.
MAY 2
Exactly 10 years ago today, I took my first walk on the beach as an official resident of Neptune Beach. I moved into my apartment on May 1, 2012 and woke up at sunrise the next morning to go for a walk, listening to Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks album. I kept seeing dolphins in the water. I felt so free.
That fall, I read The Paris Review for the first time, not fully understanding what I was reading, exactly, but knowing that it felt aspirational just to hold it in my hands and toss it in my bag. Fiona Apple had released a new record. I listened to “Daredevil” every day on my drives to class.
I caught a glimmer into the life I wanted to have: the life of a person who works hard, who believes in her ideas enough to write them down, who makes new friends and wears good outfits and builds a life with the partner she loves and wants more more more of that. 2012 was transformative in every way. 2022 is turning out to be pretty similar.
MAY 18
I went in the ocean yesterday for the first time this year. It was chilly, but it felt so good to dive and float and feel the salt water shimmer up my shoulders.
Alex taught me how to skateboard on Sunday, which I’ve always wanted to learn how to do but have been too scared to try. He’s tried teaching me before, but I could never get past the initial wobbles. Last night I (very, very slowly and cautiously) skated all the way to the end of the street and back.
On my very slow ride, a guy in a golf cart shouted, “Slow down!”
Another guy shouted, “Do a kick flip!”
I love our neighborhood.
MAY 23
Today, Alex and I watched a Rick Bayless video and cooked oregano chicken together.
JUNE 1
On this day, I did an exercise out of Jeff Tweedy’s book How to Write One Song. The exercise involved pairing unusual combinations of verbs and nouns. Here’s the result:
Not great, but not bad either! I do Jeff Tweedy’s exercises a lot because they remind me to make room to play.
JULY 16
I was in a funk this morning. It’s Saturday, no plans (except taking Susan to the groomer), and I was just scrolling through Twitter and shopping for jumpsuits all morning.
Looking at jumpsuits online might be the ultimate sign of funk-ness.
JULY 30
I have always ended a notebook in song lyrics. I have a vivid memory of melodramatically concluding a middle school notebook with Dashboard Confessional lyrics:
She smiled in a big way
The way a girl like that smiles
When the world is hers
😵💫
For my most recent notebook’s final page, I chose a Sylvan Esso song.
Here’s the song, which is lovely in every way imaginable:
You Tell Me
Are you a notebook keeper? What do you record in your notebooks? Reply to this email or leave a comment!
I’ll be back later this month with book recs and more. Happy notebook-ing!
💛 Hurley
I love this! I’ve kept notebooks off and on for *mumbles* years, but fell out of practice the last few years. You’ve inspired me to get back to it -- and not be so precious about keeping entries tidy and coherent.
I’m late commenting, but I also love finishing notebooks.
Like Mercurio, for years I was afraid keeping notebooks would provide the world with a humiliating record of my existence, but I came around because of Morning Pages. My notebooks are full of anxiety spirals, accounts of the mundane, admissions of fears, endless questions, and sweet reminders of good and true things to bring me back to my grounded self.
Right now I’m writing in a lined Leuchtturm1917 because it’s hardback, lays flat, nice weight paper, decent price, many pages.