Preparing a Springtime Journal

Choosing a notebook, keeping a habit, and gathering what will grow

This week’s post is kindly written by Mariella Hunt! Be sure to take a look at her publication if you enjoy.

What is a writer without their notebook?

The notebook is a necessary tool for any writer hoping to excel at their craft. The notebook is a sanctuary for one’s deepest thoughts. It’s a safe place to store sentences that might blossom into stories. It’s a storyteller’s companion, willing to hold our deepest questions.

A writer’s notebook contains universes. It can be anything the writer needs it to be.

There’s no rule for how quickly a notebook must be filled, but I finish mine fairly quickly. It’s something that must be worked for. I’ve put in years’ worth of discipline to create a writing habit: every night, before bed, I take my notebook (or one of them!) and start writing.

On days when not much seems to have happened, I reach for that notebook, anyway. Perhaps all I write about is the weather, or a note about my health, or thoughts about the book I am reading.

I write in that notebook every day. So can you. Don’t underestimate the power of habit, and stop making excuses.

Writers don’t need extravagant lives in order to fill their notebooks.

Migrating Notebooks

Yesterday was the first day of spring. It’s time for me to make an important change.

The notebook I began using in January is almost full. As the birds outside have begun their routines, I’ll make my own “migration.” I, the writer, stay in the same place; what’s changing is the notebook I’ll trust for the springtime months.

It’s no small matter to pick a notebook. This object is going to travel with you to places great and insignificant. It’s going to serve as a shelter for your vulnerable thoughts, literary epiphanies, and unfulfilled dreams.

All of these are things I will not commit to just any notebook.

If you are looking to “migrate” notebooks, perhaps you agree that it is a matter worth deliberation. My advice might prove helpful as you seek a new companion for the coming months.

Springtime being a season of growth, we can predict that the notebook chosen for this period will be filled with maturing thoughts. In this notebook, sentences will connect. Quotes about renewal and the outdoors will be scattered among doodles and book reviews.

Assume, then, that this is a notebook you’ll be taking outside with you—often. For this reason, it’s important that the notebook itself be up to the task. But this isn’t unique to springtime. In general, the journal that we pick to be our companion must be just right.

Picking a New Journal

As writers, our instinct might be to pick the big journal with gilded pages.

Those notebooks, though fair to look at, are seldom suitable for the task. If they’re too thick, they might be difficult to carry around. In addition, gilded pages can make a journal daunting to use.

“Surely,” says the writer, “a journal like this must be as beautiful on the inside as it is on the outside.” But that is exactly what we are not looking for in a daily notebook. We must pick a journal we’re comfortable making a mess in.

This depends, of course, on your style of note-taking. Mine is erratic, with no rhyme, reason, or organization. I use my journal to transcribe entire pages from novels I enjoy. I jot down sentences, quotes that resonate with me, and scraps of poetry.

My journal doesn’t have the calculated neatness of a trendy “bullet journal.” I have attempted multiple times to start one of those journals myself, but they come with “rules” that prove unhelpful for minds like mine.

I need my notebook to forgive my untidiness; I need it to be accepting of the hodgepodge that I am going to write into it.

My journals tend to look like Moleskines. Any thin, lay-flat notebook with a pocket is sufficient for my thoughts. The iconic, elastic band is a must, because sometimes I jam pages underneath the cover. I need a way to guarantee that everything will not just flutter out.

This, at least, is what works for me. I’m sure you’ll find a knock-off Moleskine in the office-supply aisle of any pharmacy. It will be light, affordable, and up to the task of holding your thoughts, if you give it a chance.

That’s what I believe a notebook should look like. What should go in it, though?

Seed-Gathering

What should go in it? This is a loaded question! I believe a separate post must be dedicated to answering it.

I have already explained the nature of the words stored in my notebooks. Here, I offer readers context about why these chaotic words are so important to me—and why they should be to you, too.

When starting your springtime notebook, you are “breaking into the soil.” You’re planting seeds in hopes of seeing their fruits in the summer. To me, seeds of greatest value are not easily acquired. They’re not like those packets you find at the Walmart garden center.

As a writer, I know that writing is a lifetime. In addition to writing our thoughts, we should also gather their seeds.

Let me explain. When warm weather ends, when autumn begins spreading her golden quilt over the landscape, seasoned gardeners begin an important task. Taking carefully labeled paper bags, they pluck the dried flowers from their stems. Those dried flowers are stored so that, later, seeds can be gathered from the chaff.

A writer should know how to pick seeds from old stories. This might be a classic novel whose themes are rich with seeds. It might be a poem penned in the margins at four in the morning. Mindful writers know the richest ideas descend from many, many ideas that came before them.

There is nothing original under the sun. Centuries ago, our ancestors told stories, and their children made up their own stories, borrowing ideas from their parents’ words. They were harvesting seeds from their parents’ stories.

Today, we do the same. The difference is that we have paper, pen, and notebooks. We even have computers with digital filing systems that allow us to build mind maps. It might look different, but this is the same practice of collecting seeds.

If our hope is to tell stories with strong roots, we should choose to don our gardening gloves and sort through the chaff. We should look even through discarded drafts—pages we defaced by crossing out dozens of words.

These are the seeds that we should plan to sow into our springtime notebooks: strong, deep, meaningful ideas. They should have substance and history. They are anchored in time and in your own creative past. They help you find your way in the world as a writer, a soul, a human.

Springtime journals do not hold chaff. They hold the future harvest.

Overthink Your Stories

“You’re overthinking it,” some of you might be prepared to tell me. “I have tons of notebooks; it’s not a big deal!”

Perhaps I am. I chose when I was very little to make storytelling the most important thing in my life, so it is possible that I’m elevating this to an experience that is almost religious.

Am I, though? Storytelling is often written off as childish, but children are the most truthful souls one can hope to meet. Storytelling is considered by some to be a waste of time when there are bills to pay.

To those people I would say: remember why you are paying the bills.

You are more than a machine programmed to perform the same tasks countless times. You’re doing these things because you need to survive, and in a world that’s becoming gray and soulless, storytelling will save us.

Storytelling is the balm you return to after long days of dealing with numbers. Stories are how you communicate with your children and grandchildren.

There is nothing in the world more important to me than stories, so I take my notebooks seriously.

Conclusion

We honor our ideas, and ourselves, by picking worthy notebooks in which to store our thoughts.

A sturdy journal keeps our fragments safe until we are ready to use them. A journal of a suitable size will journey with you wherever you go. Paired with a perfect pen, there is no better way to explore the cheerful weeks of springtime.

During these weeks, the world begins to stir and wake. We find stories where we did not expect them: in the daffodils, in shades of trees, in skies so blue that they fill us with hope. There is no better time to gather ideas, build nests with them, and create worlds that are never devoid of color.

Do you have a preferred journal type? Do you carry it around with you, or does it live at home, waiting on the kitchen table for a designated time? Please drop a comment!