This is going to sound creepy as hell, but I literally give my notebooks names. Like, people names. It helps me figure out which one is which. (Juliette was from Paris, May 2024)
I called my childhood notebooks “you,” meaning the physical book. Not “Dear diary” type thing, but more like “I’ll bring you with me when I go to visit so-and-so.” I suspect that it’s a similar way of thinking.
I love this idea for notebooks! I do it for my yearly planners, which I print and bind by hand. They include lots of blank space for planning, and partially function like a commonplace book as well (thinking of it this way explains why I can never part with them when the year is done).
My metaphor about jotting down ideas (I carry a small notebook everywhere) would be similar to a quote from Henry Miller - about "making room for the crazy ones scratching at the window panes"...the unknown ideas (and new writers) trying to get noticed and let in. "Chaos is the score upon which reality is written," he says.
My never-without-it pocket notebook is called 'Polaris' - it's my north star. 💫 I often call it my 'ideas factory', actually - but that's more definition than name!
I love what you've said here, Jillian: '...a swarm of ideas, perhaps a bit of a sting, but always with the promise of honey.' Just gorgeous.
Bless you for this — I haven’t always named mine, but right now, my everyday journal that I use to capture everything from meeting and webinar notes to To Do lists is called “Scribblings,” and I’m about to start Scribblings #5. I keep it in my office and take it to meetings. I have another journal I use daily called “Gratitude & Reflections” and I’m on #4. I keep this in my sunroom where I usually have my morning “quiet time.” The metaphor for for both, I suppose, is “roundup” — a place to corral and sort my thoughts and minimize the nagging, usually unconscious worry that I’ll forget something important.
Love this. Especially Coleridge’s notion of notes as places to put his thought on trial. Thanks for sharing it. Notebooks are the opposite for me, however. I don't *call* them anything but notebooks, but I *think* of them explicitly as places of self-indulgence: creating writing that doesn't owe anything to any standards whatsoever.
Hi Jillian. I have my journals, and I have my "idea books", which are the notebooks I start fresh each new year for notes and ideas concerning my newsletter, my website, and any projects I have on the go. Idea Books isn't that exciting a name, but there you have it. Recently I've been thinking it'd be *much* smarter and better organized to have a separate notebook for each project and for my newsletter that isn't tied to the new year, but I'm having a hard time taking the leap, haha. Set in my ways, I guess. (Now that I've written that, I'm resolved to do it :))
I also have two 11 x 14 inch hardcover sketchbooks that were/are used for sketches and ideas for my Life's Work: A Visual Memoir project, and for the future graphic memoir. And a smattering of other sketchbooks, though I don't work in one as a rule.
I have seasonal notebooks (it usually takes me around 3-4 months) to fill one--each one focuses on two projects (I can't focus on more than that at a time). I usually write from both ends --one side covers notes for Noted. When flipped, the other side covers notes for my book project. I give proper title pages to each :)
Hmmm... ingenious! I don't think I could handle the flipping, though. Maybe because I always do something to the cover, and it gives each book its own personality. I'd have to do something to front and back, and I wouldn't know which to have facing front! (Am I over-thinking this, OR WHAT? 😂)
Ooooh, what a great idea to flip them — I often use the back of mine for specific purposes, but the obsessive/compulsive in me dislikes that I have to write right to left if I need more than one page. Flipping it is the perfect solution.
My books are simply called sketchbook journals because I carry my book with me where ever I am leaving notes, quotes, doodles and ephemera inside them, documenting location, feelings and pep talk quotes to myself.
If I’m honest, “The Dump” would be quite an accurate title for mine! And in that context, it’s a much more valuable place than the way we think of our proverbial landfill.
My Cranial Annex. my notebooks are sort of like a secondary storage area for my brain because sometimes it just doesn’t seem like there’s enough space inside my head for everything. I can always go back and look, and think, and organize, and sometimes, discount what I’ve written.
. I don't think I have a name for them. I guess when I think of them I think of them as my catch-all. But now I'm intrigued. This may be a beautiful journaling prompt to engage in conversation with my notebooks / journals ... Let then tell me their name
Hmmm... I never thought of giving them names. I have different notebooks for different things and they're just... well, notebooks. At the moment I have four different notebooks going. One is the desktop notebook where I keep notes as I work on the computer, and notes of things I need to do on the computer, or whatever. There's the reading notebook (that one gets a bit elaborate and colourful at times, and also sometimes gets left on the shelf for quite a while). And then there are project notebooks, which generally if they have titles at all are named whatever the project is; and these ones can come and go depending on what I'm working on (the desktop and reading notebooks continue regardless). At the moment, general textile arts and dyes/inks/pigments. I'm not looking for ideas to stimulate writing because I'm not a writer; I work with textiles and fibres so I do research and make notes about that, interesting things I find, links, what happened in the most recent experiment, useful references, and so on. And of course sticking pieces of fabric and fibre onto the pages... There's a real crossover point with sketchbooks. My 'notebooks' are always works in progress--what I use and how I use them depends on where I'm at and what I'm doing. But there's always some kind of book, some kind of repository--I'd be lost without some place to keep my mental stuff.
My notebooks are called FireWork — for the inner alchemical processes they document.
I love this, Karen!
Have any trouble getting them through TSA?
😂
I’ve called mine a pensieve - a la Harry Potter: a place to store thoughts and memories to call up and reflect on later.
Ooo-love the magical connotations here too.
This is going to sound creepy as hell, but I literally give my notebooks names. Like, people names. It helps me figure out which one is which. (Juliette was from Paris, May 2024)
That makes so much sense to me. I'm curious: what are you calling your Tokyo notebook?
I'm naming him after my tour guide; one of the head artists from the Snoopy Museum. ("Yoshi-san")
I hope you’ll write a post about the Snoopy Museum! That sounds epic.
Oh, absolutely. I'm on my way there now!
I love this! Like hurricanes.
I called my childhood notebooks “you,” meaning the physical book. Not “Dear diary” type thing, but more like “I’ll bring you with me when I go to visit so-and-so.” I suspect that it’s a similar way of thinking.
From the little I've seen of Jason's notebooks, they do seem quite forceful--like hurricanes ;)
Love the idea of treating books as people.
Omg why did I not think of this !!
This is delightful! If notebooks are our true companions and friends, why not give them such names?
I give each new notebook a one-word title, setting an intention for the next writing cycle. I’m currently on Vol. 4 this year, titled “ALIVE.”
This is brilliant, Amie! I've given myself a word each year (as a kind of intention)...but a word for each writing cycle sounds so helpful.
I love this idea for notebooks! I do it for my yearly planners, which I print and bind by hand. They include lots of blank space for planning, and partially function like a commonplace book as well (thinking of it this way explains why I can never part with them when the year is done).
Also a great way to reinforce a/your "word-of-the-year" if you do that!
Love that!
My metaphor about jotting down ideas (I carry a small notebook everywhere) would be similar to a quote from Henry Miller - about "making room for the crazy ones scratching at the window panes"...the unknown ideas (and new writers) trying to get noticed and let in. "Chaos is the score upon which reality is written," he says.
Miller's metaphor is perfect! Perhaps you have an epigraph for your notebooks rather than a title?
Awesome! There's a quote for CBC
Oh, this is brilliant!
My never-without-it pocket notebook is called 'Polaris' - it's my north star. 💫 I often call it my 'ideas factory', actually - but that's more definition than name!
I love what you've said here, Jillian: '...a swarm of ideas, perhaps a bit of a sting, but always with the promise of honey.' Just gorgeous.
Oooo--"Polaris" is such a good name. And "ideas factory" is so evocative too. Makes it seem like a very creative assembly line.
Also, thanks for your kind words about my description! 💛
I also loved Jillian's description and even added it to my (unnamed) commonplace book.
Ah! It gives me a little spark of joy to know my words are worthy of someone's commonplace book! Thanks, Deborah.
Infinity Bin
Nice!
Bless you for this — I haven’t always named mine, but right now, my everyday journal that I use to capture everything from meeting and webinar notes to To Do lists is called “Scribblings,” and I’m about to start Scribblings #5. I keep it in my office and take it to meetings. I have another journal I use daily called “Gratitude & Reflections” and I’m on #4. I keep this in my sunroom where I usually have my morning “quiet time.” The metaphor for for both, I suppose, is “roundup” — a place to corral and sort my thoughts and minimize the nagging, usually unconscious worry that I’ll forget something important.
There's something about the word "Scribblings" that makes me really happy. It sounds fun and it makes me think of cursive and curlicues.
Also--taking notes in a sun room sounds so dreamy!
Love this. Especially Coleridge’s notion of notes as places to put his thought on trial. Thanks for sharing it. Notebooks are the opposite for me, however. I don't *call* them anything but notebooks, but I *think* of them explicitly as places of self-indulgence: creating writing that doesn't owe anything to any standards whatsoever.
Coleridge's names always struck me as way too harsh. I prefer to think of notebooks as delicious indulgences as well.
Hi Jillian. I have my journals, and I have my "idea books", which are the notebooks I start fresh each new year for notes and ideas concerning my newsletter, my website, and any projects I have on the go. Idea Books isn't that exciting a name, but there you have it. Recently I've been thinking it'd be *much* smarter and better organized to have a separate notebook for each project and for my newsletter that isn't tied to the new year, but I'm having a hard time taking the leap, haha. Set in my ways, I guess. (Now that I've written that, I'm resolved to do it :))
I also have two 11 x 14 inch hardcover sketchbooks that were/are used for sketches and ideas for my Life's Work: A Visual Memoir project, and for the future graphic memoir. And a smattering of other sketchbooks, though I don't work in one as a rule.
I have seasonal notebooks (it usually takes me around 3-4 months) to fill one--each one focuses on two projects (I can't focus on more than that at a time). I usually write from both ends --one side covers notes for Noted. When flipped, the other side covers notes for my book project. I give proper title pages to each :)
Hmmm... ingenious! I don't think I could handle the flipping, though. Maybe because I always do something to the cover, and it gives each book its own personality. I'd have to do something to front and back, and I wouldn't know which to have facing front! (Am I over-thinking this, OR WHAT? 😂)
Join the group…we can start a CBC chapter of Overthinkers Anonymous! 🤣
Love it!
Haha! You might be overthinking this but your covers really are spectacular!
Ooooh, what a great idea to flip them — I often use the back of mine for specific purposes, but the obsessive/compulsive in me dislikes that I have to write right to left if I need more than one page. Flipping it is the perfect solution.
My books are simply called sketchbook journals because I carry my book with me where ever I am leaving notes, quotes, doodles and ephemera inside them, documenting location, feelings and pep talk quotes to myself.
I love that you carry them with you!
Lol I’ve never named them out loud but I think of them as the Dump. So the Dump they shall be.
Haha--my notes often feel like a dump as well.
🤣
If I’m honest, “The Dump” would be quite an accurate title for mine! And in that context, it’s a much more valuable place than the way we think of our proverbial landfill.
Love this! Never thought of naming my commonplace books. 🤔
Obviously, there's no need to, but it is a fun exercise!
My Cranial Annex. my notebooks are sort of like a secondary storage area for my brain because sometimes it just doesn’t seem like there’s enough space inside my head for everything. I can always go back and look, and think, and organize, and sometimes, discount what I’ve written.
Yes--I love the architectural connotation!
“Cranial Annex” is EXACTLY how I use mine — this made me laugh out loud in recognition!
. I don't think I have a name for them. I guess when I think of them I think of them as my catch-all. But now I'm intrigued. This may be a beautiful journaling prompt to engage in conversation with my notebooks / journals ... Let then tell me their name
What a great idea! Journaling in search of a name--or not, maybe they'd prefer not to be named.😀
Hmmm... I never thought of giving them names. I have different notebooks for different things and they're just... well, notebooks. At the moment I have four different notebooks going. One is the desktop notebook where I keep notes as I work on the computer, and notes of things I need to do on the computer, or whatever. There's the reading notebook (that one gets a bit elaborate and colourful at times, and also sometimes gets left on the shelf for quite a while). And then there are project notebooks, which generally if they have titles at all are named whatever the project is; and these ones can come and go depending on what I'm working on (the desktop and reading notebooks continue regardless). At the moment, general textile arts and dyes/inks/pigments. I'm not looking for ideas to stimulate writing because I'm not a writer; I work with textiles and fibres so I do research and make notes about that, interesting things I find, links, what happened in the most recent experiment, useful references, and so on. And of course sticking pieces of fabric and fibre onto the pages... There's a real crossover point with sketchbooks. My 'notebooks' are always works in progress--what I use and how I use them depends on where I'm at and what I'm doing. But there's always some kind of book, some kind of repository--I'd be lost without some place to keep my mental stuff.
Sounds like you've got lots of methods that work for you, Margaret!