I have always loved notebooks. I remember as a young girl, maybe 10, my mother gave me an old white purse and in it I put my pens, pencils and my notebooks. I collected scraps of paper, cut them to a common size and sewed them together along the spine to make little notebooks.

My love of notebooks diminished when I was a student and they came to symbolize study. But now, the passion is back and has been for years. I love notebooks, preferably coil-backed. I use them for a daily journal where I keep track of events, weather etc.–yes, it’s one of ‘those’ kind. But I also evaluate my life, note a favorite quote…

In fact, I now have a ‘quote’ journal.

I also ‘discuss’ my frustrations, think about my writing life and name of a few gratitudes.

There are times I’ve tried to be a little creative, but mostly I don’t have time for that.

Through journaling, I examine my life.

Over time, my  journaling habit adds up to a lot of journals.

I also like notebooks for taking notes. Imagine that? Notes on workshops, notes on story ideas, notes on being a writer. On my website, I have an article about how a writer can turn this into a valuable tool. https://lindaford.org/?page_id=1469

I brainstorm story ideas and scenes in a school notebooks and I carry a small notebook in my purse in case I have an idea I want to keep.

Ideas. That’s really what this blog is about.

In her book, Pencil Dancing, Mari Messer tells about seeing a bush covered in what she thought was yellow flowers. As she approached the ‘flowers’ flew away. They were butterflies. Ideas, she says are like butterflies and must be caught before they escape.  She says, ‘A fresh new blank notebook is a bare butterfly bush with the potential to become a home to battalions of butterflies. If you begin it, they will come.’ Isn’t that lovely?

Do you use a journal? What do you put in yours? How long have you kept one? And here’s the biggest question in my mind, what do you want to happen to them after you’re dead and gone?