“Keep a notebook. Travel with it, eat with it, sleep with it. Slap into it every stray thought that flutters up into your brain. Cheap paper is less perishable than gray matter. And lead pencil markings endure longer than memory.” jack london
I’m currently reading The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper by Roland Allen. I’m not reading it because it was recommended by a favorite blogger (though it was) or because it appeared on several “Best Books of 2024” lists (which it did). I’m reading it because I love notebooks! Always have and always will.
The Notebook is a fascinating read, tracing the history of notebooks from the ancient use of beeswax tablets (1000 BC) to modern Moleskins (1997 AD). One thing is clear, although the notebook is great for record-keeping, its greatest function is as a reliable and versatile tool for creative thinking. Roland’s book is filled with the “notebook” stories of Leonardo DaVinci, Isaac Newton and Marie Curie, and writers from Chaucer to Henry James. He shows how Darwin developed his theory of evolution in tiny pocketbooks and Agatha Christie plotted a hundred murders in cheap school exercise books. He also introduces a host of cooks, kings, sailors, musicians, engineers, politicians, adventurers and mathematicians, all of whom used their notebooks as a space to think and reshape the world. More than just a list of names and dates, Roland shares interesting anecdotes about these individuals and how their notebooks influenced their work.
This brings me to my love of notebooks, which began in elementary school. Each August, while purchasing school supplies, Mom would buy extra paper folders with prongs (2 for .15). I'd turn them into homemade notebooks, filling them with blank paper to draw pictures or write stories.
Two childhood notebooks are The Adventures of Dr. Boyd and Dr. Hays (5th grade: inspired by the Rick Brant book series and the Jonny Quest cartoon) and Ricky Bond 006 (6th grade: inspired by James Bond movies and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. TV show)
While a senior in high school, I began keeping notebooks during my daily quiet time. They were a repository for Bible study notes, prayers, personal confessions, activities, poems and doodles. Although it's changed format and content over the years, I still carry on the practice.
Quiet Time notebooks that started the journey and recent H.E.A.R. Journals (Highlight. Explain. Apply. Respond.)
As an art major in college, I began using sketchbooks. Nothing gives me more joy than buying a new sketchbook, with all the possibilities its empty pages represent.
Part of the growing stack of sketchbooks of all kinds and sizes.
Since the late 1980s, I’ve used Mead college ruled composition notebooks to take sermon notes.
I recently began transferring my sermon notes into a large journaling Bible.
As a lifelong learner, I have a shelf full of graph composition notebooks, which I’ve tabbed and filled with notes and drawings from a variety of online courses.
Some courses I’ve notated and completed are Adobe Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, Animate and XD, along with JavaScript, HTML and CSS.
I also love 3-ring binders. I have dozens of binders filled with stories I’ve written, songs I’ve composed and lessons I’ve taught … but that’s a post for another day.