I find that most of my ideas come to me at the most inopportune time. I may be driving on the highway at 70 miles per hour or sitting in a movie theater or having dinner with someone. Whatever the case may be, I am never sitting at a computer when I have these flashes of genius. These are the times when a writing notebook comes in handy.

I started this practice when I was in college studying art. I needed a way to keep track of everything while having a place to draw and write. I found a blank sketchbook at my local Borders Bookstore. It contained nearly 200 pages of blank space. I just started writing or drawing. Anything that came to my mind I would write down or illustrate. I filled that one notebook in six months. I bought another one and filled that one in another six. Today there are eight of these sketchbooks full of my wandering thoughts, notes, shopping lists, doodles, prose and poetry that I started and all kind of other crazy things.

The last sketchbook that I found was over 400 pages. This one has lasted more than a year. The binding on it has started to wear out and fall off, but that is what happens when I take it everywhere with me. I keep pictures, birthday and Christmas cards taped on various pages throughout the book. It has become almost a journal of a sort. I just don’t always talk about my life.

Tips on keeping a writing/drawing notebook:

1. Write the date on the page when you write on it. You never know when you are going to need to know when you created a certain idea.
2. Keep the taping of cards to a minimum. The extra cards will thicken the book, making it burst its binding.
3. When people ask to look at it, say no. It contains your private thoughts and ideas. You don’t want everyone looking at them. If you do let people read it from time to time, you won’t be as honest in your writing because you will always be afraid that someone is going to read it.
4. Start from page one and fill up page after page as you need it. You will be surprised at how fast those pages fill up.
5. I found that keeping a phone list and maybe a calendar in the back of the book very useful.

See More Writing Tips.

If you have other ideas on how to find story ideas, write a comment. I would love to hear how you are inspired.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 28th, 2007 at 12:01 am and is filed under Writing Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.