Sharing Katherine May’s piece “How to keep a writer’s notebook”

Oh, how I love Katherine May’s books. Discovered during the pandemic, I plowed through Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, resisting the urge to underline the whole book. After that I read her earlier book, The Electricity of Every Living Thing: One Woman’s Walk With Asperger’s, then recently finished her latest, Enchantment: Awakening Wonder In An Anxious Age. Resting, walking, wonder — favorite topics so wonderfully and honestly explored in her hands.

I also subscribe to her podcast and Substack. I’m pretty sure I’d subscribe to her grocery lists if she published them. Big fan, is what I’m saying.

All this to say that I keep meaning to share her Substack post titled “How to keep a writer’s notebook,” which starts this way:

Yesterday, when I sat down at my desk, I couldn’t find my notebook. The panic that brought: without it, a part of my brain was missing. It wasn’t that I wanted to find information in it – instead, I wanted to write in it. A stray piece of paper wouldn’t do. I needed, in that moment, to add to that particular collection of words, to find the relief of disclosure.

The rest of this thoughtful piece is chockfull of notebook wisdom and has inspired me to record more than I already do. God knows I have enough notebooks. I want to be looser, more-in-the-moment, less focused on to-do lists (though I will always write those) and more on capturing moments, little scenes, life’s comedy and drama, snippets of conversations. (I just mistakenly typed “conversayions,” and I think that might be a better word!) Doing more of what Katherine talks about here:

Your notebook exists to capture your creative life in the broadest possible sense. It exists because your memory is never quite as good as it should be. Get everything down as soon as you can, while it’s still in your mind. Bright ideas have a terrible habit of dissipating if they hang about too long.

I want to fill these pages…

And these…

Then maybe use the contents for SOMETHING. Or maybe not. I at least want to capture life, even if it isn’t for an honest-to-goodness “writing life.”

Great piece, I think. Can you read it without subscribing to her Substack? I hope so, but I also encourage you to subscribe either way.

I’ll ask what Katherine asks, how do you use your notebooks? I’m curious.