I have a habit of writing everything down, preferably in a college-ruled notebook. While I do have a smartphone and use it for some things such as grocery lists and while on the go, more often than not I will opt to manually scrawl notes, stories, and the like into blank books. I have books for all manner of subjects: everyday mishmash; recipes (I love cooking, so I have a cookbook with my personal original recipes and a notebook where I scrawl recipes-in-progress that I’m busy refining); study notes for whatever nonfiction I’ve delved into at the time; language-learning notes; dedicated journals for certain stories, comic projects and the like. I also have a slew of sketchbooks for much the same reason. There are some which are dedicated to a particular medium or subject, and others which are all-purpose. I still have journals which I kept as far back as 1995, though in 2005 I shifted over to blogging primarily because it’s easier for people to keep up with what’s going on with me if I post it somewhere accessible rather than retyping the same summaries over and over via email.
What’s also weird is my editing process for prose. Generally speaking, for longer works I will write the first draft by hand in a blank book. I then type it up and edit as I type. I then print a copy and reread it, because for some reason I am considerably more capable of fine-tuning prose when I have a paper copy I can write all over. I don’t know why that is; perhaps it’s a concentration thing. In either case, I don’t normally run a print of it more than once. Further digital editing may occur thereafter.
I have a similar process for making comics. I will write the script by hand in a notebook, and also sketch the panel layouts (in a dedicated thumbnail sketchbook) as I write the story. I then draw half-down thumbnail roughs of what the pages will look like, in whatever general-purpose sketchbook I’m using at the time. This generally includes several edits from the original draft, and sometimes means the panel layouts themselves are overhauled. I blow these thumbs up and then draw the final pages on comic paper, making final edits. If a particular page is not working for me in thumb size, I may redraw the thumb. If I don’t do that, I will just edit it when I work on the full-sized page (depends on the extent of the editing).
Unless the cover of a particular sketchbook or notebook is particularly pretty, I also completely cover them with stickers as much as possible. This invariably happens with sketchbooks, though a good portion of my notebooks have stickerless covers. The stickers serve as a sort of memorial to whatever I was doing or was interested in at the time I was actively using the book. Sometimes they’re mementos given to me by friends; other times they’re things I am mailed, receive as part of a package as some sort of promotion, and so on. I prefer that they be “found” or “gifted” rather than something that I purchase myself, but sometimes I will pick up a sticker if it is important enough to me.
What I’m trying to say is that although I prefer to select my own sketchbooks (size/paper preferences etc) a blank, college-ruled notebook with a unique or interesting cover or stickers are both always solid gifts for me. Wink wink.
What’s also weird is my editing process for prose. Generally speaking, for longer works I will write the first draft by hand in a blank book. I then type it up and edit as I type. I then print a copy and reread it, because for some reason I am considerably more capable of fine-tuning prose when I have a paper copy I can write all over. I don’t know why that is; perhaps it’s a concentration thing. In either case, I don’t normally run a print of it more than once. Further digital editing may occur thereafter.
I have a similar process for making comics. I will write the script by hand in a notebook, and also sketch the panel layouts (in a dedicated thumbnail sketchbook) as I write the story. I then draw half-down thumbnail roughs of what the pages will look like, in whatever general-purpose sketchbook I’m using at the time. This generally includes several edits from the original draft, and sometimes means the panel layouts themselves are overhauled. I blow these thumbs up and then draw the final pages on comic paper, making final edits. If a particular page is not working for me in thumb size, I may redraw the thumb. If I don’t do that, I will just edit it when I work on the full-sized page (depends on the extent of the editing).
Unless the cover of a particular sketchbook or notebook is particularly pretty, I also completely cover them with stickers as much as possible. This invariably happens with sketchbooks, though a good portion of my notebooks have stickerless covers. The stickers serve as a sort of memorial to whatever I was doing or was interested in at the time I was actively using the book. Sometimes they’re mementos given to me by friends; other times they’re things I am mailed, receive as part of a package as some sort of promotion, and so on. I prefer that they be “found” or “gifted” rather than something that I purchase myself, but sometimes I will pick up a sticker if it is important enough to me.
What I’m trying to say is that although I prefer to select my own sketchbooks (size/paper preferences etc) a blank, college-ruled notebook with a unique or interesting cover or stickers are both always solid gifts for me. Wink wink.
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