Orhan Pamuk: “Mr. Pamuk writes by hand, in graph-paper notebooks, filling a page with prose and leaving the adjacent page blank for revisions, which he inserts with dialogue-like balloons.”

Hilary Mantel, who just won the Booker Prize for Wolf Hall: “She’s an obsessive note taker and always carries a notebook.”

Michael Ondaatje, best known for The English Patient: “Booker-prize winner Michael Ondaatje’s preferred medium is 8½-by-11-inch Muji brand lined notebooks. He completes the first three or four drafts by hand, sometimes literally cutting and pasting passages and whole chapters with scissors and tape. Some of his notebooks have pages with four layers underneath.”

Edwidge Danticat: “She writes first drafts in flimsy blue exam notebooks that she orders from an online office supply store. She often uses 100 exam books for a draft. “The company I order from must think I’m a high school,” she said. She types the draft on the computer and begins revising and cutting.”

Amitav Ghosh: “Mr. Ghosh, who is now working on the sequel to “Sea of Poppies,” which is part of a trilogy, is particular about everything from his pen to the type of paper he writes on. He insists black ink Pelikan pens are the best, and buys white, lined paper from a French manufacturer. “If you work on paper so much, you get obsessive about even the spacing of the lines,” he says. “I need them to be fairly widely spaced.”"

It’s always fascinating to get a peek behind the scenes at how people work– I just wish they’d been a bit more specific about brands, where they buy their supplies, etc.

Read more at How to Write a Great Novel: Junot Diaz, Anne Rice, Margaret Atwood and Other Authors Tell – WSJ.com.

I am nearing the end of a notebook. One page left and it will be another filled. I like the achievement of finishing notebooks but there is also the fright. What sort of notebook shall I use next, will I be able to write on the pages?…
I have several choices for the next notebook. A penguin ‘1984′ notebook, a moleskine book (A5 in size, bigger than my normal selection), a notebook with wide lines (i like the small lined books) or buy another reporters pad. I love buying stationery. I could stand in a shop, staring at notebooks for hours. I think about the sort of things it would hold, if its portable for my handbag and train writing, if its durable….

Read the full post at The Accidential Notebook and Other Dilemmas.

I’m nearing the end of my current Piccadilly notebook, which I have just LOVED. What will it be next???

And don’t these images just make you drool?

(image source)

(see full slide show here)

Maybe I should award good old Siegfried the posthumous honor of being an Addict of the Week!

Here are two pictures of my notebooks.
In my collection you can see some FieldNotes. One of them, I use as the Archery Training Manual you see at the second picture. The rampage at the bottom comes from an arrow; wrong time, wrong place
The little black notebook on top is the one, I currently use. It’s a Brunnen Kompagnon in DIN A6, lined with a backpocket, and a pencilholder.
The one in the background with the Label “Storybook” on the front, is my Storybook (you won’t tell that by it’s name???). There, I wright down stories and fragments of stories, the world will never see. Some of them might bring me into jail…..

I’d have to say that is the first notebook I’ve ever seen that’s been pierced by an errant arrow! Thanks Michael, and please stay out of jail so you can keep collecting notebooks!

Studies show that thinking back on happy times elevates mood, and observing and preserving memories is one of the most satisfying ways of bringing order to life.

My mother started a memory-keeping tradition a few years ago that has proved to be a lot of fun.

She bought two matching lined journals, one for each granddaughter. At the end of every visit to Kansas City, my older daughter writes a paragraph about the highlights of our visit, and I write in my younger daughter’s book.

We’ve only been doing it since 2007, but already, we all enjoy looking back at the entries from past visits. It’s astounding how quickly even intense memories fade, and how effectively a brief note reminds us of highlights from the past – the time my daughter fell into the duck pond, the time my father set off the fire alarm when making pancakes, the time when my sister and her husband got locked in the bedroom.

I wish I’d thought to do this when I was younger– I have a pretty good memory anyway, but I didn’t always keep a diary, and I know there’s lots of things that have slipped away. In more recent years, I often tended to write more in my journal when I was unhappy, and re-reading those notebooks only gives a partial picture of what my life was really like. Now, I try to write more often, and capture both good things and bad. As the years go by, it can be a surprise to find that I’ve written down events that I no longer remember, and I want to have some happy surprises!

The Happiness Project: Want to a Quick, Easy Way to Preserve Happy Memories?.

Available at ModCloth for $19.99.

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Dec 08, 2009 Goldspot Pens
Jan 05, 2010 Journaling Arts
You can submit a post to the next carnival at this link. To learn more about this monthly extravaganza of notebook and pen p()rn, visit the carnival info page.

The Fourth Carnival of Pen, Pencil and Paper – Black Belt Productivity.