One day at a time, one page at a time, one notebook at a time

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Wednesday morning I finished the notebook draft of my memoir. Thursday morning I was walking into walls.

Notebook draft, for those who aren’t familiar with the term, and I may have made it up, is hand-writing page by messy page in (for me) an inexpensive, spiral-bound notebook with a Pilot Precise Vision V7 rolling ball pen, blue ink. The notebook draft of my memoir is 9.5 of these notebooks.

I’ve been asked how many words that is. The rough stats are: 70 pages per notebook x 30 lines per page x 10 words per line x 9.5 notebooks works out to somewhere dangerously close to 200,000 words. However, not every page is a full thirty lines, nor is every line ten words, so let’s subtract some of those words. And, heaven knows, not all of those words are good ones. Even so, that’s a lot of words, far too many for a memoir.

The next step will be a read-through of all ten notebooks, making notes (in yet another notebook), sticky-noting the pages and generally trying to discover where the story is, what goes in, what doesn’t, where I’ll need to expand, where I’ll need to do more research, etc. All this before I begin typing it into Scrivener on my laptop.

But before I begin the reading the notebooks, I’m taking a few days away from the memoir, letting it cool off a little, getting some distance. These last couple of mornings (after I stopped running into walls), I’ve been looking over some poems and flash pieces I’ve filed away along with some submission possibilities. I’ll try to find some work that matches calls for submissions and maybe send off a few. Then it will be back inside the memoir, revising and editing as I go, to create the first manuscript draft.

That’s how it goes for me: one day at a time, one page at a time, one notebook at a time, one draft at a time.

 

12 thoughts on “One day at a time, one page at a time, one notebook at a time”

  1. I love this post so much for so many reasons… I do believe that writing by hand allows you go deeper, there is something about the connection from paper to pen to hand to heart to story… but THIS is a whole new level! and Congrats on a first draft. That is an epic achievement xoxo

    • Thanks for your note, Jenn. Now begins the work of inputting all that handwritten stuff into Scrivener. Well, certainly not all of it. Another thing I like about writing by hand: I don’t edit as I go, I just keep going. Consequently there’s much that won’t make it into the next draft, but it took that to get to the part that will make it to the next draft. After that will be more eliminating of words, sentences, paragraphs, scenes … and on and on. But words on the page. Something to work with. That’s what I’m after.

  2. Congratulations on finishing your notebook draft! I hope you aren’t doing The Hustle with the walls anymore so you can enjoy the next steps (ha!) in your memoir writing process. Good luck!

  3. I really admire your perseverance with this method but I think I would go insane trying to sort through notebooks and pages for flow, theme, timeline, continuity and what to leave in or take out! I can’t imagine doing all this BEFORE starting Scrivener. My experience with Scrivener is using the bulletin board feature (which I love) to tack things up and take a look at them there. Being able to move them around and take a look at elements of the story without duplicating all the steps (writing to typing, etc.) is the benefit of this system to me.

    However, as someone who is ruminating on my own memoir and starting to make outline notes, I am very curious as to why you choose this labor-intensive method. Do you get closer to the work? Does it give you a different perspective? Do words flow more easily through the pen? Or is it simply you can carry notebooks with you everywhere and makes it easier to write on the go?

    • Hi Deborah and thanks for your note. I know my method seems time-consuming and a duplication of efforts, but truth is, I do get closer to the work and deeper inside what I want to say. I have been a hand-writer for almost all of my work except my books about writing. But all my fiction is hand-written, messy notebooks, then transcribed, giving it the first edit as I go. It is more about the flow of words, trusting my intuitive writer, rather than the “thinking” writer, which is who I seem to be when I write on the computer.

      I’m rereading all the notebooks now and will then begin the Scrivener process. LOoking forward to having manuscript copies to work with.
      Good luck with your own memoir!

  4. Dear Judy
    You deserve congratulations and a shout out for good luck to continue with the process of writing your memoir. It takes quite a bit of determination and motivation to do what you’ve done.

  5. You are a ‘trouper’ Judy, so much dedication to the ‘creative cause.’ That’s what I find so uplifting and inspiring about you!

    Carry on, carrying on….But please, please, avoid bumping into the walls! LOL

    Michael

  6. The Hilroy link I left on your page (Walmart, Staples, online, etc) makes those notebooks reachable. They are good when it’s hot outside and hands want to sweat onto the page and make the pen skip. Hilroy doesn’t recognize such audacity. Pages don’t curl. It even takes Malbec nicely although that does curl the pages a bit right over where I chronicle my convalescence. Happy days with NoteBook. Oh I forgot to mention, Hilroy is cheap. So good so strong so smooth and so inexpensive!

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