‘Should I keep a notebook of observations and ideas?’
There are three answers: Yes, No, It’s up to you.
Like so many recommendations or rules for writers – and if you’re just starting out, you’ll be given plenty – it’s a case of if it works for you, then do it. Harlan Coben, world famous thriller writer, swears by it. He always carries an A4 pad for jotting notes on everything useful that comes into his mind. It works for him. It might work for you. It wouldn’t work for me.
When I began writing, I grabbed the suggestion, and many more, like a hungry sea lion at feeding time. I bought a special pocket notebook, A6 diary size, and one of those stubby ball pens I could clip on the spine. I recorded everything. Cotton wool clouds and gnarled-finger branches and jet-propelled children (I know; cliché, cliché, cliché. I was a novice; give me a break!) and eventually ended up with pages of that stuff. So, instead, I tried the magic question – What if . . . ?
What if, due to a worldwide atmospheric change, the clouds became solid and fell to earth?
What if a race of children developed wheels on their feet?
Silly ideas, you may say, but from little acorns . . . . (Damn! Another cliché!)
Then my little book became useful for a while, helping me produce short stories for my writing group. But, as time went by, I needed it less and less because I was one of those lucky ones who could remember the concepts and jot them down when I was at home rather than carry around a book. Now I’m older, I have difficulty recalling . . . , what was I saying?
As an example, here are a few things I wrote down recently after being allowed out of the house . . .
A child’s bike discarded on a deserted woodland path. Why?
Distant thunder. Or was it?
Lady collapses in charity shop
The vaccination
Polite school children, rude adults. Changing times!
A few years ago, I was part way through a writing course when we were given a flash task to write two- or three-hundred words on something triggered by what we’d learnt. For your amusement, I hope, here it is . . .
The Writer’s Notebook
© Maurice Holloway
With some it was a stroke on the arm or a whisper in the ear, or snuggling like two spoons in a drawer. All couples had a signal. It said: I’m ready, are you? With Mitch and Jude, it was the bedside light, usually long after they’d gone to bed: his signal that he felt like sex. Just as she was drifting off. It wasn’t as often these days. Jude put that down to being married twenty years. Nevertheless, like a Pavlov experiment, the snick of the switch got her excited.
Click. Shuffle, shuffle. Scuffle. Creak. Straighten sheets. Click. Sleep.
Then Mitch joined a Writers’ Group.
‘They said I should keep a notebook with me. For observations.’
‘Sensible.’
‘Exactly. Keep it by the bed, they said, so if I wake up with an idea . . . .’
‘You write it down.’
The following week. Click. Shuffle. Scribble. Pause. No scuffle. Click.
‘Sorry.’
Jude assumed a false alarm. It happens.
The next night. Click. Shuffle. Click-click. Click.
‘Sorry.’
After over a week of nightly unsatisfied expectations and mumbled apologies at breakfast, Jude had had enough.
‘Give me the notebook, Mitchell. It’s going in the bin.’
He’d been recording the morning’s ritual and was searching for the best adjective for the texture of egg yolk. Mitch’s hand clamped the book to his chest.
‘No, no. Please, Jude, Judith. No-o. I’m getting on so well. I-I’ll try not to wake up so often. Promise.’
‘I only want us to get back to normal, darling. You know . . . at night.’
She was helpless when he pleaded like a wounded child – but she had to come up with something.
That night. Click. Click-click. Click-click-click-click.
‘Light’s not working.’
‘I know . . .’
Shuffle. Shuffle. Shuffle.
‘. . . I took the bulb out. Come over here.’
Shuffle. Shuffle. Creak. Scuffle, scuffle. Giggle.
Anyway, Harlan Coben sells millions of books every year. I don’t. He carries around a notepad. I don’t.
As I said at the beginning – if it works for you, then do it.
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