Saturday, March 19, 2005
The Red Notebook
I did 'dance duty' this morning, somewhat bleary-eyed after a late stint in front of the laptop last night. It was another 1am lights out scenario. I dropped Laura off and went back home to fill the time by checking my e-mail and other bits and bobs.
On the way back to collect her at noon I bought myself some new notebooks from Woolworths; six A6 pads to compliment the A7 ones I use for daily scribbles and notes. I'm going to carry these ones for daily notes, but of more evolved stories and thoughts. Not quite a journal - that's this blog - but somewhere in between. Free-writing is the term I'm looking for.
I'm still trying to find a method that fits. I've got a small book for scribbles and things to remember, which I then transfer into my larger, permanent notebook later. This works okay. This blog is the daily journal - that's settled too. The new notebooks will be for free-writing and spontaeneous prose/poetry that I find I cannot write into the small book because it is, well, too small. This sounds good. I'm happy. :-)
Whenever I buy new notebooks (which seems to be more and more these days), I am always reminded of the significance the colour of the notebook itself. This is something I never thought about until I started reading Paul Auster's work, but I now find myself changing my mind several times while holding varying permetations of colours before finally deciding. There's only three colours! In the end, I decided on three red and three black.
Why the colour significance? I think it comes down to mood and creativity. Some days I prefer to write in a black book, others red. My small daily notebook is red and probably always will be. I would feel uncomfortable writing between the covers of anything else. It is a free colour, whereas black is sometime restrictive and always more formal. I can really let loose in a red one.
As a writer, most days I am at a constant plateau of creativity. That is, I am able to be think and write to a satisfactorily level. Some days this level dips and I struggle to be creative. Not quite writer's block since I can squeeze it out until the level rises naturally. On days like today though, the level rises and I have to write like a crazy bugger to get the ideas onto paper before they are lost.
Laura had some great news when I picked her up. She has been picked to dance solo (tap) on stage during a performance at this years Edinburgh Festival. She didn't quite get the magnitude of it at first; I think she thought it was the Leith Festival she heard me talking about the other day. She has to take individual lessons which is great, but going to put a strain on the day care arrangements. Not to worry; when she's on Broadway it'll all be worth it!
After lunch I took Laura to the cinema. We went to see Robots, which came out yesterday and it was quite good. Not the best animation film I've seen but still quite good. In fact, the best thing about it was the trailer for Episode 3 of Star Wars. Whenever I hear Vader's breathing filling the auditorium I cannot help the tingle sensation on my neck and the excitement build.
We got back in time to see the second half of the Wales v Ireland Six Nations rugby match. Wales won 32-20 and so took the Championship title, the Grand Slam and the Triple Crown. Good on them - they deserve it.
There was a more important match on later however (for a Scotsman anyway); Scotland against England at Twickehnam in the final Six Nations Match. Nothing much was at stake except for 4th or 5th place and the Calcutta Cup (sic) but Scotland fought well and looked as though they kept some of their best play for the last match. We still got humped 43-22 but managed three tries before we succumbed.
I worked more on the Web Manuals in the evening. The word count is circa 8,500 words but as a technical manual I'm not bothered about that at the moment. It's more about content and getting a technical message across in easily readable words and images.
Tomorrow Laura goes to her Grans for the whole day and I should be able to dedicate the day to fiction.
On the way back to collect her at noon I bought myself some new notebooks from Woolworths; six A6 pads to compliment the A7 ones I use for daily scribbles and notes. I'm going to carry these ones for daily notes, but of more evolved stories and thoughts. Not quite a journal - that's this blog - but somewhere in between. Free-writing is the term I'm looking for.
I'm still trying to find a method that fits. I've got a small book for scribbles and things to remember, which I then transfer into my larger, permanent notebook later. This works okay. This blog is the daily journal - that's settled too. The new notebooks will be for free-writing and spontaeneous prose/poetry that I find I cannot write into the small book because it is, well, too small. This sounds good. I'm happy. :-)
Whenever I buy new notebooks (which seems to be more and more these days), I am always reminded of the significance the colour of the notebook itself. This is something I never thought about until I started reading Paul Auster's work, but I now find myself changing my mind several times while holding varying permetations of colours before finally deciding. There's only three colours! In the end, I decided on three red and three black.
Why the colour significance? I think it comes down to mood and creativity. Some days I prefer to write in a black book, others red. My small daily notebook is red and probably always will be. I would feel uncomfortable writing between the covers of anything else. It is a free colour, whereas black is sometime restrictive and always more formal. I can really let loose in a red one.
As a writer, most days I am at a constant plateau of creativity. That is, I am able to be think and write to a satisfactorily level. Some days this level dips and I struggle to be creative. Not quite writer's block since I can squeeze it out until the level rises naturally. On days like today though, the level rises and I have to write like a crazy bugger to get the ideas onto paper before they are lost.
Laura had some great news when I picked her up. She has been picked to dance solo (tap) on stage during a performance at this years Edinburgh Festival. She didn't quite get the magnitude of it at first; I think she thought it was the Leith Festival she heard me talking about the other day. She has to take individual lessons which is great, but going to put a strain on the day care arrangements. Not to worry; when she's on Broadway it'll all be worth it!
After lunch I took Laura to the cinema. We went to see Robots, which came out yesterday and it was quite good. Not the best animation film I've seen but still quite good. In fact, the best thing about it was the trailer for Episode 3 of Star Wars. Whenever I hear Vader's breathing filling the auditorium I cannot help the tingle sensation on my neck and the excitement build.
We got back in time to see the second half of the Wales v Ireland Six Nations rugby match. Wales won 32-20 and so took the Championship title, the Grand Slam and the Triple Crown. Good on them - they deserve it.
There was a more important match on later however (for a Scotsman anyway); Scotland against England at Twickehnam in the final Six Nations Match. Nothing much was at stake except for 4th or 5th place and the Calcutta Cup (sic) but Scotland fought well and looked as though they kept some of their best play for the last match. We still got humped 43-22 but managed three tries before we succumbed.
I worked more on the Web Manuals in the evening. The word count is circa 8,500 words but as a technical manual I'm not bothered about that at the moment. It's more about content and getting a technical message across in easily readable words and images.
Tomorrow Laura goes to her Grans for the whole day and I should be able to dedicate the day to fiction.
Colin 1:42 pm