Writing in Notebooks with Claire M. Banschbach

Hello! I have Claire M. Banschbach here with us today to talk about writing in notebooks. If you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen the picture I posted of my notebook stack. That's probably about half of my notebook collection, and while I don't have a story in each, there's a story in many, if not most. I'm kinda addicted to notebooks when it comes to back-to-school sales. I'm not 100% faithful to notebook writing, but I do love the medium.

Claire's a good friend of mine, and I highly recommend her Adela's Curse. Her other two books, are, unfortunately, unavailable at the moment, but I rather enjoyed the first one.

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Kicking It Old School

The image that pops into most people’s head these days when given the word “writer” is a deluded person huddled in the semi-darkness frantically pounding away at a keyboard. Yes, it’s a stereotype, but the thing I want to talk about is the laptop. I’m one of those writers that doesn’t necessarily write everything on the computer. I enjoy the old school method of pen and paper.

In fact, my first three books were all hand written in a giant pile of notebooks.

Does it lengthen the writing process? Sure. But here are some reasons I love it and would recommend writing in a notebook to someone. 

1.  Freedom with the first draft. You know the bit of writing advice that says just to write your first draft and not edit? Well, I find it difficult to go back and edit anything in a notebook. Unless you want to rip out pages and then somehow insert pages back in and risk jumbling everything together. Writing in a notebook gives you freedom to literally pour your heart out onto the page.
2.  There’s something soothing about the scratch of the pen on the page. Really, I love watching the words appear under the pen. I might even say I get more into the “zone” when writing by hand than I do on the computer.
3. Start planning ahead to draft 2. My current project is being hand written right now. I find myself just getting words on paper and then looking back over what I’ve written (mostly to see if it’s coherent) and already deciding that things need to be tweaked or I want to phrase a sentence differently. But, like I said, it’s more difficult to immediately edit anything in a notebook. It’s easier to flag, let it rest, and then decide during the transcribing process what you’ll end up doing with it. 

Now I’m always a big proponent of writing in notebooks until it comes time to transcribe into the computer. J But some things can’t be helped. I take the transcribing time to work on my first edits and tweak a few things. As an example, in my current project, the villain kind of fell by the wayside in the first half of the book. It’s flagged and so that’s something I’ll look at addressing in the second draft. Also in re-reading through notebook scenes, I have wondered what draft 1 me was thinking and that’s when they get cut. It’s very much like a standard draft 2 phase.

Some people think I’m crazy for hand writing an entire book. But really you don’t even realize how long your book is until you get it into the computer and get that nifty automatic wordcount. Notebooks aren’t for everyone. I happen to enjoy the flow that comes with pen and paper. Also when you get stuck on a scene, it’s easier to stare at paper than at a bright computer screen. That’s also another reason I do it. Sometimes I just get tired of looking at a computer and want to get away from it, so I go back to paper.

I’ll also use notebooks for free-writes if I get stuck on a scene or plot point. It’s easier to get out a notebook and just vent about how uncooperative your characters are being and then discover the solution among your rambling. I’ve solved issues for several books this way.

Even if you’re a committed computer writer and know that you type faster than you write, give it a try! I’m kind of half and half with where I write. I also started projects in the computer and then switched over to a notebook. Call me crazy. J

Let’s turn it over to you! Do you do any writing in a notebook? What’s your writing medium of choice and why do you like it?