The Notebook

Sorry this one doesn't have Ryan Gosling in it.

for your ovaries

I've been told two things since a very young age:

1) Use your indoor voice

and

2) Keep a writer's notebook.

I specifically remember some author coming to my elementary school and telling us how she kept a journal next to her bed to write down things in the middle of the night. And something about squirrels.

Anyway, writers often give (and subsequently get) the advice to keep a notebook. This is because we never know when our writerly brains will strike. Since we have so much going on up there in the old noggin, it's important we write it down to remember it.

The thing is, I hate journaling. Sure, I had plenty of pretty pink diaries as a child, but I never kept true to them for very long. It just didn't interest me to keep a running record of my sucky childhood.

So when my playwrighting professor this past semester made us keep a daily notebook, I was skeptical. I didn't think it would help me.

Boy was I wrong. Journaling turned out to be a great writer's tool. In fact, it ended up shaping a lot of my final project.

*voice of squirrel author haunting me*

However, I still found that I couldn't maintain a daily notebook. I never seemed to have the time to sit down and journal my whole day.

What I did have was a blackberry and EverNote

EverNote is a great app you can use on your smartphone and computer to take down quick audio, visual, and text notes wherever you are and whenever you're inspired. It transfers the notes from your phone to a notebook on your computer and PRESTO- writer's notebook.

I find it a lot more convenient than a paper notebook and since I'm attached to my phone anyway, I actually use it. Also, it's great for creepily recording dialogue you hear.

Not that I do that...

Anyway, there are a number of products like this on the market, but evernote is what my professor recommended to me and I think it works well. The free version does have a memory limit, but I haven't run into any problems yet and I use it quite a bit.

Do you journal? What methods do you use? Let me know!