East Buntyn Art Walk

Today I am crawling out of my weekend cave, putting on outside pants, and heading over to show off some of my handmade books at the East Buntyn Art Walk here in the grand city of Memphis. I art a lot, and I walk a good bit, but I've rarely combined the two.

Hey, it seems like a winning combination to me!

I'm hoping to find some new homes for some of my books, because I am running out of room in my house to store them and I have a strong hankering to make more. If you're local, come join me. If you're not, but you want to take some of these things off my hands, email me.

Here's hoping for a beautiful day, some time to scribble a few words in my own notebook, and for lots of fellowship with some fantastic local artists.

Well, and cookies. I am also hoping for cookies.

Arkansas Pen Show

This weekend my friend Derek and I have taken the plunge and set up shop to sell some of our journal handi-work at the Arkansas Pen Show. I've been to the show in years past...and I usually leave with a pen or two, yes...but this year we are on the other side of the table.

I have enjoyed getting to meet so many interesting people with whom I share interests: fine writing tools, art, craftsmanship, and writing. I must admit, I have also enjoyed the experience of having people come and hold my handbound journals, flip through their pages, and think through how they would put them to use. That is a big thing for me--I do hope they will be used. Though I spend much time building the books to be as perfect as they can be, I secretly hope they will cross my path again, just for a glimpse, so I can see them with their pages full to bursting, their corners bumped and frayed, and their bindings limbered by use.

I've enjoyed this, hermit though I am, and I'm thrilled to share my art with people whom I hope will love it the way I do.

Tools of the Trade: Commonplace Book

As I mentioned yesterday, if you see me out in person, odds are you will find a notebook somewhere on me. I have them coming out of my ears (not literally, though a pair of earring notebooks would be interesting...), and I use them often. I keep them with me so I won't miss out on those important droplets of information that rain down so unpredictably. Sometimes it is a quote, sometimes an image, sometimes an idea. They're all things I want to keep, and I just don't trust my spongy gray-matter enough to hold onto it for me by itself. These notebooks are not quite journals, though they are certainly personal. They are my commonplace books.

Yes. They're all full. All.

Commonplace books have a long history, dating back to the 15th century Italy when they were known as "zibaldone", or "hodgepodge books." That's a good way of describing them--a commonplace book can hold a little bit of everything, and each is unique to its owner. Many great minds have used them to store their thoughts and information, including John Locke, Mark Twain, Henry David Thoreau, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. For what it's worth, commonplace books also factored into the A Series of Unfortunate Events series by Lemony Snicket, and that deserves as much distinction as anything.

One facet that separates a commonplace book from a diary or a journal, is that the content is not always intrinsically personal, and the pages are often indexed. John Locke is credited for popularizing an index system in which each page must be given a header to identify the content and how it will be used. Locke's system was aimed toward academics, but the foundation is useful in any context. There comes a sense of responsibility for what goes on the page once that header is on there, and I find it helps me maintain focus. (Read: I feel guilty for tangents. Then I make a new page for the tangent, but since it has a name, it is no longer a tangent. Lather, rinse, repeat.) 

Allow me to outline my incredibly complicated commonplace book indexing system. Every page of my commonplace book gets the topic of that page on the upper corner, and the right page (only, unless it is a top bound spiral notebook) gets a page number.

That's pretty much it.

When the book is full, and I do mean every-single-line full, I go back and fill out an index card with the labels and contents. I tape it to the back cover of the book, and then I grab up the next one to start all over again.

My commonplace book is a comfort. I know I always have a safe place to scribble down a thought or an image so I can save it for later when I'm going to "really" write. If I'm away from home and inspiration calls, I can do a little novel drafting and the index keeps me from losing the pages in the mix. These books also hold my idea stockpile. If I can't find something to write about, I can flip through them and find all kinds of inspiration. When I do find one of those rare free moments to write something down or read something back, I feel more intensely myself than any other time throughout my day. That's a pretty big gift for a tiny little pad of paper.

It might be a notebook to you, but it is more than a place to scribble a grocery list. My commonplace book is like a beating heart tucked into my purse or pocket, and I am better off for having it there.

Tools of the Trade: Poopoopaper Panda Poo Journal

On a trip to the Memphis Zoo last year, I ducked into the gift shop with Husband and my friend. They meandered around, trying on safari hats and sunglasses, smugly ignoring all the snake memorabilia hiding on the shelves. I do not like snakes, remember? So, that left me creeping around the aisles, holding my breath and steeling myself so I could walk past the big display of plush snake stuffed animals (ages 3+). I was quickly becoming a nervous wreck and needed something to focus on so I could bide my time in safety.

My sixth sense kicked in and I finally located a panda-adorned table full of books, pens, and paper. There were no snakes anywhere near it, and no one else was standing there. Plus, PANDAS! Perfect.

The table was piled high with these:

They were made with panda poo.

Like, poo from actual pandas. Like this one, who posed so nicely for me:

He's making new raw paper material right now.

Naturally, I had to have one.

The manufacturer, Poopoopaper (their webstore is called the "Pootique"), uses the back cover to assure me that the poo in question was sifted for bamboo fibers, which were washed and sterilized before processing, ensuring an environmentally sound and odorless writing experience. Uh huh. Let's hope so.

There is good craftsmanship in this notebook. The cover is adorable. It is well-made and quite artful, especially the inset panda portrait with an origami-style plant for it to munch.  It does not smell like poo of any kind, unless Panda poo already smells like paper. I kinda doubt that.

I was not expecting this paper to be good for use with fountain pens, which are pretty much all I ever use. The paper is thick and spongy feeling, like most handmade pulp papers. Of course, that didn't stop me from giving it a try.

It went a bit better than I expected, and wasn't entirely unpleasant. It was obviously a bad pen and paper match--it was rough and there was plenty of feathering and "ink-bloat"--but I still found a lot to like about the paper. It is as soft and thick as the cover led me to believe. The front side is "smoother" but that is like saying my cat's tongue is smoother than 40-grit sandpaper. It is smattered with little fibers throughout. Fibers that came from poo.

The back side of the paper is quite different. It has a uniform "grid" pattern embedded into it from the paper manufacturing process. This type of paper is not press rolled like most commercial papers, but is dried on a screen, creating this unique pattern. I don't believe the notebook is designed for writing on both sides of the page, but I can't help myself. I hate wasting paper.

I tried the paper with a gel pen as well. I used the fake Mont Blanc someone gave my husband for free loaded with a Parker Gel refill. It's normally a nice writer, but I had a similar nagging fear that the tip of the pen was about to clog up with fibers.

Then came pencil. It is hard to go wrong with a pencil since they're fairly indestructible. If I'd had the right pencil in my hand, I might have found it a little more pleasant, but in this case, the one I had was a little light and hard for this paper. It dug into the soft paper and produced much too faint a line for my liking.

The best pen for the job on this particular paper, as I'm pained to admit, is an old fashioned paste-ink, 39¢ ballpoint pen.

The ballpoint matches pleasantly with the soft paper, and the lines are dark and easy. This paper makes for one of the better ballpoint pen experiences I've had, actually, mostly due to the pleasant sinking of the pen into the paper. It reminds me of when I used to flip over my mom's floppy plastic and rubber placemats when I was a kid and doodle on the backs of them. (Yes, I eventually got caught.) I thought I'd be as nagged by the fear of clogging the tip as I was with the gel pen, but for some reason, it wasn't a factor. It just didn't scratch into the paper as much.

On the whole, this is a nice notebook if you're not picky about your writing instruments. It is cute, it is quirky, it is well-made, and it is made of poo. How can you top that?

Strange Bookfellows

Why hello, there! Blog? Is that you? It's so good to see you! My, you've changed. Have you lost some weight? Probably, because there's been NO ONE TO POST ON YOU TO KEEP YOU PLUMP AND HEALTHY!

Consider me shamed. Now, to fatten you up with some empty calories.

I have had a full week with plenty of ups and downs. It has been a little heavier on the downs, but I persevere. I persevere, and I write. Those are my two best tricks.

On the writing front, I've been working on my novel a bit. "Working" here means "staring at the text and sorting through countless notebooks looking for that scene I just know that I already wrote that would be absolutely perfect for this transition, but apparently either evaporated or was a figment of my imagination." The latter is likely because, after all, even the stuff I have written is still nothing but written-down imagination figments. That's all fiction really is anyway, right?

Since trolling through my notebooks only affords me so much quality procrastination even on my super-limited schedule, I've also been thinking about who I'm actually writing this novel for anyway. The obvious answer is, "myself." That is the truth in many, many ways that could get all metaphysical and sappy if I was to expound on it, but it is also a limited answer. Once this beast is finished, I want to get it published with all of the want my big, bursting, wanting heart can want with all its want. That means I am really writing it for anyone and everyone and no one all at the same time.

I am under no illusion that any amount of publishing of my work will ever net me the kind of walking-around money that the Stephenie Meyers and J.K. Rowlings of the world have, and I'll probably never win a Pulitzer unless it is for something to do with rambling blog entries or government social-service grant activity sheets. I just want my book to be published because then it will exist.

Sure, it exists now. It exists on my hard drive, in countless notebooks and on napkins, in my writing buddies' inboxes, and as several reams of printed manuscript. It just doesn't exist in a way that makes it separate from me enough that it can belong to another person. It isn't final. I don't care how many times I print it or email it or read it or tap-dance on top of it, I'm going to see some little something that doesn't sit just right with me, and out comes my ruthless red pen. This phase is maddening for me because it seems never to end, but I've begun to think of it as a period of gestation. Once my novel finally grows itself a proper pair of lungs and gets its heart beating with a regular cadence, then it can join the rest of the world on the outside of my mind.

Lately, I've been thinking about what kind of market my book will be born into. The publishing world is in a state of flux. People are reading differently on a number of levels these days. The rise of e-readers and instant downloads has made it tough for bookstores to keep afloat, which hurts my story-sweetened old bookseller's heart. That said, in addition to a mountain of hard-copy books that will someday probably fall on me and kill me, I also have an e-reader.

E-readers brought with them a convenience and anonymity that have ushered in a new zeitgeist of popular novel. Self-publishing is easier than ever, and many talented authors are choosing that route only to be picked up after the fact by traditional publishers. Readers are worrying less about what their friends would say if they caught them reading that book and making their real reading interests known by what rockets up the e-book bestseller lists.

I'm noticing more and more ironic juxtapositions in book marketing:

I realize that alphabetical order was, is, and always will be the almighty dictator of shelf position, but the choice of face-out display speaks for itself. Sorry, James Joyce. Ulysses just doesn't have enough sex-appeal to catch the modern reader's eye. (No offense to Valerie Joyner. I'm sure her book is perfectly wonderful, it just struck me as a product placement which would baffle Joyce if he were to wander through a Barnes & Noble.)

It's almost like people aren't sure what they want--something to speak to their inner desires, or their outer ones. Maybe they can't tell which ones are which. Either way, Wal-Mart makes it easy to grab an inspirational paperback to take to the church retreat and a steamy Harlequin for the drive up to the location:

In this schizophrenic market, there are a lot of opportunities for writers to wedge their little fingers in the cracks and pull open a book-sized hole for themselves if they're willing to give it a shot. It's heartening in many ways, because pubs are having to look at a lot of factors they once ignored and readers are paying attention to writers they would never have had access to just a few years ago.

All any of this rambling really means is that I'm still writing my book in my own head and that it is a patriot without a country at this point. It takes me full circle and I remember that at least it has me, and I can always just write for myself.

Then someday, when I put my foot down and make the time, when I stop doubting, when I stop procrastinating, my book will exist. Here's hoping there will be someone other than myself waiting to read it.

Tools of the Trade

Like many story-tellers, when I'm coming up with a good yarn, I find it difficult to remember everything word for word so that I can hand it down via oral tradition. I've tried and tried, but I never get the pauses just right and most of the time my listeners run away from me before I've managed to spout out much past chapter 1.

As a result, I decided to give a try to writing things down. Now, just in case you haven't tried this yourself, let me save you some heartache. Writing in wet sand is awesome for short works of fiction and poetry, but only until the tide comes in. Artful mustard on a hotdog kind of works for hashing out titles, but too many drafts and you'll have serious tummy trouble. Then there is the ever faithful bathroom wall. This one has served me well, but I think a lot of people have probably been calling my characters' fictional phone numbers for a good time only to be disappointed by their inherent fiction-ness.

So, I've turned to a few materials that are a little more efficient in my daily pursuit of story. Throughout the course of this blog, I will dedicate posts on Tuesdays to reviewing/discussing some of the "tools of the trade" which have helped me put down the sidewalk chalk and fingerpaints to embrace more conventional materials. (I no longer eat my first drafts, but I do occasionally enjoy a Hebrew National hotdog or two. I am still awaiting the first Pulitzer Prize for "works of mustard.")

The Digital Age

I like to write by hand. I actually wrote this blog by hand, but my husband came along behind me and cleaned the screen with Windex, so I had to start all over. Okay, okay, that didn't happen, but it would have made it a lot easier to see my email if there still weren't all of my scribblings over the screen.

Seriously, of course I use a computer to write. In this day and age where smartphones have become so ubiquitous, almost everyone has a computer as near as their pocket. Word processing brought about a new era of writing, a whole new paradigm of drafting and structure. I believe that it was the onset of computer writing that helped shape mainstream writers' and readers' tastes from the verbose, long-winded narrative to the tighter, more action oriented works that set the standard these days. In the days of Victor Hugo, there was no easy way to go back through a draft and delete all mentions of Fantine when he realized that he really meant to name her Dorothy Mae and let her live to the end of the book just so that Anne Hathaway would someday have more screentime in the movie version of the musical version of the book (or something like that.) Writing was grueling, painstaking work. It still is, but it is a lot easier these days to get your thoughts out and arrange them the way you want.

Now the medium works for the way our brains do, not the other way around. Writing is malleable, and there are options out there for everyone. I use a couple of different writing programs that I love and intend to name children after, but the way my work starts, every single time, is with the good old pen and paper.

The Holy Trinity

I could use a 10 cent Bic and the back of a napkin to write. As a matter of fact, I have done this and done it often. However, when it comes down to the act of "setting the stage" to write, there three things for me to consider that will have a huge bearing on the enjoyment I might get from the experience, and the quality of the pages I will have in front of me when I'm through (which still matter a great deal to me even once I've pecked them out on a computer later). The "holy trinity" of the act of writing: pen, paper, and ink.

The Pen: Fountain Pen

I use fountain pens for a number of reasons. The first, most important reason is that I like them. They are beautiful objects to me, and I collect and fawn over them the way many women do with jewelry. They are not only beautiful, (or are perhaps beautiful because) they are useful. They earn their keep, and every word I write with them brings them value to me. I remember how it felt to have that particular pen in my hand while I wrote a particularly intense or moving scene. My pens can almost become a talisman of sorts, but they don't smell nearly as bad as the athlete who refuses to change his socks and risk breaking a winning streak. Fountain pens are comfortable to use, and they will outlive me. I love vintage pens, like this Sheaffer Balance from the 1930's. I love thinking about the fact that this very nib could have written a book that I've read. You never know.

The Paper: All Comers Accepted, Must Play Nice with Fountain Pen

I love notebooks. I hand-bind journals with good paper because I love them so much. I have a cabinet with a shelf of full ones and a shelf of blank ones, just waiting to be used. I'm partial to Rhodia paper as it is wonderful with fountain pens and a nice writing experience, but I also love Moleskines despite my fountain pens' protests. Either way, a good notebook can make you feel like you're housing your writing in something special. It is where it sleeps it night, it is where you will go to visit it when you have a new idea. Glancing over and seeing that notebook is going to give you a feeling in your gut because you left some of your guts in there, outlined in ink. Okay, that was a little dramatic, but my writing is important to me, so what I write on is important to me, too.

The Ink: The Color of Your Mood

Ink is something that not a lot of people think about unless they too write with fountain pens. If you don't, it usually comes in blue or black (or red, if you're a teacher). That's about it. Oh, my non-fountain pen using friends, there is so much you have to learn. There are amazing inks out there in every color you can imagine (and some that were a surprise to me). For me, this enables me to further entrance myself with my writing because I can tailor the color of ink I'm using to the style I'm writing in at the time. If it's serious, dour, I might pull out a steadfast blue-black. If it's a fun, wild scene, I have an electric purple that makes my eyes hurt. There is nothing like flipping back through your notebook and seeing your scenes divided up by color and knowing off the bat exactly what mood you were going for in a glance. 

I hope that this overview is helpful in understanding my process, but there is more than one way to pet a cat. (I know that it's really "skin" a cat, but my cat is on my desk and she's staring at me.) Hopefully as we journey along through the blogsphere, I can hit some items/programs/napkins that will appeal to others as well. Please send me suggestions for reviews and feel free to comment or drop me an email at blankpagewarrior at gmail dot com (take that, spambots!) and let me know what you think! Anything that can enhance or streamline a writing process is a welcome thing.

Once Upon a Time...

The most important word in any writer’s life is the one that is yet unwritten.

Michelangelo once said of his sculpture, “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”

Like Michelangelo and his marble, in the stacks of notebooks on my desk, in the ink of my pen, in the pixels of my Word doc, there lies something alive that will never be free unless I make it so.

Inspiration is everywhere and materials are cheap, so what is my excuse for leaving creations-to-be in bondage?

That is the whole point of this venture—I want to find a way to channel my creative spirit and share that with those around me so that we can set our own angels free. Then we get to do it over and over again.

This is the important part, the doing-over-again. Whether it be to continue honing a work in progress—such as Margaret Mitchell finally deciding on "Scarlett" as a better name for her protagonist in Gone with the Wind than her intended “Pansy,” or to chase down that next big work whether your current writing has found success or not. What if Charles Dickens had thought, “Hmm…I did a pretty spiffy job with Oliver Twist,” and decided to spend the rest of his life rereading his favorite parts and sipping tea? I would have never known the horror of living through ninth grade English class and suffering through the basketball coach’s reading of Great Expectations. (Not to mention the subsequent joy of rediscovering the book as an adult and realizing that it is quite amazing when not being read aloud by a man tapping a yard stick on the floor while patrolling back and forth in front of my desk.) There would have been no A Christmas Carol and no subsequent Scrooge McDuck.

When it comes to literature, the only enemy is the blank page. For the writer it is the arch nemesis. For the reader, starvation.
 
The purpose of this blog is to battle the blank page with all means necessary, some obvious, some not so much. It exists to encourage creativity surrounding the written word in all its forms, including the creativity of the reader (let’s be honest—nothing written holds significance to anyone unless the reader brings their own creativity and substance to bring it to life), the relentless labors of the writer, the craftsmanship of fine materials (okay, okay—we can call this one a geeky obsession with really cool office supplies), and just about anything else that can somehow be construed to relate to anything literary.
 

This is who I am. My life is made of words and swirls around in their creation and consumption. I know I am not alone in this (or my obsession with really cool office supplies.) So please join me in this wild attempt to grow a community surrounding the unwritten words inside us all.