A Writer's Notebook: Unlocking the Writer Within You

Contents

Cover

Title Page

The New World of Writing

What Is a Writer’s Notebook, Anyway?

1. Unforgettable Stories

2. Fierce Wonderings

3. Writing Small

4. Seed Ideas

Thoughts about Notebooks from Paul Fleischman

5. Mind Pictures

6. Using Photos to Spark Writing

7. Snatches of Talk

Thoughts about Notebooks from Naomi Shihab Nye

8. Lists

Thoughts about Notebooks from Louise Borden

9. Memories

10. Writing That Scrapes the Heart

11. Writing That Inspires

12. Rereading: Digging Out the Crystals

Thoughts about Notebooks from Lillian Morrison

13. Writing about Writing

14. Cracking Open the Craft of Writing

15. Use Writing to Rock Your World

16. Talking Turkey: Candid Advice for Young Writers

17. Get Response to Your Writing

Resources for Writers

Helpful Articles and Websites for Young Writers

Recommended Mentor Texts

About the Author

Books by Ralph Fletcher

Back Ad

Copyright

About the Publisher

The New World of Writing

Wow, a friend remarked to me. The world of writing is really changing.

Yes, I agreed. But isn’t that how it’s always been? Nothing stays the same.

Think about it. Early humans wrote stories by drawing pictures on the walls of caves. Egyptians used a hieroglyphic script, invented around 3100 BC. The twenty-six-letter alphabet would come later.

For a long time people used quill pens, drawing ink up from a bottle and into the hollow bird feather. László Bíró is credited for inventing the ballpoint pen in 1931. Bingo! Now everybody could write letters that didn’t smudge.

The first typewriter was invented around 1868. (I typed my college papers on a Remington electric typewriter.) The first word processing program (Microsoft Word) was released in 1983.

And what about the writer’s notebook? The notebook, as described in this book, is not a new idea. Six hundred years ago the great Leonardo da Vinci scribbled in notebooks. He had fifty of them, and used them to collect ideas, drawings, inventions.

The writer’s notebook has undergone some changes since the first edition of this book was published twenty-some years ago. Today it’s possible to buy a digital writer’s notebook with a stylus that allows you to write on the screen. And people are increasingly using their cell phones as a writer’s notebook, collecting images and curiosities, and jotting ideas in one of the notes apps.

Nowadays the definition for writing has been expanded too. Most people communicate to others mostly through email and social media. People are writing more than ever before. Every day we send six billion texts to each other! But not everybody is impressed by that statistic.

But texting isn’t really writing, a friend told me. It’s just chatting.

I respectfully disagreed. My definition for writing includes four basic ingredients.

meaningful content

purpose

audience

response

I would say that a text to your friend reminding her to bring her cleats to softball practice satisfies all four requirements.

The world today includes many other new forms of writing, and more are being added all the time.

Aiden, a middle school kid, spends a great deal of time writing scripts for his YouTube channel.

My youngest son, Joseph, writes documentaries. True, the final format is viewable in video form, but he has to write the script himself.

Kids write for their own websites and blogs.

Many programs allow students to create their own podcasts. Two fifth graders, Jack Lazzarone and Kalvin Martinez, interviewed their classmates at Jessie Beck Elementary School in Reno, Nevada. They created a podcast titled Tater Tots and Their Lasting Impact on Society. This podcast was featured in an article on NPR.

Writers are no longer limited to words when they write. You can write a PowerPoint, a graphic novel, or multimedia texts. And they’re not limited to using one medium to write, either.

THE CASE FOR DIGITAL WRITING

There are many reasons that digital writing has become so popular: you can compose quickly, it’s easy to collaborate with other writers, you can access the text anywhere, it’s easy to include multimedia (photos, music, and video), revision is easier, and you have digital resources at your fingertips to check spelling and grammar.

Many young writers find that the physical act of writing—holding the pen, forming the letters—slows them down. Today there’s a great deal of available speech-to-text software. You can dictate into a microphone and your words appear on the screen.

I’ve found that I get a lot more writing done by talking, one sixth grader told me.

Raise your hand if you prefer typing (writing on a keyboard) to writing. Although I can’t see you, I’m guessing the results would be about fifty-fifty. My hand is raised too, and that’s because I have dreadful handwriting. Year after year my teachers scolded me for my horrible penmanship, which never seemed to improve. Today I’m quite happy to write on a keyboard.

THE CASE FOR PHYSICAL WRITING

But not everyone is thrilled about the shift from handwriting to typing on a keyboard. One teacher told me: I’m working hard to put pens and pencils back into the hands of my students. I think that’s preferable to the one-handed index-finger pecking, which is what I see from many fifth graders when they begin typing sentences.

There’s a case to be made for writing with pen in a paper notebook. I’d guess that more and more young writers are using digital platforms, though that may not describe you. Writers tend to be individualistic, people who aren’t interested in following the latest trend. When everybody else zigs, a writer may zag.

I spend so much time on a screen, one boy told me. "I like to use a paper notebook because you don’t need to plug it in."

Earlier in this foreword it may have sounded like I was endorsing typing on a keyboard. But maybe there’s something special about writing with pen or pencil, forming the letters by hand. Sure, writing by hand is slower, but perhaps that’s not such a bad thing. Maybe when you write more slowly the writing goes in deeper.

I think the notebook needs to stay the same, says Linda Rief, a middle school teacher in New Hampshire. A writer’s notebook allows students to slow down, to play, to think, to feel with the hands, the head, the heart. The speed of working on the computer often does not allow that. Many of my students thanked me for having them keep a notebook—they liked the idea of writing by hand because it felt different from work on the computer.

Writing is a habitual act that is guided by personal preferences and choices. Don’t start writing in one way simply because somebody tells you to. It’s great to try various formats, but ultimately you should choose one that feels right to you. The paper versus digital issue doesn’t have to be an either/or question. Most people use some combination of both. Bottom line: there’s no one way to write. Find a way to write that fits who you are.

Maybe the format you use for writing isn’t so important after all. Picture a man who is visually impaired. He uses a cane to move along. My guess is he’s not thinking about that cane: what it’s made of, its texture, its weight. No, that cane almost becomes invisible to him. He’s using it to feel the sidewalk and scan for obstacles. That’s where his attention is focused.

Writers are like that. Our words are the cane we use to move forward, but we shouldn’t obsess too much about them. Instead, we need to focus on the subject, what it is we have to say. The latest high-tech gadget will never change that.

When I graduated from college we had a small celebration at our house. At one point my mother took me aside. She gently grasped my hand and looked up at me, her eyes brimming with love. In a soft voice she said:

Ralphie, when you were born I wanted to write you a letter, so you could read it now, and know what a miracle it was to hold you, my firstborn son, in my arms.

A moment like that doesn’t come around every day. I’m writing about it now on this laptop computer. But when it happened I’m glad I took the time to write about it using ink, with my own rickety handwriting, in a paper notebook.

THE IMPORTANCE OF FLUENCY

My writing mantra: find your flow. Imagine you’re doing any job—mowing the lawn, peeling apples, working through a math sheet. It may be hard to get started, but at some point you can find a rhythm. You say to yourself: I can do this. You’re in the flow. Now the task is not that hard. In fact, you can almost do it without thinking.

Donald Murray was one of my writing mentors. He liked to describe writing in this way:

I think of writing as riding a bike down a hill. You’re going fast, zipping over bumps and obstacles. I like to write early and write fast.

Writing can certainly be difficult, so I’m in favor of anything that makes it easier. If you find a digital tool that offers a trouble-free way to communicate your ideas, great. Embrace it. But there’s nothing wrong with pen and paper.

Hoosiers is a movie about a high school basketball team from a small town in Indiana. The team makes it to the state finals in Indianapolis. The boys are freaked out that they will have to play on such a big stage. On the morning of the big game their coach takes the boys into the empty arena and onto the basketball court. He has brought a tape measure with him. He asks two boys to measure the height of the basket.

Ten feet, the boys report.

Then he asks a few other boys to measure the length