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The One Notebook Habit

Shaunta Grimes
4 min readDec 26, 2018

“Keep a notebook. Travel with it, eat with it, sleep with it. Slap into it every stray thought that flutters up in your brain. Cheap paper is less perishable than gray matter, and lead pencil markings endure longer than memory.” — Jack London

A notebook is a simple thing. Just paper between covers. But, to me, it’s the best kind of magic. Far more than the sum of it’s parts. My daughter, Ruby, is a huge Doctor Who fan and I always think that a notebook is like the TARDIS. Bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.

Until two years ago, I had a fairly haphazard notebook habit. I collected them, because they are irresistible. I’d add them to my pile. Beautiful notebooks, trendy notebooks, and dozens of composition and spiral-bound notebooks when they went on sale cheap every August.

And when I wanted something to write in, I’d just pick one up and write. A grocery list in one. A story idea in another. A plan for some big life change in another. And so on. I’d just write in whatever was handy.

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Shaunta Grimes
Shaunta Grimes

Written by Shaunta Grimes

Learn. Write. Repeat. Visit me at ninjawriters.org. Reach me at shauntagrimes@gmail.com. (My posts may contain affiliate links!)

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