“I tend to work in bursts where I’ll write a lot of fairly polished work in a short amount of time. When I’m not in that mode, I use a notebook all the time to record what I see, read, think; to work out structural problems that are keeping me from writing; to take down ideas for future work.
I also use these notebooks to collect objects—plant matter, stickers, scraps of paper or fabric—that accumulate in my daily life. Later, when I come back to the notebooks during a dry spell, I’m reminded vividly of where I was and what was happening when I made these observations or affixed those dried leaves to a page. The notebook makes me remember (on my best days) that writing isn’t just the thing that happens at the computer when I finally make a story or poem: it’s an ongoing process made up of many, many small gestures that accumulate over time to make the work.”
—Éireann Lorsung, author of Her book (Milkweed Editions, 2013)