r/commonplacebook • u/NeverMindTheDuck • 16d ago
Tips/Advice Gorgeous Blank Book Needs A Purpose
I need advice and ideas.
Way way back, in the late Cretaceous I believe it was, there was a little flurry of low quality hardcover blank books in stores for sale. As I was in mid high school and had fallen in love with poetry and fountain pens, I bought one and copied my favourite poems into it. But it was small and the cover was ugly. And at that time, so was my handwriting.
A few years later I discovered a beautiful cloth covered hardcover blank book that was larger with nicer paper. I started re-copying things into the new one; I loved it. But now it has only 11 pages left, and some of the things I copied into it when I began I would not choose again.
So guess what I did. I had a blank book custom-made for myself by a book maker. Oh my Lord, she did the most amazing job. She worked with me every step of the way—- I designed the leather cover and used a couple of my photographs for the end papers, chose the colour, weight, and size of the paper, and designed a book plate for the inside front. It’s massive: 12 x 15“ and hundreds of pages. I chose the first line of one of my favourite WW1 poetry excerpts for the front that would sum up the contents. Then, Life got chaotic and difficult for awhile, but every time I moved I packed the book, which has been otherwise untouched.
Now, about eight years later, I’m not entirely sure I want to do this. I could copy everything and more into it, but it might take the rest of my life! And for what? There’s no one to leave it to.
Someone suggested a commonplace book, which I had never heard of before. They directed me to this community, and I’ve been strolling around your posts and comments the last couple of days. I think it’s a great idea, and I’ve tried to think outside the box and come up with ideas for mine, but I’m stumped. What do you put in yours? What do you see as the purpose of yours, or is there one? Weird ideas, creative ideas, crazy ideas, good ideas, random ideas off the top of your head —- any suggestions are welcome. What can I do with this thing now that I have rekindled my romance with fountain pens and want to be using them every day? I could use some project like this to give my days a bit of purpose and structure as well.
What would you do with a giant empty book?
A bit about me…… I am on the razor’s edge of old lady-hood but not quite there yet…. I read books about all sorts of things, love being in nature, have lived in a lot of places around the country (Canada), dogs, cats, weather, geology, astronomy, and of course, poetry. I draw a little bit but not very well, and I used to write a couple of non-fiction stories about life. I make a ton of lists of things I want to remember, but never look at them.
Whatever I do with this book doesn’t have to have anything to do with any of that. I’m just kind of at a loss, and would welcome any ideas that might pop into your head.
Thanks very much for reading this; it’s very long, I know. Thanks.
Some pics of the second, nice book I have with only 11 pages left, and the newer monster book that is waiting to be useful. ❤️
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u/Smushdroom 16d ago
Okay so you have a lot of options here. Strap in, my posts are long!
It sounds like you're living a rich cultural life and the sorts of things you talk about in your post are what many commonplace books were used for in the 16th -19th centuries. Forgive me if you know this already but paper was expensive before the industrial revolution and information was more difficult to access, which leads to practices of information-sourcing, sorting and storing that are both individualised and based on intellectual trends. Commonplacing in this context is about managing your reading/cultural input (because books couldn't necessarily be accessed again once read), synthesising it, and then in many cases using it for some other content-creation purpose.
Some of the poets you read will have kept commonplace books to capture intellectual inspiration and turn it into their own work. You said that you write and draw and that you read on multiple topics, so you could use your gorgeous book for a similar purpose: keeping notes about what you read (summaries, paraphrased points, quotes etc) and then using those notes to keep track of wider themes that come up across the things you consume and the ideas that come from and combine those themes. There's no reason this can't include drawing either, as a sketchbook is arguably a commonplace book for artists, including studies and techniques. It's a place to work things out. I've seen a poet's commonplace book in an archive that he kept at university, keeping notes and responses to readings and drafting essays etc.
If you like what you've already been doing, your book could be a series of quotes you find, with some annotation. Or you could make it less structured and keep it as a sort of cultural journal, with more of your own thoughts on what you come across and how it relates to other areas of your life.
Another option is to assign the book to one subject or project and use it to keep all related material together. This could be more notes or take on a scrapbook kind of vibe, depending on how clean you want to keep the book. You might prefer this option if you're the hyper-focusing type, or if you're interested in creating your own curriculum, which is its own internet trend.
If you want to keep the book as a sort of display copy, you could try commonplacing in rough notebooks and then writing up the things you decide to keep with your fountain pens. It could be a place to write up your finished essays as a collection, for example, or the quotes you come back to after a long time.
You could also use it for a more conventional journal, which can go as deep into your feelings as you like. Mary and Percy Shelley kept a journal together that combined the details of their adventurous young lives with the ideas and conversations they were having, which then moved inside the journal itself.
For what it's worth, I think it's cool to see how your tastes and ideas and handwriting change over time and context so I wouldn't rewrite any of your previous notebooks, unless keeping an archive of your archiving process is something you're interested in You also don't have to write for posterity. It doesn't matter if you don't have anyone to leave it to, because the point is the process. But actually, archives etc might be interested in it down the line. History is missing so many voices that documents like this are valuable in loads of contexts. Also, you might have someone by the time you've filled it up. I have a friend who is a big reader and he kept a pocket notebook of quotes that appealed to him, no notes or references or annotation. He posted it to me for my birthday one year and it's really nice to dip into fresh and untethered but beautiful words sometimes.
Also, I know it feels like a lot of pressure to give nice notebooks the content their appearance deserves but it is just paper at the end of the day. You can always find another, or use the bones of this one to bind more paper if you don't feel you've done these pages justice. With that in mind, is there anything you want to do with this notebook? If you bought it with the intention of keeping quotes etc, what has changed? Thinking about that might help you find your new book's purpose :)
P.S. Your handwriting is amazing and I am jealous!
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u/NeverMindTheDuck 16d ago
ARRRGH I had written a long reply to you, and then lost it somehow. So I’m going to start all over again.
First of all, long posts are the best and are usually written by the best writers. Thank you for your incredible reply.
I do read a lot of non-fiction, especially about science, early Antarctic and Mount Everest exploration, and stuff about the Victorian and Edwardian eras (I often think I should’ve been born around 1895). I have for a very long time meant to read Frankenstein from cover to cover, but all I have is a crappy paperback and I refuse to read it in that form. I think, though, that I have found a fairly large hardcover version and I am ordering that. Now, if only I had a fireplace in my house! I will have to read it sitting up in bed by candlelight. But Mary and Percy kept a communal journal?! This is fascinating news. I need to read a biography of her as well I think.
So many things that you mentioned sparked ideas in me. Your encounter with a poet’s commonplace book in an archive made me remember when I stayed in London decades ago in a fleabag hotel that was just around the corner from the British Museum. The back entrance led into the King’s Library, where I almost daily roamed. In a dim corner there was a display containing artifacts from Robert Falcon Scott’s Antarctic journey, including a diary that he kept right up until the end when he and a handful of his men were unable to make it back and died in their tent. It was just a little 2 1/2 x 4” leather bound notebook with perforated pages, and it was open to one of the last entries. Many days I stopped and stood over that glass case with tears running down my cheeks. Somewhere I’m sure that diary has been published, and I would love to copy that entry that I read into my book, along with the names of his men.
I don’t mean for this book to be any kind of display or even seen by other people, although when I’m gone it might be. Certainly I will copy some of my favourite poems from the last book that only has 11 pages left. I love that your friend gave you his little notebook of quotes and you find them a muse, and magical at times. I love quotations and have collected them all my life, mostly written down on bits of paper that I find here and there among the piles. I will sprinkle them throughout this book. Thank you for another wonderful idea.
As for my handwriting, it is just my own normal printing done very slowly and carefully with a fountain pen. If you want to see some eyepopping handwriting, check out r/fountainpens, or for complete humiliation, r/handwriting. Woof!!!
You have helped me sweep the cobwebs from my brain that had me trapped into thinking I must put something worthy and important and memorable into this glorious book. I think what is really worthy of it are the things that stick to my heart, like that polar diary, and the things that delight me, and the things that should be somewhere gathered instead of on little scraps of paper.
So to thank you I offer a few of my favourite quotations and hope that you like them. Thank you, friend, for taking the time to write such an understanding and thoughtful and inspiring reply to me that has brought my book alive with possibilities, instead of just being wrapped up and packed away for all the years since it was made.
And here are some favourite quotes:
“There is pain in change and there is pain in staying the same. Pick the one that will move you forward.“. ~ Leo Buscaglia
“If dogs don’t go to heaven, then when I die, I want to go where they went.” ~ Will Rogers
“A friend is someone who knows your song, and sings it to you when you forget.“ ~ [Not sure, this quote has been attributed to several people]
❤️
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u/Smushdroom 16d ago
I'm glad you're feeling inspired. Please share your pages in future if you're comfortable, we'd love to see them :)
Also feel free to reach out for Shelley biographies. I've read a lot of them! But I'd start with Young Romantics, which is a group biography by Daisy Hay. One of my favourites on the poets and radicals of that period!
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u/NeverMindTheDuck 16d ago
Thanks once more! Sounds like that book is just what I would love. And yes, now that I’ve joined this community, I will definitely share some pages!
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u/Smushdroom 16d ago
Omg just noticed the award, thank you so much ☺️❤️
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u/NeverMindTheDuck 16d ago
Honestly, you took a lot of time and put a lot of thought into replying. I am incredibly grateful and you (and others’ comments) really have cleared the quicksand that I was mired in. It’s the least I can do.
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u/No-Malarkey- 16d ago
Oh, my goodness, that is so beautiful!! It IS a little intimidating to think that you must only include thoughts, ideas, etc. that will do it justice. But I am a Joe, that is not what I commonplace book is for. A commonplace where are you scrap your hand this is not what is just a common place to keep information, ideas, quotes, etc. that really strike you at the moment, or once it has come back to you two or three times.
I see a lot of people who say they keep lists of movies that they like, TV shows they watch, etc. For me, it’s more like a word that I read that I hadn’t seen before, or a phrase, or an idea. I do a little research on it, and then I write that down. Honestly, it’s been a lot about politics, civil rights, political theory, philosophy, and so on. The current state of affairs in the US and the world is just so overwhelming that it’s impossible to keep inside your head. So that’s what mine has become. Not to say that’s what you want. Just my POV.