Write It Down, Write It Down

to be commonplace is to be beautifully human

A few years ago, I changed the way I was keeping my idea book into an idea + commonplace book.

I guess I should back up. A few years ago, I was introduced to the concept of a “commonplace book.” And I thought, “Hm.”

Actually, I should probably back up even further. Jussssst a little bit. For probably around two decades, I rarely leave the house without carrying my idea book and a pen with me. It’s a blank notebook or journal, usually a Moleskine—although this year I switched to a Leuchtturm1917 notebook—that I keep on hand to record, well, any ideas that pop into my brain. Carrying the notebook is compulsory; if I have room to carry it in whatever bag I have, I will carry it. I almost feel a little bit lost when I don’t have it. I hate to feel lost in my own brain.

Um…one more. Last one I promise, but I have to back up even further. By a couple of centuries. Which is how long commonplace books have been around.

Forgive me. This is going to get a little bit didactic—uh, educational, for a minute.

‘Commonplace book,’ as a phrase, started appearing in writing sometime in the 1500s. But as a thing, a method of record, its origins can be traced all the way back to Ancient Greece. They were especially popular in the Renaissance when literacy of the general population began to increase and knowledge was more readily available to the masses. They had another resurgence in the 19th Century when, in particular, some well-known writers (Ralph Waldo Emerson, Mark Twain, Virginia Woolf, for example) kept them. That’s why I was surprised to only formally hear about them a couple of years ago from writer Nicole Zhu’s newsletter. At once, it seemed both like a revolutionary idea and also just a phrase for a thing that I, and most of us, already do.

In the simplest of terms, a commonplace book is a personal reference book. Originally, the books were kept strictly a way to engage with and remember the work of others. Keepers of commonplace books would physically copy down quotes into a book organized by topics or themes. They were not diaries or journals but, rather, a tool for remembering important ideas and concepts. Of course, the usage of these books have morphed and expanded over the years but that’s where it all began.

Okay, that’s the end of the history lesson. We don’t need to go any further back than that.

So, a few years ago, I decided to change my idea book into a commonplace book with my own spin. Since I usually had my idea book on me, a method to copy stuff down, I figured, “Why not.”

Actually, if I’m being honest (and again, “Why not.”), I morphed my idea book into a commonplace book because it felt like a faster way to fill up these notebooks. First of all, I love notebooks (no twist) and love to have the occasion to buy them more often. Second of all—and arguably the more important of the two “of all”s—relying on only the things that came from my own brain meant that in good times, I was furiously writing down idea after idea, trying to capture divine inspiration as quickly as it came to me. But, mostly, it meant that months would go by where the notebook was just extra dead weight in my bag. No ideas anywhere to be found. To hold onto an idea book for years at a time made me feel inadequate. As a creative, it made me feel like I wasn’t very creative. A notebook that was designated specifically and strictly for my personal ideas made me think that, actually, I didn’t have very many ideas at all…which is depressing.

When I started down the commonplace book path, I was excited to try something new but I was also nervous. I wasn’t sure if copying down other people’s ideas, quotes, great writing would make me feel bad about the frequency and quantity of my own ideas. Not to mention the quality. I was slightly worried that an idea + commonplace book would become strictly a commonplace book—only filled with the ideas of other people, my own nowhere to be found. Historically, that’s how they were used. None of your own ideas. Only the highly organized and categorized ideas of others. If that ended up being the case, my identity as a writer was in certain danger. Not to be dramatic.

Basically, before the switch, it was a damned-if-you-do and damned-if-you-don’t situation: either keep operating the way I’ve always been operating and feel bad about the frequency of my own ideas or change it up and feel bad about the quality of my ideas in the context of others.

Luckily, the switch turned out to be more helpful than anything else. SURPRISE.

You probably already figured that out though. Since I’m writing a whole newsletter about it. But, my hope is, this idea will be useful to you too. I really think it could be.

As I’m working to build my creative consulting business, I’m really trying to think about things that can be the cornerstone(s) of my work. Artistic practices are intensely personal which is part of the reason why I want to be a one-on-one guide for people. But I do think that there are ideas, exercises, and prompts that can be useful to everyone I work with. Or just everyone, in general. And if I can share something that will inspire a personal connection with someone’s own creativity, I’m more than happy to share it. Whether within or out of the context of the business. Now, does offering information for free make me a good business person? Ehhhhhh, I don’t care.

Here’s how I see it:
In my opinion, an artistic practice encompasses all the ways you fold creativity into your everyday life. It’s more about curiosity than output. There are ways to engage with things that constantly feed that curiosity, making space for creative acts—big and small—to fuel you, and creating conditions that allow an “artistic practice” to become second nature.¹

This is where commonplace books come in.

A commonplace book is a way to keep yourself consistently and consciously engaged with interesting, inspiring, thought-provoking, and creative things all around you. It’s a method for exercising your observational skills. It’s something to do with your hands. Essentially, it’s a low-stakes way to infuse creativity into your daily routine.

But it can also be more than that. It can be a record of your life, a personal history through your eyes and through the things you interact with. Traditionally, published work, longform writing, or consistent journaling is seen as the way to document history—personal and otherwise. That’s not everyone’s jam. Some people don’t have time for it. Some people don’t think they’re creative enough or talented enough or smart enough to do that. For some, the idea of journaling by frequently writing long entries where the sole focus is thoughts, your own thoughts, and nothing but your own thoughts makes them anxious.

Commonplace books are a more accessible, less lofty, and overwhelming way to keep a record. And I think it’s important that we have a record from as many people as possible.

This is going to sound a little morbid, but I mean it in the most hopeful of ways: Sometimes I think it’s important to keep writing during terrible times because we might be creating primary sources for some future scholars of what it is like to live through this particular terrible time.
Amy Shearn on Recording Your Life
March 18th, 100 Days of Creative Resistance

Our current historical moment is…fraught? Divisive? Disquieting? Concerning? Uncertain? (Insert your own word(s) about however you feel about these days here.) It’s loud right now. Everywhere. Particularly with regards to the social internet, it’s incredibly easy to be bombarded with misinformation. And there are a lot of people who hope we don’t realize it’s misinformation so that we are confused by our own thoughts and assessment of any given situation. Our connection to ourselves, our connection and empathy for others feels slippery, hard to hold on to.

I want to know what you think. More importantly, I want you to know what you think, what you’re learning, what you’re holding onto, how you feel. I want you to be able to revisit, to connect with who you were as we all continue to move through history.

Just like we learn from our ancestors, there may be things our present-day selves can teach our future selves.
Lisa Ko on Creating a Time Capsule
January 26th, 100 Days of Creative Resistance

So, where to start?

With a pen and a blank book or journal or notebook or sheets of paper you keep collected in one place. And that’s it. That’s how you start.

Chances are, you actually already have something akin to a commonplace book. Pinterest and Milanote could be considered a modern form of them. So could the random thoughts, funny overheards, screenshots, and memes stored in your phone’s notes app or camera roll. Anything you save in some sort of system you can revisit later is basically a commonplace book. But I don’t think it’s until we consciously save ideas, thoughts, poems, notes, images, and so on that they become useful to us. Something won’t become a record of anything until we deliberately acknowledge that it is.

So actually, if you are going to start a commonplace book in any way, start it with intention.

Beyond that, a commonplace book can really be whatever you want it to be. It can be digital, of course, but I recommend having something physical for it. You never know when you’ll lose all your google docs or drop your computer or the internet goes down. Keeping it as a physical item will also mean you have something you can show, that you pass down.

These books can include anything important, meaningful, funny to you. Things you agree with and things you disagree with. Quotes from movies, books, tv shows. Lyrics from songs. Whole poems. Things the people around you have said. Reviews of stuff. Recipes. Collages. Doodles. If it’s a physical book, you can use pens, markets, tape, washi tape (I’m a sucker for washi tape), cut-outs, stickers. Whatever and however you want to make a personal record, that’s what you should do.

My major piece of advice—and this is where I differ from the historical commonplace book keepers—let your own ideas, quotes, parts of stories or poems, and so on live in the book as well. I’ve found that when I let my own words be surrounded by the words of others, they inspire each other. They expand my way of thinking. Using the commonplace book in this way allows you to be in conversation with your inspiration, instead of putting the thoughts of others on a pedestal. Pretty much anything we see, do, think, create, is in conversation with someone or something. Incorporating you into your commonplace book makes room for that conversation. It also means that your personal record will be a conversation, a snapshot of not only you, but of right now. Whenever right now is.

I’m far from the first person to tout the benefits of a commonplace book or to use a commonplace book in a kind-of non-traditional way. I’m far from the first person to insist on how important it is to keep a personal record of yourself and of the time you’re living in. And I’m definitely far from the first person to say how important it is to keep that record right now. They are all things I still want to echo.

I offer this to you and to myself: That writing is an act that can’t be bought or sold, and that every time we write, we claim our freedom.
Luis Jaramillo on Writing to Claim Our Freedom
February 1st, 100 Days of Creative Resistance

Mostly I’m just here to say that sometimes we all feel uninspired, uncreative, commonplace. But being commonplace is still to have meaning. To be commonplace is to be beautifully human.

We might as well let people know what it is like to be beautifully human. To be us.

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If you get the Broadway reference that is the title of today’s newsletter, you should probably wash the newsprint off your hands.

Gossip, Giovanni Boldini: 1873 - The Met Open Access

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1. Some of this text is adapted from a Guide to Commonplace Books that I’ve created that may eventually end up as a downloadable on my website…when I get all the kinks ironed out. Keep an eye out if that’s your thing.