Welcome to a new season of the Creative Reboot podcast!
It’s season 8 and our 5th year of chatting about all things creative. We start this episode outlining what this season is going to look like before we dig into our special interest topic (hello neurospiciness!)… NOTEBOOKS!
While we initially thought this might be a shortish episode, it turns out between us we have a lot of opinions and plenty to say about the humble notebook. Here goes!
Coming up in Season 8
Five years in and I don’t think we’ve ever had two seasons running that looked similar – we like to keep things fresh! (and our lives keep changing so we’re running with it and adapting to what works!)
Season 8 is going to bring you monthly episodes, leaning into our ND experiences and lenses. We’re focusing more on discussions between the two of us – the original inspiration for Creative Reboot was our cross-Atlantic conversations when Sarah first moved to Canada. There will be two brilliant guest interviews and one, possibly two, gloriously ambitious panel episodes. Yes, it will probably be chaotic but it’ll also hopefully be useful, relatable, inspiring and joyful.
Stay tuned – we plan to release towards the end of every month, and you’ll find new episodes on your favourite podcast app, in our newsletter, here on our blog, and we’ll throw some posts at social media too.
Ok, let’s crack on and talk about notebooks!
What IS it about notebooks?
Notebooks hold a very special place in our hearts – but why? As tools go, they’re pretty simple – paper, sometimes folded, bound together and with a cover. They’re not complicated and yet they are magical – holding a world of possibilities, allowing us to catch our ideas and work through things, giving us The Fear Of The First Page, letting us get stuff out of our brains so we can see it, and being generally quite delightfully collectable objects.
Choosing a new notebook
Buying and actually using notebooks are two different pastimes, and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.
What’s the first thing every neurodivergent person does when they have a new idea? Hell, what’s the first thing most people of all brain wiring persuasions do when they have an idea?
“There’s a sneaky promise in there. I think maybe they’re enchanted”
Carla on notebooks
Yep, you guessed it, notebooks are involved more often than not. And it’s usually a new one. Each notebook holds the promise that THIS time it will be lifechanging, THIS time you’ll stay organised, THIS time the new notebook will fix everything…
New notebooks have an irresistible allure, no matter how many you have on the shelf at home, or how much or little there is in your bank account right now. It’s rarely because you’ve run out of paper or pages, and it’s rarely a need. Occasionally you’ll go out looking for a notebook for a specific purpose, but more often you see one you just have to have, knowing its time will come someday to be used.
Then there’s the cover art, the type of paper inside, does it have a pen loop, is it hardback or softback? Which size is your favourite, and do you need different sizes just in case? Fountain pen friendly? Lay flat binding, or spiral, or… the possibilities are endless.
Maybe an idea you have hasn’t yet found its perfect papery match among the unused notebooks you currently own. Perhaps you have lots of lined options but need a dotted or blank page (though we are agreed that squared paper is weird unless you’re doing mathematical type things in your notebooks).
Just one more won’t hurt… and suddenly you have a collection that’s crept up on you!
A related tangent – counting her blank notebook stash is partly what led Carla and her cofounder Annastasia to start Ink Drops, which was the UK’s first stationery subscription box back in 2012, and is relaunching in April 2025 as a stationery boutique. Yes, there are notebooks. No, neither of them have stopped buying new ones while owning a sodding stationery company.
First page fear
Choosing the right notebook is one thing – but what about actually writing in it? So many of us are nervous of somehow getting the first page wrong, or starting a new notebook with something which isn’t “worthy” of its beauty. (I use inverted commas deliberately because ALL your thoughts and ideas and notes are worthy – but man, my brain tells me otherwise when I am trying to start a new notebook!).
If you’re a fellow notebook nerd, you’ll recognise that whole thing where you pick up that spectacularly beautiful one you already own. And you look at it. Maybe turn the pages. Maybe even look at the endpapers, or stroke the spine. Then you decide nope, what I want to write in it is not appropriately beautiful and you put it back on the shelf. And you repeat this mad behaviour at random intervals throughout your & the notebook’s lifetime, without ever actually writing in the damn thing.
How can you get round this? Well, some of us start anywhere except the actual first page – maybe just leaving a few blank ones, or maybe dedicating those first few pages to being an index or introduction, to be populated at a later date. Some people don’t start a new notebook until they’re sure it’s a good fit for whatever it is they want to put in it. Some scribble on the first page so it’s done and then they can do whatever in the rest of it. And some use a combination alongside panic. What is overwhelmingly common is the feeling of being nervous of actually starting.
Later on in the episode we uncover a stark difference in our opinions about what to do when you’ve only written a few pages in a notebook – listen to discover who is perfectly ok with ripping pages out and starting again, and who fully commits to each one even if that means it remains mostly un-written-in forever. (bonus points if you can guess which is which before listening!)
The Remarkable has entered the chat
Last year both Sarah and Carla got their first Remarkable – a digital paper tablet which allows you to write by hand and feels like writing on paper.
It has been transformative – not least because it syncs with desktop and phone and is searchable, so it’s much harder to lose information than when it’s scribbled on a post it note and stuck inside any one of the 4 to 9 traditional notebooks currently on the go.
Sarah’s Remarkable has replaced lots of the notebooks she was previously carrying around, including a planner, a bullet journal, her client notes, writing projects, random ideas and more. It’s been life changing for her, especially on the move.
I feel like it’s changed my life. It has absolutely blown my mind. Even with that in mind, there is still something. There is still a draw to a physical notebook.
Sarah on the remarkable & notebooks
And yet – as remarkable as the Remarkable is, there is still a pull for both of us back to real paper and pen, especially for things like journalling. The paper notebook still has a magic that can’t be replicated in digital format, and Carla’s even bought her Remarkable a cover so it looks like an exercise book.
Commonplace Books
A new concept for Sarah and a revisited one for Carla, commonplace books popped up in the conversation. A commonplace book is a notebook specifically for collecting – snippets of things you’ve read or heard, stories you want to remember, quotes, poems, all sorts.
Commonplace books can be whimsical, practical or a mixture, but it’s a reference notebook and designed to be read or dipped into, rather than a journal which may never be re-read once it’s been written.
Listen in for all the details, but we were surprised at how differently we use ours – yet delighted that we both have one.
An unexpected lightbulb moment
We have no idea if there is scientific evidence to back this (we’ll let you know if we find any) but a realisation we had during this episode is that perhaps one of the reasons writing by hand with a pen creates memories differently to when you type on a keyboard or screen is because each letter is formed differently with a pen. Whereas when you’re typing, although the keys are in different places, the act of pressing the key is the same for each character.
We also talk about
What counts as a notebook – including planners, Filofaxes, bullet journals and more. Lists and how we write them and how that reflects our brains a bit. How notebooks left to themselves absolutely multiply when you’re not looking. Fountain pens and bullet journals, specific types of paper we enjoy writing on. “Notebook guilt” when a notebook is bought or received as a gift but not used for writing in.
A small tangent about the decline of handwritten letters, Sarah’s parents who conducted the first year of their relationship by letter because they lived in different countries, and future generations who will never discover a bundle of handwritten love letters tied with a ribbon, tucked into a diary which is also handwritten.
How notebooks will never run out of batteries, and the grounding nature of a Filofax. Our favourite notebooks in our own stashes of blank ones yet to be used. Notebooks as gifts, and the occasional awkwardness that comes alongside the gratitude.
A Notebook Therapy group idea which may, after this episode, in fact end up with all participants needing actual therapy – one for the back burner, maybe?! Using real book pages to craft with, but only from books which were already destined to be pulped. Sensory issues with paper.
And finally
We were astounded at how much we had to say about notebooks – and how emotive the subject was in places, which was very unexpected. We could have kept talking so suspect this topic will be back at some point, too!
We would LOVE to hear your thoughts, whether you’re a fellow notebook nerd, even more specific about your writing than us, or totally digital and not a paper lover at all.
Links we loved
Fancy a new notebook of your own? Carla’s co-owned inkdrops.co.uk reopens in April after a move, although sadly due to new laws can only ship to the UK.
Curious about commonplace books? Here’s the video that sparked Sarah’s interest:
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Carla Watkins
Brand & magic photographer, mermaid, multipod
UK based (Wivenhoe, Essex).
Find Carla doing all her things at carlawatkins.com/multipod
On Instagram at @catalystcarla and @colourfulmagicalweirdo
On email hello@carlawatkins.com
Sarah Wayte
Copywriter, word nerd, brand photographer.
Canada based (Chilliwack, BC).
Find Sarah doing all her things at sarahwayte.com
On Instagram @sarahwaytecreative
On email hello@sarahwayte.com