Our Reading Lives

What to do with Blank Notebooks

Katherine Marciniak

Staff Writer

Katherine is an over-caffeinated avid reader, writer and college student. She was featured in the anthology Once Upon an Apocalypse, and loves to beta read and edit when she has the opportunity. She’ll do more impressive things after she’s finished her tea…and this next chapter.

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Blank notebooks are my favorites. You know the ones—the hardcover ones, the leather ones, the ones that cost an arm and a leg in Barnes & Noble but have the prettiest covers and come with little red ribbons attached to the spine to use for bookmarks. Ever since my family and friends figured out that I liked writing and reading (so a long time ago), I’ve been getting blank notebooks as gifts. And to be fair, I’ve also been buying them for myself. I walk into A.C. Moore and stop dead in my tracks to pick out like four blank notebooks when they have a sale.

Have a pile of blank notebooks hanging around? Here's what to do with those blank notebooks. notebooks | what to do with notebooks | journaling

Now, I don’t have a bullet journal. I’ve thought about it, but have never made it work for me. I also do most of my writing on my laptop. (This may or may not have led to years of tendonitis in my wrists, but I work with what I’ve got). So my eternal question has been how do I use this extensive collection of blank notebooks?

      1. I keep a diary. It’s sporadic. But it’s taken care of a solid 15 blank notebooks so far.
      2. Idea journals, specifically for ideas for writing stories and Book Riot articles.
      3. Fifteen-minute writing prompts—yes, I have a journal that is only for this, and it must be separate from the idea journal notebook.
      4. A way to keep track of the books I’ve read—I like GoodReads, but I also like to jot down mostly incomprehensible notes about the books I’ve read recently.
      5. Notes (this feels obvious).
      6. Writing the next great American novel—but then forgetting about it. I have notebooks that I’ve used up like three pages of, and then I don’t know what else to do with it.
      7. You could probably put pictures in them, or use them as memory books in some way.
      8. You can copy poems or passages of things into them.
      9. Commonpiece books—on a similar note, Commonpiece books are specifically for quotes, recipes, pictures, and a hodgepodge of different things.
      10. Or nothing at all! They’re pretty and great for display.