James Steventon Artist | Writer | Runner

My Notebook

An aide-mémoire. An analog tool of the mind permitting imperfect recall, the organisation of thoughts allowing new ones to flourish in the gaps.

A 21st century Commonplace that speaks of and to my personality. But offline, devoid of electronic interruption.

Both scholarly repository and activity. Rhizomatic but deep thought filtered through linear hand-made, hand-bound, hand-written pages. Making thinking an artisanal activity.

First page always blank. Acknowledging the contemplation before the thought that marks the birth from the pregnant pause of the empty book.

Robed in leather. An earthly, olfactory quality. Essence of bookshelves with notes of Dr Jones’ Grail Diary and Nietzsche’s typewriter. “Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts”.1

Sacred and precious by adjective and by verb. The map to my artists compass.

Fed with self-discipline, creating a momentum that passes only when the end is reached and a new notebook begins.

1 Nicholas Carr, The shallows: what the Internet is doing to our brains, (NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 2010), p.19
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This text was written in response to an exercise set as part of the inaugural a-n Writer Development Programme led by a-n News Editor Chris Sharratt.

James Steventon Artist | Writer | Runner

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