Writers and Their Notebooks

Very enjoyable! A wide variety of essays on keeping a journal, although I was disappointed for a 2010 book there weren't any on online journaling e.g. with Day One, although there was a very snarky one about blogging as a form of journal (the guy ironically blogged movie reviews from his cat's pov and came across as pretty scathing about the internet in general).I definitely recommend to anyone interested in journaling, not just writers.

I have hoped for a book by Diana Raab herself, but instead I got a book that is a collection of articles edited by her. The first article is by James Brown and I would rate it as a 3 or even 2 star article. I had higher expectation out of the book, but it is not too bad. Not highly useful. It is written like somebody has just picked up the pen and started to free write a thousand words a minute and was not inhibited by wandering here and there. It's all in the book; it all makes a book and all i [...]

Finally finished this book! Woo! I liked it a lot. Very inspiring set of essays for the chronic journal keeper like myself. Time to apply all I've learned.

I found wonderful company in this collection of essays about my fellow journalers. The variety of attitudes and approaches to the keeping of a journal was fascinating. Here are some:- Diary/journal - A diary is a bit different than a journal, as it specifically provides an accounting of a person's daily activities, emotions and thoughts. It is more self-focused and time-bound than some other uses of a journal. Some of the essayists were very anti-diary, although their reasons didn't mean enough [...]

No matter what you choose to call it — journal, notebook, holdall, shoebox, commonplace book — there is no one true way, no formula for filling the writer’s sketchbook. In this age of published journals and blogs it is sometimes easy to loose sight of the free-form and become concerned about adhering to a proper format. Raab’s collected essays reassured me and reconnected me to the page and its potential. I hope I have rediscovered the carefree journal writing I once possessed.In Raab’ [...]

I loved how some contributors to this book kept notebooks with ideas for future projects; others kept them as diaries of their daily lives; and still others didn't keep them at all and explained why. I've always been attracted to the idea of keeping a journal but could never quite stick to the regularity of it. One of the last essays talked about how the author didn't keep a journal because putting too much on paper too soon flattened the spark of her ideas and causing her to lose interest in th [...]

As an intermittent keeper of a journal, I was intrigued to read this collection of essays by writers who share the ways they use journaling to confer with their deepest selves, grow awareness, seed their creativity, experiment, mess up, and serve as a "hold-all" (Virginia Woolf's term) for everything under the sun (quotes, photos, theatre tickets, scribbled notes on a paper napkin, and so on). One or two curmudgeonly articles lent variety to an otherwise sanguine set of reports on journaling and [...]

It took me awhile to read this one. I purchased it last year and started in, only getting through the first section. This book is a great addition to reading fiction because it's best read in small doses. I would read an essay or two, about 20 pages, and move onto something else. I really like the insights and the stories that go along with it, but only wish it were more about the journals and the journaling process. Great for any writer or journaler.

This anthology was unnecessarily long. It contains almost 30 essays, most repetitive and/or self-indulgent. I only liked six of them and wonder why didn’t the editor aim for more variety and less contributors. After all, this is relatively a limited theme.

A collection of essays on how writers use notebooks/journals/diaries in their personal and professional lives.Interesting kernels. Some essays were better than others. I'm glad I read it, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it.

I'll read just about anything with the word "notebook" in the title.Very enjoyable! Some of the essays didn't really grab me, so I skimmed over them, but most of them were great. I love reading about how other people use their notebooks, and I got some interesting ideas.

A mixed bag of essay and wandering commentary and journal bricolage. Some of this was interesting, some tedious, some self-indulgent. It is a good idea and I like some chapters immensely and the charge they gave to writing things down as you go, but this could have used a stronger editorial hand.

Great essays on how some of the greatest utilize journals. I wish it had scanned copies from their real journals. That would've been like having and eating that writing cake :)

Essays on the value--therapeutic, artistic, aid to memory--of writing in a journal (along with a couple dissenting views).

A few of the essays were remarkably good; a few others were tedious. Overall, I enjoyed the opportunity to see how this handful of writers use writers' notebooks/journals to rehearse their writing.

Don't want to read it all at once, but good for dipping into for inspiration!

Some good ideas, though not all entries were equally useful.