From reading about A215, I gather that notebooks are ‘de rigeur’ for the course and students are strongly encouraged to use them. I don’t know what the collective term for notebooks is but I might suggest a ‘nervousness’ of notebooks, drawn from the feeling often experienced when faced with a blank white page … or multiples thereof.

I’m now the proud owner of a ‘nervousness’ of notebooks which lurk in the depths of the document bag that appeared as a free gift when we purchased a large number of envelopes from an online supplier recently. I picked up a couple of new ones this morning from a local shop – they are dressed in matching vertical wavy pastel stripes and one is A5 while the other is smaller (A6? A7?). The smaller one should be suitable for keeping close by and jotting down those sudden thoughts or ideas that arrive unannounced in the middle of the washing up. I’m thinking the other one might be useful for ‘Morning Pages’.

When I read about ‘Morning Pages’ I was … well … taken aback, might be a good description. Write three pages longhand of random thoughts first thing in the morning???? Don’t get me wrong, I’m quick on the draw with a keyboard but I also do quite a lot of longhand writing as well. Additionally, my handwriting has been described as ‘delightful’ and ‘beautiful’ so I shouldn’t have much difficulty reading what I’ve written. But the idea of hanging loose and just jotting down the random thoughts that bounce around my brain first thing in the morning is a daunting challenge.

You see, I’m your typical Virgo – definitely a perfectionist, conscientious and well-organised. I don’t do ‘hanging loose’ very easily and I can worry at a piece of written work ad infinitum until I get as close to perfect as possible. Drafting and rewriting are second nature and I can see myself doing a lot of that over the next nine months. It’s actually the ‘creative’ part of A215 that will be hard for me, especially at first I think, because so much of my writing tends to be formal and factual.

So I’ll leave you with a limerick that bounced fairly effortlessly into my mind on October 30th 2002 (according to the notepad file where I saved it)

The problem with being a perfectionist
Is summed up by one word – rejectionist.
If things are not right
I get all uptight
And swiftly become a trajectionist!