Where Do You Keep Your Writing?

A writer's mind is a busy one, full of concepts, ideas, characters, settings, worlds, words, and it all just turns into a mesh of stuff with no place to put it-or so it seems. We have notebooks and notebooks full of different writings, ideas, and other such bits and pieces, that it's sometimes hard to keep it all straight. There is an alternative though. If you can create a single writer's notebook. Of course, this is hard to do with all the stuff that goes on in your head, and you can do it with a regular notebook, but I suggest using a three ring binder. My own writer's notebook is a two or three inch three ring binder, though you don't have to get one so large, and when I first made it I just stuffed it full of lots and lots of paper, unwritten lined paper, but it felt so empty, like I was missing something. So I got thinking, what is a writer's notebook? What's the whole purpose of it?
There are many different reasons why you might want to create a writer's notebook, and here are some of the reasons I found, the purpose of the notebook. When you have to use a notebook for a class at school, what did you do? Well, you wrote in it, of course! But it's more than just writing in it. You noted things of interest and importance, wrote down your thoughts on different subjects or ideas about a particular aspect you may have had, but you put your notebook to good use, and it helped you pass the class. Either that, or you just didn't take notes at all and likely didn't care enough to put the hard work in.
When it comes to your writing, if you're going to take it seriously, you need to put effort and time in, even if you don't have much to spare. You really have to be dedicated, or else it'll turn into just another one of those half-tried hobbies you stuff in the basement closet. Don't let this happen. Writing is so much more about telling stories, but you have to figure out what it means to you personally. The purpose of a writer's notebook is so that you don't lose your ideas, you don't lose those thoughts and concepts that you thought were interesting or important, or even if you didn't, you might think they are in the future. Every idea starts out small and may not seem like much, but can become much if you put a lot of time, effort, and love into it. So be sure to collect your ideas and store them so you can explore them later. Because that's what a writer's notebook is for: to collect, to store, so that you can explore. That way all your thoughts are in one place.
You can put any number of things in your writer's notebook, it's yours, but here are some ideas as to what you can put in there. Feel free to go your own way. You can have any amount of information, ideas, inspiration, and even your work. You can make lists, anything from your likes and dislikes to names and plot ideas and magic systems, really anything that'll keep your mind going.
Tape in photos, newspaper clippings and articles, movie tickets, event programs, postcards, letters, and song lyrics. Anything. Use them to remember things that happened and draw from your memories, but you don't have to use everything you think of.
You can have drawings of people and animals, even maps of your house or neighborhood or an imaginary town. You writer's notebook is for you to do what you want to do, to help you find inspiration and to remember ideas. Do whatever you want to do with it, and it'll become an important aspect of your life, writing and non. I hope you are able to make the best writer's notebook for you.

Your friend, the Word Nerd