Chocolate

So I might have a slight notebook addiction. I guess this could be assumed since I’m doing a Creative Writing degree, but I’m in my second year and I still haven’t taken my laptop to a lecture or seminar once. I always handwrite everything in a notebook first. I just really like the motion of writing everything by hand. Clicking away on a keyboard is fun and all but doesn’t compare to thick ink on fresh paper. 

Writing in that way is slower of course though and often distracting if I like the notebook too much. I like to leaf through the remaining blank pages and fold the covers
back behind the page I’m writing on. By the time I’ve finished with a notebook the spine is creased and cracked like my favorite paperback novel and thicker than it was at first, full of my scribbles, first drafts, and prompts for homework. 

So naturally, I’m terribly picky when it comes to choosing which notebooks to get. I like very particular types and patterns and colors, and because of this when any of my friends manage to give me one that I genuinely like they automatically become my favorite person. If their guess is slightly off though, it’s not as if I can get rid of a perfectly usable notebook. (This is of course assuming it’s NOT a spiral notebook. These are gotten rid of as soon as possible under charges of disgracing the title of notebook.) They just perhaps won’t be used for a very long time, sitting on a shelf somewhere until I need a random one. In any event, to avoid this I prefer to get them myself, and I heartily agree with the statement: “There is no such thing as too many notebooks.” 

I managed to walk out of TK Maxx recently with two instead of eight, which I consider an accomplishment, and I love them so much that I really don’t know what to do with them for fear of using them on something not important enough. But I finally chose one, which leads me to what I did all of this afternoon (besides typing this here). 

I made a vanilla coffee, chose a salted caramel chocolate bar from the hidden stash in my room, and got all cozy with a fluffy purple blanket and my newest notebook. When thinking back on this afternoon I’d like to say I gathered resources for my essay due on Wednesday but I was really just scribbling away at random ideas and writing down the lyrics to Coldplay’s new single “Everglow” which I absolutely love. 

“We have given ourselves a gift. We create worlds. We invent heroes. We think really hard about what makes chocolate so satisfying and call it brainstorming. Nothing is wasted.”

~Cynthia Leitich Smith

Nothing is wasted. I love that. It is so true. I find myself trying to capture the perfect comparison for a certain shade of yellow, or what winter smells like, or yes how to explain why these little pieces of chocolate are so delicious. It is these little things after all, described in a way that someone else identifies with, that grant the reader insight to what the writer is actually trying to say.