Saturday 13 November 2010

Keeping a Notebook

Welcome to the first entry in this new blog. It’s all very exciting. And it reminds me of starting a brand new notebook. I’m always a little bit nervous, a little bit scared – and a little bit hesitant – when I start a fresh notebook. I wonder how it will turn out. Will it be full of fantastic poems or full of rubbish? By the time the notebook’s finished it is usually a mixture of both. Because a notebook is where you write down ideas, things you’ve seen and things you’ve heard. If you’re a poet or a writer you are always looking and listening, just in case you hear something that might one day be a poem or a story. And some of your jottings and doodles will become something special and some, quite naturally, won’t.

And this blog is hopefully going to be a bit like a notebook. We have six famous children’s poets – all waiting to discuss things, write about their favourite poets, give you ideas for writing poems and… well… all sorts of things. And we hope it’s going to be fantastic.

So please comment on all our posts. This blog is for you. Tell us what you’d like to read about or talk about. And tell us about your notebook. We’re looking forward to hearing from you.

9 comments:

  1. Keep your noteboook safe! I have just lost one... and it had lots of stuff in it that I planned to work on. So now I'm going to write about losing things.

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  2. Oh no, it might turn up, it's so lovely to find a temporarily lost note book some months later and re visit all the thoughts you were having.

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  3. Can't have too many notebooks! I keep one by my bed. Sometimes I'll suddenly wake up at 2.00am with some words buzzing round my head. I've trained myself to feel for my pencil, and write in the dark so that I don't wake up too much, but can pick up the idea the next morning. Sometimes, it turns out to be rubbish. Often, though, it will turn into a poem.

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  4. I don't have a notebook but write all my doodles on a dried packet of noodles.

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  5. I stopped keeping one. Then I spent some time with these poets, who all kept one, so I started again. Result: I'm writing lots of poems that would have got missed. That's why writers have notebooks.

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  6. Some of them have poodles too.

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  7. I say! Lola is not a poodle. She is only part poodle. But I found a noodle in her fur last week, and we hadn't even had any noodles. It's a mystery that I would write about if only there was a rhyme for noodle.

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  8. FAb! A lovely shiny new blog to add to my reading list. Thanks! :-)

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