Start a Commonplace Book for Your Writing

I love the idea of keeping a commonplace book for writing. A commonplace book is a journal used to copy favorite poems and quotations for one’s own enjoyment. Decades ago, I used to write down meaningful quotations from books that I read. I still keep those notes in a file and occasionally refer to them. What I found meaningful about the quotations back then is still applicable to my life now. The quotations are also an interesting study of what is pleasing to my “ear” and mind—what makes the beauty of the sentence flow for me.

As I go forward, I want to create a system for not only writing down quotations, but for keeping a list of interesting vocabulary. With the vocabulary list, I intend to include the title of the book where I found the word, its meaning, and the sentence where the word was included. I love books that have words that are not in my everyday vocabulary and would like to save those words for any piece of fiction that I write in the future to add interest for the reader. The list will also be a record of the growth of my own vocabulary. (I never want to stop learning.)