A writer's commonplace book. Why should you keep one?

I was reading the book by above name written by Rosmery Friedman. More likely assembled by him as all the quotes were produced by who came before him. Many writers in the world have contributed to the book. If you do not know, being a writer is hard at times, when nothing seems to come into the blank mind occasionally. Some call this a writer's Block. Some do believe in such phenomena, and some do not, as for the ones who do not believe in this, writer's block, I assume they don't because they have a writer's commonplace book and a good pair of eyes.

What is a writer's commonplace book?

This is a book, a writer carries with him/her all the time, so, whenever idea occurs, a quote is found from a book written by others, or a new intuition arises in mind while looking at buffaloes grazing in the fields, he/she can write them down. Not, as paragraphs, but as notes and quotes to self, with minimal words. Even one such interesting ideas can turn into a poem, an essay or even a novel. If you do not believe me, ask from Jack London. After writing his famous "Call of the wild" he had just a spark of idea to write an Opposite novel. In 1906, 3 years after the initial publication he published his second book "White fang" which was even more embraced by readers than the former. The core idea of white fang was just "A wolf adjusting to a civilized society"

Commonplace book

Commonplace book is not a diary.

Diary is a place where we keep records of our observations. But fundamentally commonplace book is not a diary, although it can contain observations. Majority of these observations are just thoughts (& judgements) which arise in the mind. The reason to keep a commonplace book is evident. Our short-term memory averagely can remember only 6-9 things at a time. Even if you get the most brilliant idea than Einstein himself during lunch, you will forget this when you are into desserts. And commonplace book will solve this problem. There can be alternatives, including, recorded messages on your phone, or a dictator phone, or even a note app on the phone itself. Yet, I would highly recommend a notebook and a pencil, as it won't distract you with thousand notifications.

Example entries.

Having introduced you to the commonplace book here I will give some example entries from the above book. Hilariously enough I found TV as a commonly occurring theme among some writers, and these are some quotes of them.

--EXTRACT--

Television is a fantasy which destroys everything. MALCOLM MUGGERIDGE

Television has made us extraordinarily well informed on subjects we know nothing about. MICHAEL HOLROYD

The 'television Personality' who possesses no skill other than a quick wit and a certain ease of manner in public, is a modern phenomenon which has never existed before. ANTHONY STORR

TV plunges people into noisy Isolation. FRANCOISE SAGAN

Film and TV purvey life to those who do not live it. SOURCE UNKNOWN

I felt passionately about not wanting my children watching TV because it was vulgar, stupid and debasing. AUBERON WAUGH

--END--

Ha ha, I really wonder what these writers would have said, if they encountered 10 second Tick Tock and YouTube shorts of gen Z..