This week’s addict is Chelcee, who emailed me these photos of her notebook collection, with lots of information about how she uses them.
(Please note the lime green numbers in the lower left hand corners of the photos.)

A little about me, my name is Chelcee. I’m 21 and I’d very much consider myself a notebook addict. I’m a writer. I’ve been writing since I was about 12 years old, though I didn’t start doing it very seriously until I was about 17. I write all kinds of things, poems, songs, screenplays, stories, but I don’t plan on being someone who never lets anyone see my work. I don’t see myself as a personal writer (not that there’s anything wrong with that. I would just like for people to see my stuff, on the big screen hopefully) I never throw anything away. I still have things I had written when I was 12. It seems wasteful to me to take months to fill up a notebook just to throw it away, you know?

So onto the pictures.

1 – This is my collection of stuff I have currently filled. I have binders because I have A LOT of loose leaf paper. As you may be able to see, I really like composition books. I find them very versatile and because they are usually wide ruled, they fill up faster, which more or may not be a good or bad thing. I like filling them up, it makes me feel accomplished so I see the positive side of it generally. But I just discovered Five-Star makes college rule composition books and I’m in love with them.

2 – This is my collection of things I’m currently working in. I’m always writing more than one thing at a time. I used to put everything into one notebook but that became very disorganized and I couldn’t stand that so now I try to separate everything into different notebooks if I can. And I actually just discover the idea of labeling my notebooks… Don’t ask me why that never occurred to me years ago because I have no idea.

3 – This is all my stuff I’m currently working in laid out. Right now I’m not a huge fan of those flip up memo books. I didn’t know that until I bought a bunch of them though. I’m going to keep using them to see if they’ll grow on me. Its a colorful spread… I like color.

4 – This is a Markings by C.R. Gibson notebook. I got it at Wal-Mart for about 5 dollars. For the longest time I didn’t touch it because Its the nicest notebook I’ve ever had and I wasn’t sure what to write in it. But I finally picked it up and I take it with me everywhere. Its pretty sturdy, I’d say. I’ll definitely be buy more, maybe not of the same brand.

5 – Five-Star makes these mini composition books which are very cute but I don’t recommend them for everyday writing. They’re very stubborn and never want to lay down at all. I have to hold it flat to write in it. So I just use it for when I get ideas. It looks like a TV guide on the inside basically. I put the title of whatever the idea is if I have one and a brief summary under that. Since that’s all I use it for I don’t mind that it never wants to open.

6 – Five -Star also makes these. They’re called Fat Lil’ Notebooks, I believe. I use these for random notes, schedules, to-do lists and things like that. It goes everywhere with me.

7 – These are some of my latest notebooks and composition books. I really like stickers. I can’t draw so I like to decorate with stickers. Its important in my process of breaking in my new notebooks.

8 – Right now I’m working on finding some kind of order with the things that I write in. Currently I use things like this, with no margins to write songs and poetry in because I generally don’t rewrite those so I don’t make notes on them. Things with margins are for stories and screenplays because I make a lot of notes on those. But then I realized a lot of the notebooks I want in the future don’t have margins… So I might have to rethink that or just create my own margins.

9 – This is my stash of unused notebooks. I hope to get to them very soon.

Its not a huge collection but I’m working on that. The only reason it isn’t bigger is because I’m too broke to buy more notebooks other than composition books. But I have plans. You should see my Amazon wishlist. Its dedicated to journals and its currently 115 items long and always growing. That also doesn’t count the list in my head for all the notebooks at Wal-Mart, Office Depot, and Staples, I want.

I can’t wait to see this collection in a few more years, I’m sure it will grow by leaps and bounds! Thanks so much for sharing your addiction, Chelcee!