While my nearly-obsolete HP laptop has many charms of its own, there is something wonderful about a clean, new notebook, thick with blank, clear paper just waiting to be written upon. The line of the black, gel ink on the off-white paper is just gorgeous. One is almost compelled to use the finer (a.k.a. 'legible') handwriting in one's possession, just out of respect.
The notebooks requires no batteries, thus is a welcome respite from the electronic realm we are so immersed in. However, I am reminded how things of this nature are slowly slipping away into obscurity. My children, I am certain, as they grow up with newer, smaller and longer-lasting batteries for their gadgets, will most likely use their notebooks less and less as they grow into adulthood. Hopefully, every once in awhile a crisp, obsolete notebook will catch their eye in a store and they will pick it up, eyes moist with nostalgia, remembering all the little, crooked poems they penned in theirs as children.
I have several of their poems and short stories in my possession; they are the sweetest, most adorable things I have ever had the privilege to read. Would they exist without the notebook? Probably not; in spite of the ease of sitting at the computer to type, the little ones do not find it 'inspiring'. When asked to 'write something' they go over to their own shelf, take out the little notebooks, open them and get out pens with serious expressions.
So, in the face of technology and Ebooks, e-gifts, email and word-processed documents, the humble notebook yet exists, to be filled with works-in-progress, complete failures and great literature alike.
Books News: Chapter Three in Book Two of the 'America' series is going along well, albeit slowly. (The allure of a holiday weekend was too much to resist.) Hopefully, we'll have a new, lengthy novel up by the end of summer. The new book is far more in depth as per immigrant life than the initial offering, simply because the characters have met and married already and now must face the challenges of raising a family, staying employed and surviving in the early 1900s in a major metropolitan area. Book Three will concentrate more on the Depression Era and the next generation of the DiMattio family.
A friend of ours did a rather informative blog on Ebooks VS traditional publishing; he kindly mentioned our little website and interviewed my husband regarding the gradually changing format of books. You can read it here: https://ginotheblogger.livejournal.com/
Cheers!
Meredith Greene
Belator Books
