The Writer's Sketchbook – an invitation.

Let’s train our craft one small story at a time.

Did you ever think about keeping a Writer’s Sketchbook?

A visual artist sketchbook is where they draw, train and learn to freely perfect their style, technique and art as a whole. I have one that I keep on my table and take it to my 9-5 in case I have some time to unleash some doodling between working hours. It also works as my planner and sometimes as a notebook where I write down my ideas – it’s messy, I know.

I had a hard time going back into writing after my depression, and as I was slowly getting back into it I realized that I might need to work on it more that I had to years ago, when writing was something I did on a daily basis. Writing is an art as any other, so it also requires regular learning and training to improve it. A lot of this training is done while actually writing and re-writing a book/comic/script, but it can also be intentional. And so I decided to start my Writing Sketchbook.

I know, I know. I do have a bunch of notebooks where I’ve been writing down and working through the stories I’m working on now. But the intention of assigning a notebook as a writing sketchbook comes from putting your mind in a learning and developing your art mindset. This sketchbook is a place where I can train writing something—anything.

So here’s my proposal to you, who’s trying to get into (or back into) writing or wants to develop your skills: let’s start a writer’s sketchbook!

Let’s not set a number of characters, paragraphs or pages, but remember that this is for training, so you can write a paragraph or two and it’s fine. The objective is to get you to write something or anything everyday (or when you can.)

There’s no restriction to genre, format or media you are writing for. We can use the sketchbook to train writing comics, or to train how to write a scene for a book or a movie script. Maybe you want to write down just that one thing you thought that might end up as a good story – awesome. You can also just write small stories inspired by whatever thing you see or songs you listen to.

For example: Last week I wrote two small biographic paragraphs on a 30-year-old raccoon plushie I keep on my bookcase near my desk. Go wild.

I think creating a routine of writing small bits everyday will not only help us get used to writing on a daily basis, but also train our eyes and brains to see stories in the most mundanes and unexpected things.

I might (I’m being honest here) post about this on my Instagram and TikTok, and might even use the #writersketchbook to kind of organize and engage with it. So let me know what you think of the idea!

See you soon! 🙂