Working on a Zine, like Useful Journaling V2 can start in many ways, but for me it starts with my pocket notebook and a pen or pencil. Here I record ideas and thoughts I have about making the zine.

Ideas for content are quickly jotted down and then if deemed useful are expanded upon in a larger notebook, usually an A5 or composition notebook. Whichever I’m using for my current longer notes and ideas. I don’t draft everything in these notebooks, when I do that I feel like I’ve finished my goal and don’t finish. Instead I expand the idea and gather information- research and what not. I write longer ideas out and organize the notes into something that makes more sense.

After I organize my ideas into something that makes sense for me, I expand upon them in either a google doc or NovelPad. Here it really depends upon the final length of the idea. I use docs for all my blog posts and Ko-Fi posts, while longer things like some zines and fiction work all ends up in NovelPad. Though, that is with a caveat- some zines get typed up in Docs.

While I’m working on a zine idea I like to keep my notebooks with me at all times- I never know when a good idea is going to hit or when I’ll have a few minutes to develop an idea. I go through them at varying rates depending on the project and what I’m working on. A zine seems to move through notebooks slowly, while novels chew up notebooks and spit them out.

Not for sale

Anyway. I though it interesting that I’m nearly finished wit a pocket notebook and just starting a composition notebook for this zine. I lost my last pocket notebook, and the one before that. Covid and WFH has really done a number on my ability to hang onto a notebook…

Let me be honest here, it’s not COVID it’s the new pants I’ve purchased that have crummy pockets for keeping notebooks in pockets.