A Note on Notes

I take lots of notes. I encourage aspiring writers to take lots of notes and not just the kind of notes that are reminders or short hand for something else. By notes I don’t mean class notes or meeting notes. I almost never take notes in a class or for a presentation or speech because I need to take my time with notes. I can’t have the speaker carrying on while I’m trying to craft a good note. The note is not just a linguistic copy of what is being noted, it is the first appearance of the writer’s interpretation of the subject. Notes are not just ideas in raw form but also expressions in raw form. As such a note is often a little world unto itself. It approaches poetry but doesn’t quite take on the coherence of a finished poem. From one note to the next you can totally vary the form and object. While studying trees I have a childhood memory and this makes me remember the smell.  Just trying to repeat leads to variation. Handling walnuts leaves a sharp spicy flavor on the fingers, the seeds when dry are the snouts we used to snort at each other, Grandma lived on Walnut Street. Nothing is forbidden but everything has consequences.

It should wander around a bit but a good note is succinct, precise, cutting, like a strong thought snapping shut an indecision. If it turns out trivial, it takes nothing to forget it, but sometimes a note can give the commonplace a new shine. Notes are playful without being the opposite of serious. The meaning that the word “note” shares with music is revealing, a singular tone that only takes on meaning in relation to other notes played around it. It is only in notes that writing truly remains ambiguous and non-judgmental. In a note, you can try out a line of thought or emotion that you don’t really feel or agree with; rereading it you may wonder — maybe I really do think/feel that? Notes are closer to pure writing, writing that isn’t trying to prove or persuade or remember or glorify anything. A note doesn’t have an agenda. It’s an anonymous indicator of a state of affairs, it allows you to just look, witness, but it may point to a way out, like a road sign.

Here’s something I struggle with: at what point does a note cease being a note and become whatever it is a note of? How many notes do you have to take before they stop being notes? When does the draft pass into final form? Writers talk about the torturous editing and revising process; how this is half if not most of the process itself. So the idea is start with notes and work them up into something proper. This means inspiration is a form of note-taking and the final form is a note of a note. You’re basically just taking notes on your notes and stringing them together. As in film, continuity is an illusion of quickly moving discrete stills. It should be possible to compose an entire work without ever considering the totality, just collating and connecting notes. The whole is part of the parts.