Zinelkasten?
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about journaling on paper. Notebooks. Creative paper projects. Zines. I’ve also been thinking about how to I organize my marginalia. Marginalia is the notes in the margins of a book. I highlight, make notes, even doodle in the books I read.
Some folks follow a somewhat rigorous process to turn marginalia into commonplace notebooks, even on index cards. The goal is to collect information to use in your own creative processes. This hand-written index card system is called a Zettelkasten. Where do commonplace notebooks stop and Zettelkasten systems begin? I dunno. You decide for you.
Also, this morning I was thinking of making a Zine. I like the process of folding, writing/drawing, and cutting a sheet of paper to make a little book. I really didn’t know what topic though. Then, I thought why not make a zine about the marginalia of a book I’ve read recently?
This little creative project scratched the itch to make a zine, and to document my marginalia. Maybe it’s my first entry into a Zinelkasten. A collection of my marginalia represented in zine format.
I chose the book On Writing, provocations, consolations and suggestions for reading more freely by Nick Parker. This is a small, funny, thoughtful book on reading. I really adore it.
It’s funny, I didn’t remember the Wisdom Tattoos highlight and note I made when I read the book. Coming across it again to make the zine, I think that’s the whole why behind all this mumbo jumbo. Hand writing to remember and use these things for one’s own creative process.
Full disclosure I was rushing as I was excited about this small project and wanted to finish it before I had to go to work. So, the lettering has opportunity to improve. I might make another version and update this post accordingly.