I've always had a problem starting, let alone filling, a beautiful sketchbook, so I bought an ugly one and had a lot more success with it. I even managed to not tear out a single page. Since the book was homely and really not that special, I started writing inane things down, things I had to do, to not forget. Bad ideas, and some good ones, too. The Homely Book went everywhere with me. It took me a year to fill it, and now when I page through it, between the garlic sketch and the pretty coffee stain, lovely remembrances of everyday life crop up. But the book itself was ugly. I took issue with this.

The next sketchbook I bought was beautiful. I spent about 45 minutes choosing it, waffling between the utilitarian ones with scratchy paper that I knew I could fill and the exquisite one that I wanted to fill. I brought the New Book home and felt its quiet pages. I fiddled with the ribbon that tied it shut and wondered if I had made a mistake.

What I wanted to see when I opened up the New Book was this:

Three Studies of a Dancer by Edgar Degas

so I left that first page blank. A blank page doesn't aspire to be a Degas sketch, afterall. Before I knew it, I was pages deep in food label musings, lists of imaginary places, sketches of my dream chair, you name it.

Sometimes a grocery list even sneaks in, because, you know, you should never work on an empty stomach.