Happy Things: School Supplies!
When I practiced law, I hesitated before walking into a billion-dollar deal negotiation while carrying a pink glitter folder. Sadly, I would compromise and use a plain, boring, lawyerly folder—likely still pink but dull. Not sparkly at all.
Now that I've transitioned to writing full-time? Bring it on. All the glitter, sparkles, rainbow pens, iridescence, animal bookmarks and whatever else makes me happy.
Here are some of my current school supply obsessions:
My reading nook school supplies
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Here are some of my current obsessions:
Zebra ClickArt Marker Pens: Papermate Flairs are the OG but these Zebras are the next runner-up. Though they say “fine point,” to me it is a nice weighty medium. They dry up fast if not clicked back into place (based on my sad experience of using 13 different colors on my chapter outline and forgetting to click them back until days later. . . ).
Transparent Post-Its (pictured above). I discovered the concept of “transparent post-its” after a TikTok rabbit hole on book annotating, and was intrigued by the promise of not marking up the pages of a book but still taking notes inside the novel. These are actually sparkly! and ombre! I am still trying to figure out what pen to use to really show up on these, and I don’t love putting text on a post-it on top of the text of the novel but they are handy to jot down quick chapter summaries or notes and add to the beginning or end of a chapter where there is plentiful space.
Animal Sticky Notes (pictured below): I have cats and dogs sticky tags but there are SO many other animal options. I might need a zoo of these for my next revision.
Rainbow Sticky Note Tabs (pictured everywhere): These have been a gamechanger. I use them to tab novels I’m studying (see above right). For my current manuscript revision, I printed the entire draft and used rainbow-colored tabs to organize different elements: characters, dialogue, settings, scenes to add, remove, or revise. Please see photo below: it looks like a beautiful rainbow butterfly!
All credit to Courtney Maum's Substack for this life-changing revision technique! Getting crafty with the revision helped me see and feel my novel in a totally different way than on a screen, and it made me enjoy working on this draft much more than constant, constant typing.
My current draft manuscript flagged with revisions to start inputting this week! Yes, this number of changes is pretty nauseating, but can you imagine how much worse it would be without a rainbow?
