TWO NOTEBOOKS

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IN 2014----"WRITE DOWN" WHAT YOU SEE!
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Most of everything
    you ever see
         on MIL'S PLACE

had its beginning
    in one of two
         little leather notebooks.
               3X5 and 4X6...

Handy too, they are...
    and are actually leather covers
         for spiral notebooks
              which slip right in.

Ordered in '96---when I was recording 
    personal memories for posterity,
         they now contain mostly just 
              the basic ideas for
                   a story, to be
fully written later on larger pads
    and then typed.

These rugged, but handsome notebooks
    came from a cowboy saddle-maker,
          in a remote little mountain town
                out in Arizona.

I ordered and he phoned me right back
    and said: "Thanks for the money 
         in advance---it is getting harder
              to get it that way....you're
                   okay, Mil!"

When we started MIL'S PLACE, I began
    to carry one of the notebooks
          with me everywhere I went, as I
noted my favorite poet, Mary does----

she never goes outside in the mornings
    without her "beat-up" little notebook
         in her  pocket.

Sadly,my notebooks are not beat-up looking
    nor have much "patina" as yet...for 
        they ride in my shirt or jacket 
             pocket....and constantly
                   self-polish!

They are kept handy for recording brilliant
    and pithy passages by other writers
         from books....books and seeing---
              two of the main sources
                   for writing ideas...

Most writing courses emphasize the value of
    seeing everything around you; they 
         say most people see only ten
               per cent of their world.

So, take your notebook wherever you go.
    write down everything you see...
          in 2014....

Soon........you'll find yourself...writing poems
    and stories about 
         THE INCREDIBLE THING:

                     LIFE!

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BY MIL
12/29/13

(Writer's note: The best notebook for jotting 
down things is the one you have with you
at any and all tomes.  A favorite of some of 
the famous American  writers was and is the
3X5 black "Moleskin." Scripto makes one @
$3.95, any color. I like the "Brick"--- an
orange-red....available at bookstores. Mil)