#witchbook

As of thursday I finished draft 2 on witch book. This is such a weirdly personal book for me, but also not a book I would have a hard time subbing. I’ve had some projects where they’re just me rethinking events in my life, but are so personal and important that I can’t share them with anyone. Not great for an actual writing career but I think of them as good practice and training and probably important for my soul in general.

Witch book has a lot of me in it, but it thankfully isn’t that type of project. My goals for it are 

1 - get it finished. I spun my wheels a lot with Lady Mozart, a project I had no passion for, and it showed. This book has an easier path to being finished thankfully. I need to stop writing vaporware. 

2 - Work on the atmosphere, and world-building. In my mind witch book has a lot of atmosphere. The world building isn’t there yet, but that is what draft 3 is for.

3 - Create really real characters. I want them to feel alive and not just like stock characters. 

4- Really do a thoughtful revision for draft 3. A lot of the time I will run into a revision and get really good at outlining the first act, but then I wing it for the rest of the book. On this draft I want everything to be more thoughtful. I’ll pick it back up in a few days, because I’m also forcing myself to put it down and not start revising right away. It needs a little settle time.

I’m really excited about this project.

My current massive grimoire is in a word document [with the very eventual goal of maybe getting it printed as a handbook I can reference on the go], so I can share screenshots of it no problem! My bibliography is cited in the harvard method [it's the one I'm most familiar with from my university days] - this is just a part of it since it's currently several pages long.

I also have in-text citations for anything that isn't my own personal gnosis, so far this is mostly limited to my flora section [plants, shrubs, trees, etc]

Most of the reason I like citing & having a bibliography is because then I can keep track of what I've read + what's come from where if it's not from my own experiences.

I also have citations + references for the handful of charms I've used directly from folkloric or historical sources, to distinguish them from my home-made charms :-)

What is a commonplace book

Commonplace books are a method of compiling knowledge into one place, traditionally by handwriting but more recently with computers/word processors. They’re different from journals in that rather than containing exclusively personal thoughts or feelings, they’re a collection of external writings, informations, or other snippets of things recorded whenever it is encountered + usually organised.

To simplify – a commonplace book contains anything that captured it’s owners attention! Poems, extracts of fiction & non fiction writings, remarks or comments by others, anecdotes, observations, pertinent images, or other things along the same lines are all things that belong in a commonplace book!

Commonplace books have quite the history – their uses range between reading logs, reference books for students, and historically they were required by young women to demonstrate their upbringing.

How do they work

The exact system you use in your commonplace book is entirely up to you and what you will remember to use. Usually information is organised under themed/topic-based headings, but this can be as flexible or stiff as the keeper desires. My personal commonplace book is organised by source material – all of my book extracts & notes are kept together and demarcated by paperclips.

A commonplace book has no requirements in terms of physical format, size, page type, etc. As long as it is something you will be able to keep using happily! There is also no rules around decorating any pages with stickers or washi tape, or any rules around using sticky notes to add information on the go.

A commonplace book can also be as expansive or restricted as possible in terms of subject matter. For example, I keep a specific commonplace book for Babalon & Sekhmet. Nothing else enters this book.

What’s their use in religious practice or witchcraft?

A commonplace book can function as an in-between for a Grimoire (a book of magical knowledge and instruction, usually written by someone else and usually for transmitting knowledge within a specific tradition or branch of religion/witchcraft) & a Witchbook/Book of Shadows (more akin to a magical/religious journal for recordkeeping). They’re also exceptionally useful if you read a lot of metaphysical, occult or spiritual/religious books and want to keep organised notes in a hard copy form!

Commonplace books can be used to record interesting information from other, non-metaphysical but useful sources too, foraging notes and recipes are an obvious choice to keep a record of, along with notes about celestial events from astronomy sources.

In some cases, a commonplace book can also be a devotional activity, or a shrine of sorts. Commonplace books as a devotional activity is easy to parse – collecting and mindfully recording information about an entity, deity, divinity or other spirit is a good means to show care and interest.

A commonplace book as a shrine has a similar function to an e-shrine on tumblr, by collecting things that remind or represent an entity, deity, divinity or other spirit, a notebook can be made into a shrine or sacred object. This can also be a useful way to have a sacred touchpoint with an entity and keep it relatively out of sight, for those who are not open about their practice.

Examples

More reading on Commonplace books

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonplace_book - The wiki page for Commonplace books that delves into their general & regional history, along with more variations on memory/infokeeping under See Also

https://notebookofghosts.com/2018/02/25/a-brief-guide-to-keeping-a-commonplace-book/ - A brief history & how-to on commonplace books, along with notable people that kept one.

https://bookriot.com/commonplace-book/ - An informal look at commonplace books, including using a tumblr blog/other digital formats as a commonplace book.