commissioning a new notebook

I’ve carried a Moleskin notebook in my pocket with me everywhere I go for almost ten years now. It usually takes between six months and nine months to fill it with drawings, dialogue, bits of prose, and snippets of conversation.

When it comes time to retire a notebook, I empty the back pocket (which holds everything from stickers to my custom-made Michael Jordan basketball card) and place them in my new notebook. These scraps of paper are life artifacts worth carrying everywhere.

Then I inscribe my new notebook with an epigraph, a line from the Twenty One Pilots song, “Kitchen Sink.”

I think this verse perfectly captures what creating is all about. It serves as a reminder of why I write, why I draw, why I bother to carry a notebook in the first place.