An online commonplace book
It was clear to Willie and to Jean that Mops was exceptional. She was the only girl who kept a commonplace book; they used to talk about “Mops and her Book of Quotes.”
If you didn’t already need a reason to commonplace. “Mops” gives you another; it automatically makes you exceptional 🙂
It’s details like these that keep me returning to biography so often.
Lee, Hermione. Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life. United States, Alfred A. Knopf, 2014. pg 38
In 11th grade, I took AP Language and Composition. One of the strangest, most formative assignments we were given was to hand-copy essays by great writers. I transcribed Emerson’s Self-Reliance, Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience, Dr. King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. I wrote out JFK’s and FDR’s speeches. I copied Coleridge and De Quincey in longhand.
At the time, I was annoyed by the drudgery. There’s a difference between watching the Karate Kid, and actually having to do the menial labor so glorified in the film. My hand hurt from hours of handwriting. It felt archaic, even monastic.
But over time, something shifted. By copying the rhythms of others, I started to hear my own. I began to notice choice: in sentence length, in diction, in tone. Style was no longer invisible, it was architecture. And with that came freedom, the emergence of my own style. That class single-handedly taught me how to write.
We copy to learn.
Pair with the Art of Manliness’ How to Become a Better Writer? Copy the Work of Others! piece.
Also Zohar Atkins is writing some great stuff.
Atkins, Zohar. 2025. “The Signature and the Shadow from the Turing Test to the Picasso Test.” Second Voice, May 20, 2025. https://substack.com/home/post/p-164007090.
Brett McKay: Do you keep a commonplace book?
Roland Allen: Do you know what? Literally two weeks ago, I thought I’m going to have to do this. I started one and what I did was I went and got a little Moleskine address book. I’m holding it in my hand now. You know, the sort which has the tabbed pages.
Brett McKay: Yeah.
Roland Allen: Because what I wanted to avoid was having to go through and if I would need to write down the Alphabet and all the head words hundreds of times. So, yeah, so I’ve got those little tab pages down the side and I’ve made a few entries, but really, I should be making more. You’ve reminded me. But like I say, keeping a commonplace book is hard work.
It is hard.
Worth it.
As heard on the latest Art of Manliness podcast: The Power of the Notebook — The History and Practice of Thinking on Paper
McKay, Brett. “Podcast #1057: The Power of the Notebook—The History and Practice of Thinking on Paper.” Art of Manliness, [Date of Publication]. https://www.artofmanliness.com/living/reading/podcast-1057-the-power-of-the-notebook-the-history-and-practice-of-thinking-on-paper/.
“Whatever you come across…you will be able to note down immediately… be it an anecdote or a fable or an illustrative example or a strange incident or a maxim or a witty remark or a remark notable for some other quality or a proverb or a metaphor or a simile.”
Erasmus of Rotterdam
From the commonplacing tradition comes Zibaldones.
Zibaldones are similar to commonplace books, but they incorporate pictures, physical memories. Ancient scrapbooks if you will, but with an educational and cataloguing bent.
The Atlas Obscura article: How to Keep a Zibaldone, the 14th Century’s Answer to Tumblr is a terrific primer.
Floodlights and Goalposts 