When I wrote my first book, 101 Kinky Things Even You Can Do, back in the autumn of 2019, I always hoped I would get to record an audiobook of it.
The book is an introduction to kink & BDSM for beginners, or anyone else who wants to expand their kink palate – and so it was written with the same friendly, compassionate tone I aim for in all my sex education work. From working in sex shops, I had learned that people were skittish and apprehensive about pursuing their desires, especially taboo ones – and so using the right tone was an important part of making them feel welcomed, safe, and open to exploration. I employed that same approach in 101 Kinky Things, and was thrilled to get to narrate the book the way I’d always heard it in my head.
Recording the audiobook was a fun process – I laid down the whole thing in my home podcasting space in Bushwick, caffeinating daily with an oat milk latte (better for the voice than cow’s milk!) to keep me energized while I pontificated aloud about spanking, bondage, wax play, fear play, and so much more.
The audiobook was commissioned and produced by the fine folks at Echo Point Books, and the deal was brokered by my terrific literary agent Iris Blasi. Thanks so much to Echo Point and to Iris for making this happen! 💖
Now, without further ado – here are the places where you can snap up my audiobook, and listen to me purring in your ear about some of my favorite kinks…
I’ve been writing sex toy reviews for 13 and a half years (!!), and in that time, I have experimented a lot with form and genre. These days, you’ll mostly see me writing within a specific template, because it’s easiest to write, easiest to skim through, and does well on Google… but if I had my druthers (and my link juice), I would much rather write reviews that are a bit more creative! And I’m sure I will again, someday, when the right toys come along.
To hopefully help inspire other writers, here’s a list of 10 alternate formats that make for great sex toy reviews…
1. Erotica story
It’s a classic for a reason! Lots of people are turned on by sex toy reviews, and you can always lean into that, if you feel comfortable doing so. For instance, I’ll occasionally start a review with a flowery retelling of my first session with a toy, or of the first time I used it with a partner, etc. Some would say this’ll make readers more likely to click your affiliate links, too, since a horny shopper is an eager shopper…
2. Diary entry
As a lifelong diarist, I adore this method. One of my favorite examples is Girl on the Net’s review of the We-Vibe Nova, in which the vibrator becomes a jumping-off point from which to talk about her recent gut-wrenching breakup. Sex toys aren’t just mechanical objects – they can also trigger old memories and stir up emotions, from elation to loneliness to resentment to rage. There’s no use in keeping your toy review’s tone placid and peaceful if that wasn’t your experience of the toy!
3. Cultural commentary
Another fave of mine… Trends in the sex toy industry are often predicated on larger sociocultural trends, which are interesting to point out and commentate on. For example: Why are realistic dildos seen as more threatening than non-representational ones? What does the sometimes-racist marketing of strokers say about the past and present of racial politics? And what do clitoral suction toys say about gender?
4. Comedy of errors
Typically I don’t plan to write this type of review, but sometimes a testing session goes so thoroughly awry that I have to… like when a glass egg got stuck in my vagina, or when I tried to stick a shoe in my ass. Hey, nobody said a sex toy review couldn’t have plot, jokes, or the looming threat of danger!
5. Love letter
Some sex toys really are that good. You can write a Shakespearian soliloquy to your favorite one, or an erotic missive, or a heart-rendingly romantic screed – whatever comes pouring out of you, so to speak.
6. How-to
This works best for especially complex or unusual sex toys, the likes of which a reader may not have encountered before. How do you set up a Sybian? How can you work vibrating nipple clamps into a variety of kink scenes? What are the best practices for wielding a rubber flogger?
7. Lab report
I could see this format working well for a toy that makes a particular, falsifiable claim, such as “It’ll always bring you to orgasm in 60 seconds or less.” Test the hypothesis, quantify your results, and publish your findings! (See Danielle Bezalel’s Magic Wand experiment for a fantastic example.)
8. Fashion piece
I’ve done it before and I’m sure I’ll do it again. Some sex toys are just so cute-looking that they deserve to be coordinated with your outfit(s). This format works especially well for wearable items, like bondage harnesses.
9. Fiction vignettes
I used to sometimes write pieces about what toys I thought would be found in the nightstand drawers of specific fictional characters I adored, like Chuck Bass from Gossip Girl or Rosa Diaz from Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Similarly, you could write about various different fictional people trying out the toy and what their experience of it might be. This is a fun way to show different facets of a toy’s capabilities.
10. Interview
No, I’m not suggesting you interview a sex toy… although you can certainly try! What I actually mean by this one is: you could use a toy with a partner (or multiple partners) and then interview them about the experience. Sometimes, people who aren’t in the sex toy industry at all will have surprisingly great insights about products’ shortcomings and upsides – and could there ever be a better testimonial than “I begrudgingly agreed to test this out for my partner and then it made me come harder than I could ever have predicted”?!
What are your favorite alternate formats for sex toy reviews, dear readers?
This post contains a sponsored link. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.
Sometimes, readers of this blog will send me emails that say, “Have you ever written about [x intimate subject]? I searched your blog and could only find minor references to [x sexual experience], nothing in-depth!”
And I will then have to say, “Yes, that information is paywalled on purpose, because it’s just too juicy for public consumption. Here’s the link.”
The truth is, while you might think that blogging about my sex life for 13+ years would have made me more open, I’ve actually learned a lot over the years about what not to share publicly – either because it’s too controversial and I don’t want to get into pedantic arguments over it, or because it’s so personal that I don’t want certain people in my life to read it, or because it’s simply so juicy that I’d feel psychologically exposed if it was freely available online. Writing your heart out is a skillset, and part of that skillset is knowing when to hold back!
With that in mind, I thought I’d give you a little preview of the juiciest, most personal, raw, and low-key embarrassing pieces I’ve written for my paid newsletter so far this year. When you sign up for just $5/month, you instantly get access to all of these pieces, plus the hundreds of other past essays behind that paywall. It’s a great way to support my work so I can keep doing it – because, as you might have noticed, the U.S. government and payment processors are currently hellbent on making it more and more difficult for queer, kinky, and sex-positive creators to earn a living from their work. I really might have to pack it in and get a boring vanilla job one of these days (!!), if things continue going as they are – so I deeply appreciate any and all financial support my readers generously offer, as it literally enables me to continue writing. Thank you! 🙏
In which I tell you how & why I started flirting with a cute movie nerd from Twitter, and what happened next:
Perhaps the pandemic had put me in a learned-helplessness state of mind, where life felt like it was happening ‘to’ me – like life was an unruly ship teetering on the roiling seas, and I couldn’t get a grip on the steering wheel.
But there are certain things I can still control. Like whether I send a DM to a cute boy.
And so I did… and DMing turned to texting, which turned to watching movies together, just as my silly-sweet fantasies had prophesied – albeit online, and not on a sofa, since we don’t live in the same country. It feels cozy in its own way: we chat and flirt and commiserate about the world, we’re working our way through the Hitchcock filmography week by week, and my friends will often ask me “How are things going with your Movieboy?” which always makes me smile.
In which I judge myself for jerking off to fantasies that, in some ways, match the status quo:
I don’t even necessarily think there’s anything wrong with fantasizing about virgins, no matter what gender you are… but the problem is that fantasies can sometimes inform our real-life behaviors and attitudes in harmful ways, especially when those fantasies align with destructive myths and narratives that exist in the real world. We need to be self-aware about our fantasies and what they reinforce in our minds, and we don’t need to fetishize all the same things that the larger culture fetishizes; in fact, it can be wildly illuminating to deeply probe the places where your own desires diverge from “normative” ones.
And that’s part of what I find so compelling about my own virgin fantasies: they buck cultural trends with a bit o’ gender-swapping. A male virgin reads quite differently, culturally speaking, than a female one; I wish gendered inequalities didn’t exist, but they certainly lend some interesting complexity to sexual fantasies at times!
In which I share all the tips ‘n’ tricks I’ve learned about forcing myself to get turned on, even when I don’t feel like it, because my job requires it:
Sure, I could review a sex toy from an unaroused state – but would you want to read a restaurant review written by someone who’d eaten a full meal before going into the joint they were meant to review? Probably not, because the reviewer wouldn’t be physically or mentally equipped at that time (in all likelihood) to give the restaurant a fair shake. Likewise, I need to be sufficiently aroused when I test sex toys; otherwise I just feel like my genitals are being poked and prodded, and that experience would make for a pretty boring and useless review.
So needless to say, my uncharacteristically low libido made it troublesome that I was contractually on the hook to fuck three dildos this week. As a result, those testing sessions were some of the most difficult I’ve ever had – which, let’s face it, it’s masturbating in my own comfy bed, so even at rock-bottom, it’s hardly a gruelling day at the office (or in the mines)! But nonetheless, it was a comedy of errors from start to finish…
In which I process my feelings about being rejected by an improv crush – and, simultaneously, offer advice I’ve learned from the many times I’ve been rejected:
Step 3: Remember it’s not personal.
Here’s a paradox for ya: You shouldn’t take it personally when someone isn’t attracted to you, because attraction is so personal.
I know that’s confusing, so I’ll explain what I mean. The patterns of human attraction are a swirling mystery, even to people who study them professionally. The qualities which attract us to (or repel us from) potential partners can be influenced by our past and our present, our exes and our ones-who-got-away, our insecurities and neuroses, our mood and mindset, where we are in our hormonal cycle, and infinite other factors. And furthermore, there’s not a whole lot we can do to change what we are and are not attracted to. If you’ve ever met someone who seemed great “on paper” but just didn’t spark anything in you, then you know exactly how frustrating this can be – and how futile it is to “force it”!
When someone rejects us, we often hear it as “Eww, absolutely not, you’re gross!” – especially since sometimes people are assholes and do literally say stuff like that! – but the truth is, their rejection is a statement about their own attractions, and not about your attractiveness, both of which are entirely subjective. As Dita Von Teese says, “You can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world, and there’s still going to be somebody who hates peaches.”
In which I tell you about the closest I ever got to being a ‘love addict,’ what that felt like, and how I got out of it:
Just as compulsive lottery-ticket purchasers will envision all the houses and yachts and Rolexes they could buy with their winnings, I would fantasize endlessly about this hypothetical person: what they would be like, how we would treat each other, the places we would go and things we would do together. These fantasies looped in my mind during many a boring journalism-school lecture; headline math and defamation law could never hold my attention quite like the promise of a sparklier, happier life.
Because that was ultimately the purpose of all this swiping and all this fantasizing: it was a mad search for happiness. I believed, deep in my bones, that there was a person out there who was perfect for me, and that I would be able to find them if I only tried hard enough. I believed that finding the right love would fix my entire life in one fell swoop: relieve my ceaseless anxiety and depression, brighten my days, turn the volume down on all my problems until I couldn’t hear them over the din of devotion. I believed, in essence, that an ideal partner would come along someday – maybe even someday soon! – and save me from everything, including from myself.
In which my experience hooking up with someone from the /r/RandomActsOfMuffDive subreddit (a.k.a. RAoMD) triggered my people-pleaser issues like whoa:
I was punctual, but he was already there when I arrived, sipping a drink at the bar. He’d chosen the spot. A decade ago, I might’ve said, “Oh, anywhere’s fine!” but since this entire saga is an exercise in self-actualization, I decided to practice asserting a desire, and requested that he choose a place where I could get a dirty gin martini. It was wild to feel my people-pleaser impulses roar to life at even such a mild provocation. He’s going to think you’re too high-maintenance, that old voice insisted. He’s going to think you’re a spoiled princess. (Never mind that many RAoMD posts specifically seek a “pillow princess”…)
He didn’t think that, evidently. Or maybe he did and it turned him on, I don’t know. But in any case, I claimed the barstool next to his, went in for a handshake-not-a-hug for some reason, and ordered my customary martini. He threw down a credit card to pay for it immediately, and I gritted my teeth to fight the impulse to reach for my own wallet, while the people-pleaser voice in my head continued shouting, What kind of self-important brat makes a man pay for her drink when she doesn’t even intend to sleep with him at the end of the night? (Did I mention that my inner people-pleaser is also hella misogynist? Thanks, society!)
In which the aforementioned Random Act of Muff Dive takes place, and I practice advocating for myself while a handsome man is faceplanted in my pussy:
I know the sex was good because my memories of it are hazy, dreamy. He spent at least an hour just kissing my neck and chest, biting and scratching my skin, pulling my hair, massaging my muscles, and melting me into a slurring mess. I got high on the endorphins, gasping and trembling with pleasure, lost in a sea of sensation. All the best sex I’ve ever had has been like this. And he hadn’t even taken my underwear off yet.
I’d like to be able to tell you that when he did, everything continued to be awesome – but there was a bit of a snag. I had been so thoroughly reduced to mush that I wasn’t able to give feedback on technique in the moment, and his approach to pussy-eating was laser-focused on my clit: direct, intense, and pinpointed. While I know there are many vulva-owners who like nothing better than to have their clit’s bare tip flicked and sucked, I’ve never been able to handle such an onslaught. My clit needs to be gently romanced, through the clitoral hood and inner labia. It’s not at all uncommon for new partners to require some direction before they can go down on me the way I like – and, had this man not demolished my mind with pleasure by the time he reached my pussy, I probably would have been able to give such direction!
Thanks, as ever, for your readership and your support, no matter what form it takes! I appreciate you and I’m glad you’re here. I hope that I’m able to keep doing this work for a long time. 💙
Been a minute since I mentioned my SongAWeek challenge here, dear readers, but it’s still going strong… Just yesterday I uploaded my 34th song of the year, in fact!
They’re not all about sex – some of them are about tattoos, fascism, dragonflies, Zionism, and gamer boys – but, well, you know me: sexuality is my favorite subject to write about, regardless of the medium. Today I’m gonna depart from my usual sexual prose, and instead share some sexual lyrics. Here are the six best sex-related songs I’ve written so far in 2025. (All are purchasable and streamable on Bandcamp, which is a great way to support my work so I can continue writing!)
Song title:The Natural Way Song topic: Menstrual sex How it came to be: The first voice memo in my songwriting process for this one is titled “countryish period sex concept.mp3” and begins with me muttering, “I don’t know why it’s a country song, but…” before launching into it. I had wanted to write a song about period sex for a long time, partly because I love the great Rachel Lark song on the same subject, but partly just ’cause I have a lot of strong opinions about period sex. I drafted the lyrics in my songwriting notebook and for some reason it just always sounded like a twangy country song in my head, complete with bad fake Southern accent. I considered a bunch of alternate titles, like “Red Wings,” “Hemophobia,” and “Just a Little Blood,” before settling on “The Natural Way.”
Lyrics:
It’s Friday night, it’s date night, and I’m just confirming plans
‘Cause I know what I wanna do tonight, and it involves you, man!
But perhaps we should postpone to a different night instead
‘Cause I just checked my panties and I see a bit of red…
I know we’ve never talked about it; I don’t know your stance
But I’m hoping you will part the crimson seas and take a chance
The best-laid plans for getting laid can quickly be undone
‘Cause a little hemophobia can ruin all the fun, so…
CHORUS:
Use your teeth to take my tampon out, and
Help relieve my cramps; I love to
Kill my pain the natural way
Red wings won’t let you fall
So leave a handprint on the wall
And then I’ll know for sure that you are gonna stay
How can you be horrified? It’s only menstruation
It happens every month to nearly half the population!
I’m not asking you to flay me, or to wrestle me in mud
I’m just askin’ for some passion, ’cause it’s just a bit of blood!
(repeat chorus)
I’ll respect your boundaries, but I’ve got some of my own:
If you’d rather keep blood off your hands, I’d rather be alone
‘Cause at any time of day, and at any time of month
I deserve somebody who will faceplant in my cunt!
(repeat chorus)
Eat it raw and bloody like your steak
Get caught red-handed every ding-dong day!
Song title:Make It Hurt Song topic: Masochism How it came to be: I was lying in bed trying to get to sleep one night, when suddenly a line of a song popped into my head fully-formed: “Ooh baby, make it hurt; it doesn’t mean nothin’ unless it’s the worst.” I lumbered out of bed to dutifully record a voice memo so I wouldn’t forget this fragment overnight. The next morning I wrote the rest of the song, choosing a Dorian-mode chord progression, since that was the weekly theme in my online songwriters’ group that week. Pretty intuitive and easy songwriting process overall for this one, maybe because masochism is a subject I’d already dissected at length in many mediums before!
Lyrics:
CHORUS: Ooh baby, make it hurt
It doesn’t mean nothin’ unless it’s the worst
It’s true, baby – you can flirt
But follow through – I want you to make it hurt
I’ve got particular tastes, unusual wishes
Like: sometimes a sprinkling of pain can be so delicious
Can you handle it? Will you question it? Say I’m out of my mind?
Or will you try it out? Make me cry it out? That’s a way to be kind, so…
(repeat chorus)
Your brain has been trained to be sweet and gentle
Well, that’s easily solved if the hurdles are mental
We could play pretend, like we’re childhood friends – you’re a villain with a plan
You’d be faking it til you’re making it; I believe that you can! So…
(repeat chorus)
Why do I always hurt myself,
Even when it’s through someone else?
Why do I push til I bruise and bleed?
Why is this what I need?
(repeat chorus)
Song title:Don’t Fuck People Who… Song topic: The importance of having sexual standards How it came to be: I had been on some dates with people who hadn’t asked me questions, and it bummed me out sufficiently that I had to process it through song. A couple days after writing it, I decided to add the little Vaudeville-y intro section at the beginning, to contextualize the rest of the song. Naturally, I had to wear my “Slut for Kindness” T-shirt in the video!
Lyrics:
I went through a slutty phase; I don’t regret my slutty days
They were mostly good, but sometimes bad
So, for all the other daters looking for a lover later,
Here is some advice I wish I’d had…
Don’t fuck people who don’t make you laugh – that’s a reasonable rule!
Yeah, don’t fuck people who don’t make you laugh, ’cause a sense of humor is cool
If they can’t even make you chuckle, don’t you think the way they fuck’ll also be a horrifying bore?
So, don’t fuck people who don’t make you laugh, ’cause life’s too fucking short!
Don’t fuck people who don’t ask you questions, ’cause curiosity is great
Yeah, don’t fuck people who don’t ask you questions – why are they even on a date?!
If they won’t show a scrap of interest, why would sex be any different? Trust me, ’cause I’ve seen it all before:
Please, don’t fuck people who don’t ask you questions, ’cause life’s too fucking short!
I know these rules may seem a bit restrictive
And sometimes, you’re just looking to get laid
I don’t mean to scare you – I just want to spare you
From all of the mistakes that I have made, so…
Don’t fuck people who make you feel bad – there’s no reason you should
Yeah, don’t fuck people who make you feel bad, ’cause you deserve to feel good!
First dates are for best behavior; it will not get better later – might as well just walk right out the door
Please, don’t fuck people who make you feel bad, ’cause life’s too fucking short for bad fucking!
Life’s too fucking short!
Song title:Hymen Hymn Song topic: Virginity myths and slut-shaming How it came to be: I was typing the word “hymen” at some point and accidentally typed “hymn” instead, and a song idea was born. Many months later, I fleshed it out into this, a satirical choral piece about shitty patriarchal virginity myths. It’s rare that I sing in a more classical style like this when performing my own songs, but I was an alto section leader in a children’s choir for several years as a youth and it’s fun to return to that choral vibe sometimes!
Lyrics:
All hail the hymen, the harbinger of sin
It stands guard at the opening, and will not let you in
Imbued with meaning and divinity,
It’s said to be a marker of virginity
All hail the hymen, doer of good deeds
Marking the event with an obligatory bleed
Some say it was nothing; some say it was the worst
Some say you reap just what you sow, and that is why it hurts
CHORUS:
Don’t push, don’t rush
Slow down your touch
I promise, if you put the time in,
You don’t have to hurt your hymen
All hail the hymen, scapegoat of the damned
Having or not having one determines who I am:
A virgin or a slut, insatiable or frigid
It’s not the most precise approach to diagnostics, is it?
All hail the hymen, so misunderstood
It is just a body part; it isn’t bad or good
And how can it be moral, how can it be right
To check a woman’s cherry on her wedding night?
(repeat chorus)
Song title:UTI Song topic: Urinary tract infections How it came to be: I started improvising this song over some basic chords at a time when I did indeed have a UTI. It was often an isolating and humbling experience in my twenties, when usually it would happen to me after a hookup with some random guy and I would feel left alone with the pain after we parted ways. It was interesting to try to capture that feeling in a song.
Lyrics:
I’ve got a UTI again; it makes me wanna cry again
I’m chugging cranberry, but still, I am very inflamed
I’ve got a UTI again, after sex with some guy again
He left quite some time ago; I don’t remember his name
The sad part: it’s my own fault – could’ve pissed the bacteria to hell
But as always, that’s the hard part: taking good care of myself
So I’ve got a UTI again – that’s $49.95 again
For the meds that I take for the ache from my gut to my knees
I’ve got a UTI again – I could go DIY again
I demand my D-Mannose! (I hope you don’t know what that means)
Should’ve stayed home in my room and played with my toys
‘Cause my body never trusts me when I’m with untrustworthy boys
I’ve got a UTI again, and it makes me bone-dry again
Pleasure is only a memory, a ghost I once knew
And I’m tired of the agony; I’m at odds with my anatomy
I’ve got a UTI again; I think I’m gonna cry again
Song title:Touch-Me-Not Song topic: Asexuality How it came to be: Kind of a silly origin story on this one… Late one night I was hanging out with some musical improv pals, and we started improvising songs over random instrumental tracks from YouTube. I got the suggestions of “sunglasses” and “bees,” and was given a beautiful, melancholy backing track to improvise over. My song was about using sunglasses as protection from a bee attack, and the chorus had goofy lyrics (“It’s only my shades/ that keep me safe from the bees/ from the bees…”) but had a super pretty melody, which I liked enough to record briefly on my phone that night before I went to sleep. That melody fragment ended up becoming the chorus of this song (“I like you so much, but/ don’t want you to touch me at all/ not at all”). I had been working on a song about the realization that I might be even further along the asexual spectrum than I’d realized, and I made practically no headway on it until I landed on this chorus, at which point the rest just flowed out of me. It’s a really personal and important song to me. 💜
Lyrics:
It’s been a lovely night, but I think I’ve had my fill
I don’t know how to say this, so I guess I just will:
It hasn’t been long enough since we first met
And the things I think you want, I don’t want yet
CHORUS:
I like you so much, but don’t want you to touch me at all
Not at all
I like you so much, but don’t want you to touch me at all
Not at all
There’s nothing wrong with going fast, but I like to go slow Why do we like the things we like? Nobody really knows, but
You gotta work with what you got – make no apology
And there are things you like a lot, that I could take or leave
(repeat chorus)
I’m not a prude, I’m not a tease
It isn’t rude to say what I need
So you’ll be out late, loving someone
And I’ll be home alone, having so much fun!
(repeat chorus)
I don’t wanna do something that someday I might regret
I like you so much but don’t want you to touch me yet
I don’t wanna do something that someday I might regret
I like you so much but don’t want you to touch me
I love notebooks so damn much. This became extra apparent to me recently when I packed up all my stuff to move to New York. Not only were there dozens of notebooks – both empty and filled – that needed to be transported to our new place, but also I have a bunch of them in current rotation that I needed to bring with me in my carry-on! Oh, the life of a notebook nerd…
I know there are other such nerds who read this site (hi!), so today I thought I’d tell you a bit about my current “system” of notebooks (if it can even be called that): which ones I’m using, and what I’m using them for, along with a nosy little peek into each. Let’s geek out together!
The notebook:Large ruled hardcover Moleskine What it’s for: Journaling, emotional processing, word-vomiting about crushes, etc.
I’ve been using these specific Moleskine notebooks as my everyday journals since 2007 (!!!) and have filled a few dozen of them in that time. It’s so satisfying to see them all lined up on a shelf, their dates noted in silver Sharpie on their spines.
My journals are where I process unfiltered thoughts and feelings about everything from dating to sex to health to friendships to geopolitics. I don’t usually publish journal entries as-is, but I often refer back to them when writing more polished pieces later on, since they contain raw notes on my immediate emotional reactions to pretty much everything that happens to me.
I always decorate the covers of my journals so each one has its own unique look, theoretically reflective of what I was thinking/feeling/doing during the era documented therein. My current journal has a rainbow heart sticker (happy belated Pride!), an Oliver Hibert skull sticker (I’m obsessed with his art right now, especially his tarot deck), and a “Never Post” sticker that I got at XOXO Fest, which serves as a reminder that it’s usually better to journal your personal thoughts, rather than tweet them. (Do as I say, not as I do…) There’s also an Njoy Eleven sticker on the back of this one, which I probably picked up at the Njoy booth at Woodhull years ago.
Moleskine’s “volant” notebooks are skinny little softcovers that I first started using when I was in journalism school. They could ride around at the bottom of my tote bag, get bent and scuffed, etc. and still hold all my class notes just fine. I like that they come in cute limited-edition colors; I think this kelly-green one was a gift from my brother, who knows me well.
These days, I use volants for work-related process notes, like my detailed thoughts about a sex toy while I’m testing it for a review. I also take notes in here while recording podcasts; it helps me listen better and hold onto the fleeting thoughts/questions that are apt to fly out of my brain if I don’t jot them down immediately. (Above are some of the notes I took during my conversation with masculinities scholar Dr. Kris Taylor about porn addiction and NoFap last year, incase you were wondering why the hell it says phrases like “Chad behavior” and “sex is devoid of pleasure”…)
This elegant white Midori notebook was a gift from my wife; it has gorgeously smooth paper which owes its signature softness to the cotton fiber in its formulation. I normally prefer lined pages over blank ones (that’s how you know I’m a writer and not a visual artist, I guess!), but the blankness is helpful when you’re brainstorming something big – like a romance novel, for instance! I’m a little over 50,000 words into my first (very rough) draft of my first (very rough) novel, and the planning I’ve been doing in this notebook has been instrumental in getting me that far.
Relatedly, I keep a little Field Notes book in my bag when I’m out and about, in which I mostly jot down novel-related ideas that come to me on the subway or whatever – but occasionally I also use it for other random notes as needed, like when I attended a musical improv workshop recently. This particular notebook is limited-edition, made special for attendees of XOXO Fest 2024; its cover is a cyanotype of sunlight peeking through the trees at Washington High in Portland, where the festival took place. Cute!
Another gift from my wonderful and thoughtful wife! I was intrigued by this notebook as soon as I read Blackwing’s announcement about it; they had collaborated with George Harrison’s family to design this songwriting notebook in tribute to him. It’s decorated with a striking image of his signature guitar. The pages are blank, and the notebook comes with a clear plastic insert that acts as a guide if you want to draw a music staff or guitar chord charts, etc. There’s even a pencil loop on the spine of the book so you’ll never lose your writing implement. It’s all quite thoughtful!
Throughout most of my SongAWeek project (I’m on year 3 now!), I would work on songs wherever I could: in my journal, in the Notes app on my phone, on a napkin at my local pub, etc. Still to this day, if I get a good song idea, I have to write it down somewhere immediately, no matter where I am, because of the unforgivingly breakneck pace of SongAWeek – so, songs don’t always start in this notebook, but I tend to do heavy-duty lyric editing in here as I’m finishing a song (or, as Diane Warren puts it, “wrestling that song to the ground”). And by the way, if you’re curious about the lyrics in the above image, they’re from a country song I wrote about period sex!
I also keep a big long list in here of ideas for songs, or potential song titles/taglines/etc. Previously they were all scattered across multiple mediums, and I can’t even tell you how helpful it is to have them all in one place instead – it means I have something to start from every week, instead of just a blank page staring back at me. This is the exact kind of thing I mean when I say that writing tools (like notebooks) aren’t magic, and won’t make you a better writer in and of themselves, but they can inspire you to write more often, and can help you organize your thoughts better, which often leads to better writing. Or at least more writing… some of which will be good, surely!
Possibly my favorite notebook at the moment. It has super-smooth paper, comes in fun colors, and fits easily into most purses and pockets. I love the versatility of a reporter-style notebook, too: their hard cover and vertical orientation makes it easy to write in them whether you’re sitting at a desk, reclining in a movie theatre, or walking down the street.
I take notes in here on many of the movies and TV shows I watch these days. It helps me pay attention better, and is useful if I want to remember my impressions of a certain piece of media while writing about it later on, or talking to a friend about it, etc. The notes pictured in the image above, for instance, were taken while watching the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral (adorable; love Hugh Grant!) and then some episodes of Kevin Can F**k Himself (low-key a modern feminist masterpiece). Invariably, my notes aren’t just about the media itself, but about my reactions to the media – so this notebook arguably contains just as many personal insights as my journal, albeit expressed differently!
I also sometimes take notes in here while on phone calls/Zoom calls/etc. with friends or partners, because (as mentioned) the reporter-style form factor lends itself well to impromptu note-taking regardless of where I am. Notes on conversations can be useful to refer to when I’m journaling later, among other things. And these notepads conveniently have a built-in table of contents near the front, so when I need to find a specific thing, I always can. Gosh, aren’t notebooks a great technology?
What’s your current notebook configuration? Feel free to share in the comments! 🤓
