Booking Through Thursday

I found a new Meme that I like and decided I would start doing on A Writer's Life. It's called Booking Through Thursday. This is, as it sounds, a meme about books and reading.

Their question for this week is actually the second part of something they asked a couple of weeks ago:
A couple weeks ago, we asked about how you take care of your books, with one of the questions asking whether you write in your books. Well, what about books that are meant to be written in? Like, say, a journal or diary? Do you keep one? Obviously, if you're answering this, you have a blog--do you just let your blog be your journal? Or do you also keep one for private stuff also?
I decided to start with this question and then answer the first one as a kind of sequel - prelude to this one. (Kind of like how Lucas made the Star Wars movies. lol)

So.... Do I write in my books that are meant to be written in? It actually depends on the book.

Journals or books that I hand bind, I will usually write in them. If it is a truly unique one I won't write in it unless I can come up with a purpose that perfectly fits the book. Such as a
small book I have that has paper birch bark pages in it - it demands something special before I am going to write in it.

I have a workbook for a novel writing course that I have put Post-Its in wherever things need filled out. Slivers of Post-It paper cut where the glue end is so I can place it along a line where there is ariting above and below it and not actually write in the book.

Although that same book has pen marks all through it to show what page to look in the companion book for passages that refer to that part of the workbook.

Sometimes I will write in a book and feel bad I used it for something on the spur of the moment and later change it to be used for something else.

I try to never write in a novel or other book, although I have written in them to correct half faded words where the printer had a clog in the print head or something. I used to be a big user of book plates, but stopped using them when I stopped lending my books out.

I used to try not to write in my college books, since they could be sold when the course was over and you could get more for one that was not marked up, but that was no guarantee I would not break down a week in and write in them after all.

So, I guess it mostly depends on how replaceable the book is and if it would diminish or improve the value by writing in it. I used to have a book that was meant for journaling that had very light pictures of unicorns in it - I never wrote in it because it would have distracted from the pictures used as backdrops on the pages.

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