{"id":39218,"date":"2021-05-27T06:30:28","date_gmt":"2021-05-26T18:30:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=39218"},"modified":"2021-05-26T17:24:05","modified_gmt":"2021-05-26T05:24:05","slug":"inside-the-writing-life-many-placemarkers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2021\/05\/27\/inside-the-writing-life-many-placemarkers\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside The Writing Life: Many Placemarkers"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was going to say “bookmarks” but in fact my assortment of airline boarding passes, supermarket dockets, old envelopes, and postits, with the very occasional actual bookmark, probably can’t be graced by that title.<\/p>\n

Similar placemarkers do feature in books I’m reading as well (and sometimes remain there to be refound several years later), but the sheer number in my “working set” of The Wall of Night #1 – #3 is indicative of the work in progress.<\/p>\n

In other words, if I’m referring back to earlier volumes, either to fact check and ensure consistency, or to ensure the right “echoes” are carried through into Wall #4 (The Chaos Gate<\/em>) I usually deploy a placemarker — grabbing whatever comes most immediately to had — in an “X marks the spot” kind of way.<\/p>\n

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In this sense, the placemarkers also constitute an artefact of the writing life. \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n

Arguably, having quite so many of them does sometimes limit their effectivness. Then again, I have a pretty good idea of roughly where in a book the relevant passages or pages occur, and the placemarkers serve as a useful starting point, from which I can then work either forward or back.<\/p>\n

Yes, the table of content may help, too, assuming I know the correct chapter title — but regardless, somehow it always feels<\/em> more expeditious to use the placemarker navigation system, with the ToC as a fallback: which could be a case of “the heart… having…its reasons, that reason knows not of.”<\/em> (Blaise Pascal, 1623 – 1662)<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

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Inside the writing life<\/p><\/div>\n

Previous Bulletins From Inside The Writing Life<\/em>:<\/strong><\/p>\n