There is a pile of sticky notes on my desk which, at this point, may have qualified as a new and unique administrative system, a fire hazard, or in this case it was the early warning signs of another book.
My post-it notes are not the beautiful end of my stationery habit. This is not Paperblanks territory. These are working notes, the scraps of thought that gather when something has been said often enough to need catching. Models, resources, phrases, little reminders of things I’ve promised, ideas I need to return to, a good sentence. They sit in a growing heap beside my laptop, somewhat plant like, blossoming extras leaves once in a while.

I used to draw diagrams in my notebooks. I’d frequently share a model, a concept which might be of use to someone. Arrows, circles, little boxes, lists even, occasionally something that made perfect sense at the time and later looked as though I had been attempting to create a new art form.
Now, because so much of my work happens online, the sticky notes have taken over. They are immediate and on hand. A thought arrives, a client asks for a resource, a model comes up again, a qustion pops up again. It is quicker than opening a document, neater than writing on the back of an envelope and less inconvenient than trusting my memory or riffling through my many, many notebooks. There’s a podcast I suggest people listen to often but the name of it just will not stay in my memory, so it lives on a stick note on my desk.

Over time, I realised the pile was telling me something. These were not random notes. They were the things I shared most often. The resources clients asked for. The psychoeducation that seemed to be most needed. The models that gave people a foothold in understanding self. The repeated concepts which I return to over and over again, because they’re so useful. There was a book on my desk in these fragmented multi-coloured squares of paper and I hadn’t even realised.

There wasn’t a dramatic moment of revelation, no sudden shaft of light through the window illuminating a perfectly arranged manuscript while a choir of angels sang over the printer (don’t get me started on the printer!). It was simply the growing awareness that the same ideas kept proving useful. In therapy, people are never the same, because of course they are not. Everyone arrives with their own history, relationships, losses, fears, defences, hopes, shame, habits, patterns and particular way of making sense of the world. But human distress has rhythms, questions return, on repeat. Some psychotherapy and psychoeducation models help because they give language to something people have been feeling without being able to name.

There is a relief in accurate language. In being able to say, this is anxiety, this is overwhelm, this is emotional labour, attachment, trauma response, a boundary, why I shut down, why I over-explain, why I feel responsible for everyone else’s feelings. The moment something has a name, it becomes less like a fog, easier to identify and understand. Easier to work with.

The manuscript grew from that. From the things I seemed to be saying most often. The baseline information that helped them understand themselves before deeper work could begin. A mental health resource, yes, but also something warmer. A place to begin a new understanding. A book that doesn’t assume the reader already has all the language, confidence, time, money, support, or emotional capacity in the world.

A lot of self-help writing can feel as though it has been written from a very tidy desk. I’m interested in the human version. The one where insight is wonderful but the washing still needs doing. In other words, reality.

And the point of a book is that people can come back to it again and again, rather like my pile of sticky notes. I remember suggesting a client might read The Chimp Paradox. An excellent book which helps the reader understand the brain somewhat, how it works and what gets in the way. I appreciate how people can read a page, a chapter, a half, or just inhale the whole book. But I felt for my clients it was probably best read in small chapters, more easily digested and processed. That’s how I’d like my book to work. Easily accessed small sections which allow the reader to take in small chunks to work on.

There is something pleasing about the idea that a book can begin as a heap of small, square reminders. Not from one enormous idea, but from hundreds of tiny returns. I wonder how many other novels would be created if everyone used my sticky note method?

Still, I keep them. I use them often and they serve as a visual reminder that I have another project which really needs my attention, in amongst the others. Perhaps there is a digital version of this too. A website, nimbly created by my web-architect-at-arms. Maybe so. Maybe my sticky notes are a legitimate product which look like chaos and colour.

And perhaps that is what writing does at its best, whether it is fiction, theatre, essays, or a mental health resource built from a desk full of sticky notes. It takes what is scattered and gives it form. It gathers the fragments, notices the pattern and says, here, this might help.

Which is why I probably won’t tidy my desk and will find more delightful sticky notes to add to my stack.

Please be aware I utilise affiliate links in my writing. Half my money goes to Amazon anyway, on my stationery addiction, book addiction, gift ideas and pen preferences. It’s always nice to garner a little back if you’re happy to use to my links.