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[BlueSpell]

Hey everyone! As a relatively new practitioner I've been looking through this section to get some ideas and inspiration for my own practice. I love a lot of the BoS ideas I've seen here and some of you have amazingly artistic spells and physical books. While reading this, I realize that I'd started my BoS in a bound book without binders while many people (wisely) chose to use a binder format for easier reorganization or addition of pages.

I'd rather not start over, and I kind of like the way my BoS is a permanent record of what I've been working on, but I wanted to share an idea that came to me pertaining organization in a BoS that is bound and can't be shifted around. What I have done is I've created basically a reverse table of contents in my BoS to describe what I've done on each page.

Every time I make an entry in my BoS, I number the page(s) that the entry is on. At the back of the book, starting at the bottom of the page and working up and backwards in the book, I put my table of contents and mark down what is on each page. With each new entry, I work my way up the last page and towards the front of the book. Eventually my notes/spells/rituals will meet the table of contents at the back and then I will know it's time to start a new book.

I thought this might be helpful for anyone who has randomly grabbed a bound book for its looks or just for convenience (mine is actually just a college essay journal with an elastic strap that keeps it closed).

Oh also, you all have waaaaaay better handwriting than me. I don't need to put any wards or defenses on my book; my atrocious handwriting is more than enough of a hex to stop any casual reader! haha!

[L.J.Hex]

Hey this sounds neat.

I also decided to write mine as a bound book and I got nice one rather cheap, it has over 700 pages so filling it up will take a long long time. Your idea sounds very nice indeed. What I did is bit more difficult, I numbered the pages, and estimated how much space for which topic I need and then I planned the book to have sort of longish chapters for different things.

First hundred pages are kind of overview, from the page 101 starts my diary, I'm yet to decide how many pages I'll reserve for it, probably up to 300 or so, then there is part about spells, correspondences etc. Making it like this is quite difficult.

I think my handwriting is horrible, unless I take time and use theban alphabet or fractur which is painfully slow. I've done quite extensive spellwork to protect mine and so far no one has touched my book unless I decide so. I've had very bad experience about nosy friends and family members so I wanted to do everything in my power to keep my BoS only mine. At least for now. Writing in theban works pretty well for that too, not many people seem to know how to read it. I even thought of encrypting my writing first and on top of that, writing in theban alphabet, but that would take even more effort and reading would be very slow.

[BlueSpell]

Wow you put a lot of thought into the planning process for yours! I’m somewhat new to all of this so it was much more difficult for me to judge how long each topic would be or even the order of topics! It sounds like you are putting an awesome amount of effort in though and I bet it is fantastic!

That handwriting issue is my bane!I have to remind myself to write real slow so I can read it again later.

[L.J.Hex]

Wow you put a lot of thought into the planning process for yours! I’m somewhat new to all of this so it was much more difficult for me to judge how long each topic would be or even the order of topics! It sounds like you are putting an awesome amount of effort in though and I bet it is fantastic!

That handwriting issue is my bane!I have to remind myself to write real slow so I can read it again later.


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Hey, check my latest post on "path of the Hex" thread, I wrote something about my BoS there.

That's the thing with planning, its difficult to determine how many pages are needed for each topic. I solved this problem by reserving enough pages so that there will be blank pages after each, this also leaves space for new notes to be added later.. Also I had to make a compromise of starting my diary on page 101, then it continues up to page 199 which will not be enough in the long run. I'm presuming it will be full in a year, but then I will start another diary in the end of the book, that will be another hundred pages... In between there's 100 pages for correspondences, another hundred for spells, then 200 pages for assorted things like art, symbols, poems, what ever I will come up with.

I'm tying to be as thorough as I can and made sure my book has enough pages (bit over 700) so that I wont run out of space to write any time soon... Its quite nuts to make it like this for the first time, but that's my cross to bear, when I have a project like this, I want to make it on the verge of my skills, hopefully in the process I will get better at it.

Your idea for that table of contents which you write bottom up in the end of the book, that's really neat... That could solve some problems I have encountered so far.

Why don't you go get bunch of paper with ready made lines to practice your calligraphy? Also one nice way to ease it is to keep a rules just below the line you're writing, the line above + ruler below will keep you writing in stable size and also keeps your lines straight, helps a ton. I'm such crappy writer that I have to find methods like this to make it easier. Another neat idea is to use a pencil to draw faint lines to help you, then just erase them when the page is done.

[BlueSpell]

Wow it looks like your BoS is much longer than mine. I started pretty simple with just a bound college notebook that has a strap to secure it. Not sure that it even has more than 300 pages in it, and my writing topics are sort of all mixed together (which is why i thought of the table of contents). I’ll have to give some thought to making sections in the future for various topics that are similar. I like that idea! I’ll have to check your other threads for more ideas!