By the time I published my first book, I had ten books full of ideas in different copybooks, accumulated during the years of cowardliness.
Does the word "copybooks" here mean "a book containing models of handwriting for learners to imitate"? But it really makes no sense to me.
Could anyone please help to interpret this?
In Ireland, for example, a copy book appears to be much like what in the U.S. we would call a composition book, a bound collection of blank pages on which to write school exercises:
In any case, simply because the copybook was originally a type of workbook (AmE) / exercise book (BrE) for practicing penmanship hardly requires that it be used exclusively for that purpose. Composition books aren't restricted to compositions, and notebooks contain far more than notes, after all.
