How many notebooks do you have going right now?

oh man & if legal pads count then i carry one of those around too.

& i carry some blank 6x4 postcards. they don't count. but they sorta do.

xp then my total is 5, because I have a couple of A4 refill pads currently on the go, for times when I'm out at meetings.

1. Work Moleskine which stays at work unless I leave feeling like I'm about to get sick enough to not go in the next day
2. True Swamp scripts
3. other comics scripts & thumbnails
4. gen. sketchbook
not counted: Red 500 pg no-lines Miquel Rius which is too nice therefore I have never drawn in it

'Lard Needle'?!?!

One sketchbook at the moment, sometimes used as a notebook. You should see these ideas, man.

1 legal pad for work, 1 legal pad for personal, 1 neverending scratch pad for urgent arisings in both categories.

i have a work notebook and a personal notebook that i never use because i have no ideas and haven't taken notes on anything in awhile :/

A spiral notebook I use as a diary, a small one in my bookbag for notes and ideas, a legal pad for writing longer things.

oh shit I have 2 notepads at my desk as well as notebook...gah it's worse than I thought

I have about 4 going right now, different purposes but some overlap.

4 or 5 legal pads, plus one tiny spiral notebook. 2 belong to a volume of poems i'm trying to write (divided into 'materials' and 'methods', lol), 1 is for journalling stuff (written across the top of the pad: "THE ONE FULL OF INCREDIBLY EMBARRASSING SECRETS"), others are just catchalls (at home, in car, in bag)

written across the top of the pad: "THE ONE FULL OF INCREDIBLY EMBARRASSING SECRETS"

ha ha awwwwww

the only one I still use is a work one which is basically just full of doodles that I make during meetings

welcome to the paperless future, everyone!

Ugh, what a horrible thought. I love stationary. I read something once about the psychology of stationary and how it's all about aspiration, I have a feeling it might have been linked from ilx.

I tried keeping all my work notes, at least, on the computer, and sticking them in memo fields on the database. And then the owner's son went in and deleted a whole day's worth of them - so back to paper I went.

Stationary is one of those things that has the power to make me happy like little else. All that potential. It's like potential creativity made tangible or something pretentious like that.

Exactly! Like, if I get *this* new notebook and *this* new sexy pen, I will be more creative and free, and yet maybe also become the kind of organisational superwoman I am in my imagination, who knows where all her shit is at. Oh I know it ain't so, but the allure of the blank pages, it is eternal.

I develop fiendish attachments to cheap ballpoint pens.

o the devilry

I love writing with a fountain pen, it makes me feel that what I'm writing is some important Magna Carta style shiz, as opposed to typing on a computer keyboard, which just feels like I'm a data entry jockey no matter the actual importance of what I'm typing.

I was bummed out last week so I bought a new moleskine notebook and a set of pens. happiness = restored.

I'm newly enamored with the packs of thin, non-leatherbound moleskin notebooks. Like you can get a pack of 5? I love those because I can actually fill them when I'm on a writing spree. they are bad news bears for me. I'm addicted to them.

snoball otm about fountain pens

nothing like a good heavy fountainpen in your hand to feel like a genius

one notebook: planning a wedding

i have only ever used one notebook at a time, all-purpose for ideas or directions or whatever, but less and less as i started recording more stuff digitally. still keep one notebook (which is now like 10 years old) for the occasion that paper is my only option.

also got a little 'music collector' notebook thing as a gift a while back that's a little bit cheesy but i have used it a handful of times to take notes at an album listening or concert, but i rarely do that. so i guess i'll answer 2.

I use a Parker 45 (snobbery & elitism bonus, they're not made any more), and it's like the weight of the thing transfers to what I'm writing. It's probably a purely psychological illusion, but when I'm writing circuit test notes I feel like Einstein, compared to the "dur, wire connects point A to point B" sense I get when I'm using some computer based application.

I love fountain pens, but the only thing I write with them are my diary. Makes it feel ~important~ or something.

I can no longer write any kind of non-diary prose longhand. It must all be done on computer. I get too frustrated with both the slowness of longhand, and the lack of editing ability. I'll never go back to writing on anything that isn't a word processor.

Does the fountain pen = magna carta thing work with yr reporter's notepad snoball? I used to use reporter's pads for work b/c they supply them free, but I found they got tatty in my bag and with pens that flowed enough to feel good, the writing showed through the paper. I've settled on unlined books with decently thick paper, for the sheer beauty of the snowy sheets. Which I then scribble all over like a gleeful toddler. The faster you fill 'em up, the sooner you can start a new one \o/

With you on the prose though WCC. I can type a lot faster than I can write longhand. Although - sometimes the effect of being forced to slow down is interesting, and the feel of the pen in your hand does kick at different bits of your brain that the feel of keys under your fingertips. Muscle memory, association?

one notebook: planning a wedding

― some dude nights (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, July 6, 2012 5:37 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Hoof bump, my brony

Does the fountain pen = magna carta thing work with yr reporter's notepad snoball?

I use a Parker Jotter ballpoint for that, because it's not as easy to write on a notepad when there's nothing flat to put it on.

(and then my writing goes to pieces, because my handwriting is generally ten times worse with ballpoints)

Hate, hate, HATE notebooks on paper so thin you have to use a ballpoint or have it bleed through.

I'm so picky about writing pens - if not a fountain pen, it must be one of those really smooth gel pens. It's got to glide, liquidly.

I do like the slowing down of writing longhand, for diary writing, because it does force to think and introspect and really go through the things I'm thinking before I write them down. But when I'm writing prose, I just want to do automatic direct from subconscious writing, then go back and edit it later. With diaries, there's a sense of permanence, that this is My Truth I'm putting down. Anything else will be edited to death a million times.
.

I have four notebooks going right now - 2 paper, 2 electronic. I have a bog-standard moleskin notebook that's used the most - drawing, lyric ideas, sketches, story ideas, etc. That one is in my bag and travels everywhere. Notebook #2 stays in the studio at home and has recording notes, more song ideas, block diagrams of effects arrangements, etc. I use DayOne on phone and computer for a journal and everything else (mostly work notes and my album want list) goes into Evernote.

Oh yeah, I'm also crazy about the Pilot G-Tec-C4 pens. Love them a lot - order them in bulk from Amazon.

Oh god I forgot about my songwriting and recording notebook but seriously, I haven't used it in so long I think it counts as defunct.

1 moleskine to rule them all (I'm a bit pretentious) but I find it much harder to decode what I've written down these days so it generally takes a backseat.

I'm afraid to keep anything important in paper form since I'd undoubtedly lose it, or at least not have it with me when I need it. My thoughts go onto my laptop or phone, which allow them to be backed up in numerous places. And my phone is usually with me.

oh man, i bought this italian notebook at utrecht that i am kinda in love with. will post a picture when i am less lazy

I always liked that Joe Strummer story about composing the lyrics to "Long Shadow" on a pizza box, and then switching to paper towels and insulation tape when he ran out of room. Can understand the necessity of GETTING IT OUT NOW regardless of the format/media.

Whatever happened to Keith Richards' hotel tape machine?

one of my fantasies is to keep a notebook, a small one. I know how big I want them to be - about 6cm by 8 or 9 cm, spiral bound.

but it feels pretty momentous to have a notebook. there's a mental block - you know - coming up with an idea, and thinking that idea is good enough to make it worth it to ruffle through your bag for your notebook and pen and to write it down in. and once you do write it down in the notebook, it's another mental leap to say, some day, in the future, hey, I ought to go back and see what I wrote down.

If I write something long, I like to start in longhand before transferring it to computer. Luddite, etc.

i could be doing with better organisation, as it is i one generic a5 notebook for anything i have to write when i'm sitting down, little notebook which is always in my pocket for on-the-go notes and thoughts, fancy a5 notebook for, um, fancy notetaking, whatever that is. i haven't quite worked that out yet. the end result of this is that i'm left with enormous piles of loose paper that i never quite get around to sorting in any reasonable way.

I have a million of those little Sanrio notebooks and similarly sized Miquel Rius ones that I carry in my purse. Mostly shopping lists and addresses and books to get from the library.

This is my knitting notebook: http://c.buyoly.com/sublime-stitching-journal-lg.jpg

one of my fantasies is to keep a notebook, a small one. I know how big I want them to be - about 6cm by 8 or 9 cm, spiral bound.

― now all my posts got ship in it (dayo), Saturday, 7 July 2012 01:33 (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://www.muji.eu/pages/online.asp?V=1&Sec=12&Sub=47&PID=1035, fyi

but it feels pretty momentous to have a notebook. there's a mental block - you know - coming up with an idea, and thinking that idea is good enough to make it worth it to ruffle through your bag for your notebook and pen and to write it down in. and once you do write it down in the notebook, it's another mental leap to say, some day, in the future, hey, I ought to go back and see what I wrote down.

i think that's the other good thing about spiral-bound; you can tear out pages. i'm not so fussy now, or am more open to the value of wasted pages, but whenever i had a sketchbook when i was younger i felt like i could ruin it, could use the first page wrong and then have a notebook with a stupid first page. for me i don't think it's that you have to have great ideas to be bothered to reach for your notebook, so much as that you have to have a notebook convenient enough to have in a bag or pocket without that being cumbersome, & you have to be compelled to reach for it regularly enough irrespective of whether the ideas are good for it to eventually fill up w/something. a notebook full of fragments of thoughts & small-scale happenings from your historical day to day is really valuable i think, diaristically or creatively or w/e.

i think that's the other good thing about spiral-bound; you can tear out pages.

When this moleskine fills up, I think I'm going to switch back to the Rhodia graph paper pads I used to use for precisely this reason (also it's more comfortable to write on a top-bound pad rather than a side-bounded book)

I have like 7 right now, 2 are almost filled tho, I just spend my days constantly filling notebooks

hm, gonna look up those graph paper pads, i like the way it looks but have never used it; i always get blank moleskines (incidentally w/the perforated pages, which i still rip shreds out of). have you ever seen those grey & white-lined pads? they're contrasted separately so that the lines don't impinge on your drawing the way they do when you're dealing w/light paper & dark lines, say if you want to photocopy something out.

http://papertastebuds.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/whitelines-narrow.jpg

also joan didion to thread, btw

I like the white lines notebook. One reason why I switched away from the Rhodias is that if I need to scan something (which happens often enough), the graph lines would get in the way.

I had a friend who ordered a box full of these from Korea, swears by 'em. You have to email the guy and get them shipped from Korea.

All digital. Obviously.

I had a friend who ordered a box full of these from Korea, swears by 'em. You have to email the guy and get them shipped from Korea.

― where can i get a mcdonalds quesadilla tho (silby), Sunday, 8 July 2012 01:15 (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh man, they look so nice! also those stationery review sites/forums crack me the fuck up; i unironically love but entirely don't understand the point at which you're testing absorbencies in writing paper. they look like real nice pads though, i wonder if the guy does small orders.

OK, that notebook review where the reviewer tested the paper's performance with an entire list of pens, and wrote the pen types on the page, is blowing my mind.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

OK, that notebook review where the reviewer tested the paper's performance with an entire list of pens, and wrote the pen types on the page, is blowing my mind.

― hot sauce delivery device (mh), Monday, 9 July 2012 16:51 (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

man there is so much, there are forums of this kinda thing. like with reviews of new staples legal pads based conducted with a couple of preferred pens, suggested pairings. also found this place a couple of days ago, which is sweet; lengthy, personal histories of pen ownership: http://www.cultpens.com/blog/

(although tbh they really go crazy about this pencil
http://www.cultpens.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/FC117200.jpg
which is a shitty & expensive & really to my mind slightly too soft and almost pastel-dull grey a pencil to get worked up over, so maybe take any zealous product enthusiasm w/a pinch of salt)

fuck a pencil tbh

lol. nuh uh. okay not so much for scribbling in a notebook but there is a real time and a place for pencil. thick, soft black pencil on brown paper? perfect. sketched lines of varied thickness and shade in pencil? they are fun to play with.

i love rhodia

1 notebook now. It used to be 3 or 4 - an a4 one for making notes or writing at a desk, then a little one for my coat pocket if I didn't have a bag, (those would both be serving as a journal), one for a particular writing project (was happiest with a 300pp squared-paper medium Miquelrius notebook for this), maybe a scratch pad for work stuff (loved plain Rhodia for this, and for any sort of quick thinking on paper, scribbling sort of writing). Now everything goes in one A4 book (Clairefontaine lined).

Oh, I email stuff to myself or use evernote for boring reference stuff now.

None whatsoever I used to have one for my knitting but hah I have ravelry and also I use my iphone for keeping track of my knitting (and other things). I just keep it all on my iphone (diary and so on). I miss notebooks though. Loved scribbling in'em but these days my handwriting has gone to complete SHIT.

When I use a pencil I always use a Pentel Sharplet-2 mechanical pencil, 0.7mm lead.

And for those who might being having problems with insomnia...
http://davesmechanicalpencils.blogspot.co.uk/2009/02/pentel-sharplet-2-a125-mechanical.html

Notebooks to aspire to:

http://taguealibrary.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/rd-note.jpg

(Roger Deakin's)

"Come home to a real fire... fuelled by notebooks"

Oh, so this is the stationery nerd thread! I love those grey triangular pencils with the rubber grip bobbles schlump said were overrated. Although, I bought a 3-pack because I liked them so much and then realised the ones in the pack didn't have erasers on the end like the ones bought singly do, so that was annoying. And I mainly just like the novelty of the shape and the bobbles and the way they feel in your hand, I admit the line is kind of soft.

0.7mm gel ink pens for me, I love them all. I got some Pilot G-Tec C4s and some unknown 0.3s and I do really like the cleanness of the line at that sort of size but my writing comes out horrible and spidery on such a fine point. 1.0s are too fat for my writing.

I just realised I only have 1 work notebook and 1 German notebook and all my free time ~thoughts~ are digital or not recorded at all and now have a fierce urge to have a more freeform notebook. I do have an unused Moleskine at home but I have this problem with starting notebooks, this paralysing foreknowledge that my horrible scrawl and dumb thoughts will turn a nice notebook into an ugly notebook, and that I have to save them for really special important thoughts which I will get right and write neatly (this moment will never actually come)

I do have an unused Moleskine at home but I have this problem with starting notebooks, this paralysing foreknowledge that my horrible scrawl and dumb thoughts will turn a nice notebook into an ugly notebook, and that I have to save them for really special important thoughts which I will get right and write neatly (this moment will never actually come)

oh, i have this problem. i have a gajillion cute notebooks at home, and i walk around with scratch paper stapled together as my regular notebook. i need to start using them!

Two contradictory ideas, depending on your predilection:

1) learn calligraphy so even if your thoughts are ugly, your notes are not

2) take heart from the idea that even if your handwriting is a scrawl, it is the thoughts and ideas that are important, not the presentation

I was just looking at that pile of Roger Deakin's notebooks and thinking that they were possibly all the more intriguing for being written in such a not-immediately-decipherable scrawl and on fairly generic notebooks which show their age. I could manage that, at least. But not the quantity, or the contents

would still like to do a little better for my birthday present Moleskine with the nice cover, but it's a good motivation for getting some kind of notebook going and not being afraid of the beautiful white paper

(I was never massively into the Manics and the song in question is horrible but I think of the lines "I want to walk in the snow and not leave a footprint / I want to walk in the snow and not soil its purity" every time I look out on fresh settled snow and every time I open a new notebook)

Manics were totally wrong. Gallumping across a fresh snowfall and starting a new notebook are two of the greatest joys in life!

man so can someone explain how you're supposed to use mechanical pencils to me? all the ones I ever used back in like elementary school I either immediately broke the mechanism or somehow ground through the lead in about seven words.

I have seven plus notebooks, there's intercourse all in any of them.

xp 1) buy a mechanical pencil made by a company that makes technical drawing instruments, even if you only get their cheapest pencil, 2) elementary school pencils suck because people generally press too hard on the page when writing with them, 3) the clutch mechanism eventually wears out, even on the best pencils.

because graphite is a lubricant.

4) get one that takes 0.7mm leads, they're the most commonly available size. Those pencils that take the big thick 2mm leads seem to be the worst quality, unless you buy one of the expensive models.

Too many - all sizes - mainly for drawing but one large one with graph paper for taking down music ideas, etc. There's a Muji store near my work and it's hard for me to walk out of there without another new notebook or one of their awesome newsprint books.

the thing that sucks about only writing fiction in pencil is bcz I don't own a dece pencil sharpener and have to go to the local library to sharpen my pencils

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Oh, so this is the stationery nerd thread! I love those grey triangular pencils with the rubber grip bobbles schlump said were overrated. Although, I bought a 3-pack because I liked them so much and then realised the ones in the pack didn't have erasers on the end like the ones bought singly do, so that was annoying. And I mainly just like the novelty of the shape and the bobbles and the way they feel in your hand, I admit the line is kind of soft.

aww. i had real bad handwriting as a kid, & still have fairly bad & serial-killer-ishly-small handwriting as an adult, & i wonder whether some of my distaste for the three-sided pencil is because it reminds me of various gripped writing implements i was given to straighten me out (nb i cannot be tamed). they're okay. i think i just resented having to pay a pound for one at a whsmith, once, knowing that some of the simplest pencils are nicer & more straightforward & cheaper & are don't attempt space-age solutions to pencil needs.

0.7mm gel ink pens for me, I love them all. I got some Pilot G-Tec C4s and some unknown 0.3s and I do really like the cleanness of the line at that sort of size but my writing comes out horrible and spidery on such a fine point. 1.0s are too fat for my writing.

i think the thickest pens i like are those silver uniball ink - they make me feel all drunk & loose, like i careen across the page flamboyantly. muji .38s are still my go-to fineliner (they don't write on skin, which sucks) but for the last six months i've just been plumbing my stationery bag to mix it up a little. the last thing i was really into was a felt-nibbed papermate pen, one of the ones with the white target-mark on the lid. nice. i think those .7 gel pens are good but something about the actual pen doesn't click with me, i don't think i like the biro-y transparent plastic, maybe.

sorry i am turning this forum into one of those forums.

No I love it, I am a huge stationery geek. It was one of the bright spots of those dark years known as grad school.

haha the most consistent writing by hand i do these days is on crosswords, but i am v. particular (and routinely disappointed by my options) about the pens i use

I hadn't found any new pens I liked a lot until recently, but I really love the Uniball Signo - Micro 207. Really consistent ink flow even after months of use.

^^^^ we used to have these at work, but not anymore :(