How many notebooks do you have going right now?

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.
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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.

Duh on me! You already said that...

I have a muji notebook, schlump, but idk if the muji store around here carries that kind of spiral! : \

croosh Q: where do ya'll keep your pens?

I am really into staionary and pens. I carry around a pencil case in my purse most days that has lots of different fancy pens in all sorts of colors. The one thing that they all have in common is that they're all fine point. I hate fat point pens. I whipped it out recently at dinner when someone asked for a pen and got some weird looks but you never know what you might need!! I have two mini moleskins on the go atm (yellow, orange) and also one with graphing paper that Dayo sent me from Japan.

Not Japan - Hong Kong!!

lol I forgot about that :>

I think you sent me another one too that may ahve a little bear face on it? I'll use that one next probably. :)

sorry you can't grab a spiral-bound muji pad! lemme know if you need a muji-mule & i'll hook you up, i go there to buy .38 fineliners whenever i'm in london.

croosh Q: where do ya'll keep your pens?

― now all my posts got ship in it (dayo), Saturday, 7 July 2012 02:21 (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

a bunch in my bag, & one (clipped, now, because i lose to many otherwise) in my trouser pocket. i really really like the pen-behind-the-ear as well. idk if it has some sort of terrible-affection element to it, i worked for an architect for a while & felt like it was the professional environment that made me eligible to be a pen-behind-the-ear guy. can't find a google image right now but le pen pens by metzy iirc are dimensionally really good for this, also biros &c.

it was the orange moleskines i was checkin out today btw, enbb, they're really nice. i want the grey ones next though.

I think you sent me another one too that may ahve a little bear face on it? I'll use that one next probably. :)

Today in fact marks the day I used the last sheet of the notepad dayo sent me, with a bear eating ice cream that says "every day feels happy like a rainbow." One of my profs in grad school had us write a little 'ticket out the door' reflection on scrap paper are the end of class and it was on that notepaper, below a used grocery list with leeks and whatnot. He gave me the best 'wtf really?' look I have gotten all year.

No notebooks, but piles of recycled parts and scores, I grab them in 100 page fistfuls to jot down new ideas on their blank backsides, then to be entered into computer and printed anew, it's basically an endless cycle of trees-to-shit

Was walking past an art supply store in Pasadena and couldn't help myself... picked up a new Rhodia pad, but it's black and has a less-intrusive dotted graph instead of the lines.

Sketchbooks have GOT to be spiral bound. Had a couple of folio bound ones and never again. Well, I used to like them before I got into digital art. Can't even scan a drawing without cutting it out of the drawing.

Songwriting notebooks have to be spiral, diary notebooks have to be bound.

Dislike lines but they can be unavoidable sometimes. Graph paper is fantastic for music notebooks because you can write tab or write staves or write this kind of semi-Gregorian notation that translates really well into sequencer grids. That reminds me I bought some lovely graph books at Lidl but I never used em cause I stopped writing music ::sadface::

lol that's awesome abbs! (:

One for work and which I have on me at all times, one for random scribblings, and a spare in my car.

I go through at least one notebook a month and keep them all in a box when I'm done, in case I get sued/arrested in the future (hazard of working as a news reporter in a country with limited press freedom).

oh man the bear notebook! suddenly all my stationery feels inadequate

picked up a new Rhodia pad, but it's black and has a less-intrusive dotted graph instead of the lines.

― Elvis Telecom, Saturday, 7 July 2012 06:26 (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ooooo

I am writing a short story, and I use three notebooks for it: two to draft paragraphs, and a master notebook where everything comes together. I also have a fourth notebook that I'm using to kind of map out the plot for the story, and to plot out future short stories & novels.

I have a fifth notebook which is basically "tearing apart" scene by scene a novel that I used as an inspiration for my writing style.

Then I have a bunch of miscellaneous notebooks for random notes: one for a proposed reading list, another that's just a bunch of 90s movies, at least two for music aspie shite, and so on...so yeah, that's 7+.

I'm not particular about what kind of notebooks I use, usually standard cheap spiral ones with lined paper. A lot of the stuff I use now was just lying around the house. As far as writing goes though, I only write fiction in pencil. Ink is fine for notes and lists and whatever preproduction hoops I want to jump through, but whenever I try to actually compose with pens, it's always a mess. And though I eventually will take the master notebook copy & type it out in a word processor document, I really don't like typing out first drafts; I feel like the keyboard changes my writing style in ways I find slightly unsettling.

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

― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Saturday, July 7, 2012 1:03 AM

Have I told u lately that I <3 u

I generally have two or three gridded large-size Moleskine Cahiers going at a time. Those are for "work"/practical things. One will be generic, the other two for specific "projects", erstwhile classes I guess when I was in college. One pocket-sized blank hardcover Moleskine at a time for intermittent diary-ing. Current one going exceptionally slowly. But I've filled five since 2006.

They're all filled about 20% with crap like this and then I buy another one and leave the last one 80% empty haha this is me. so many half filled books! I buy those cheap Chinese hardcover ones with the glossy black cover with red corners , tons of em. at the mo I have a tiny a6?size little black book, that I stole off N, so it has some of his game design laundry lists and sketches in front. Im working on my Snail comics again.

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 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 :(