How many notebooks do you have going right now?

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 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)