More handmade journals at Etsy, by artkitten. I like the projector design:
Animal Art
Here are some animal sketches from the recent safari trip. A pocket size notebook is a great thing to bring on safari, especially if, like me, you’re not a photography nut. I brought a tiny digital camera (a Casio Exilim, which also happens to be my favorite golden rectangle-ish shape, though much smaller than 3×5) and I did take hundreds of photos, but I found that trying to capture things in drawings was more fun. You don’t have a lot of time, as the animals are moving and the safari vehicle is moving and your fellow travelers are jostling around trying to get their photos. But in the end, I filled a sketchbook with drawings that became a very personal memento of the trip.
Originally posted at 3x5life
Notebook Uses: Food and Exercise Journal
Here’s someone who is just starting to use a notebook to track food and exercise:
First things first, to find out if I can keep track of my eating and exercising, I have started a food and exercise journal. This is nothing fancy right now, it is just a spiral notebook left over from school. Once I have proven to myself that I can actually keep track of everything I want to keep track of, and that I want to continue with this nonsense, I might actually buy a Moleskine or some other “nice†notebook.
The format of my notebook is currently free form. I tried to find some templates, but this apparently is not as common as I would have thought. I think I will discover would have been a helpful template to follow.
Drawing the line in the sand, I wrote down my weight, bodyfat percentage and all the common lifting measurement (arm, thigh, waist, chest, hips and neck)
This brings up two common notebook questions:
If you are just starting to use a notebook, is it better to try it with a cheap one and then upgrade to a nice one once you’ve gotten into a routine? Or is it better to start with a nice notebook to encourage yourself to keep using it?
Is it better to use a notebook that has blank, free form pages, or is it easier to have template pages when the use is something specific like this?
Safari Sketchbook
Here’s a drawing from a safari trip in Africa. Watercolor and brush-tip marker in a HandBook pocket sketchbook.
This was the view from our campfire area– as the sun set, the meadow took on twilight shades, and the tall plants in the foreground were silhouetted. The trip was amazing– I’ll put some of the animal sketches in future posts.
Originally published at 3x5life
Two New Notebook Reviews at Black Cover: The Picadilly Notebook and the Agawami +1
Black Cover has just reviewed a very promising Moleskine-alternative, the Picadilly Notebook. It only costs $5, which, given recent economic events, will surely be appealing to all the addicts out there who were planning to cash out their 401ks to buy notebooks. Black Cover has even given readers a code for a 15% discount!
Less of a bargain but also very attractive is the Agawami +1 notebook reviewed last week.
What Kind of Notebook Is Best for Creative Writing?
Cat Rambo’s thoughts On Writing Process, a guest post at Jeff Vandermeer’s Ecstatic Days.
I write in large sketch pads, because I like the space to draw arrows and circles and make marginal notes. I used to write in Moleskin [sic] notebooks, but nowadays they just don’t seem large enough for novel-sized thinking. I save them for lecture notes, or lists, or personal journaling.
I’ve never tried to write a novel myself, but I have done some creative writing workshops, and I agree with Cat Rambo’s comment– larger size paper works better, in my case lined paper. This is totally in contrast to my adoration of pocket-sized notebooks with unlined paper. I use the small notebooks to make notes about things I might want to write, but the actual writing happens in a different format.
To Keep or Not To Keep: Notebooks and Posterity?
These two posts caught my eye today:
This morning I’ve been thinking about how last May my literary archives went to Texas. All my papers (letters to and from me, journals, notebooks, drafts and fragment of work both published and unpublished, contracts, bank statements, phone bills, you name it) had lived with me for over 30 years, and it was sad to see them all go, though Betsy was excited to have the boxes out of the basement.
It’s been strange since all that left not to be able to go into our basement and sort through some paper part of my life long-past. Now it’s as if a part of me is gone to live in Texas, and I’d have to go there to visit it. (From Kudzu Telegraph, via Sparkle City Blogs)
I often wonder why the lives of great writers seem to be filled with depression, tragedy, and insecurity. And why so many feel the need to destroy their notebooks, correspondence, and personal journals (or in Maud’s case, burn some and edit the rest)? (From The Lazy Reader)
The two quotes seem to represent opposing sides of how notebook-keepers might choose to dispose of their writings at a certain point in life: keep and archive them for others to read? Or go as far as destroying them to make sure no one else reads them?
I think about this with my own notebooks. If I were hit by a bus tomorrow, people in my life would no doubt go through my belongings to dispose of them, and someone would say, “Wow, here’s boxes and boxes full of those notebooks she was always using.” Then they’d probably start looking through them. Some of the stuff I’ve written in journals could be embarrassing, or hurtful to people who might read them. Yet there are a few things I’m proud of.
I’m not likely to ever occupy the status of a major author whose works might be studied, or have biographies written of me. Perhaps I should make a will and stipulate that all my notebooks be destroyed. But that seems rather sad. What would you like to have happen with your notebooks after your death? Have you left any specific instructions for them?
We All Have a Problem
Theme for today’s links: that impulse to buy new notebooks while having an inability to fill them:
I frequently buy journals and notebooks and other writing accoutrements…I just don’t use them.
Snazzy New Miquelrius Designs
By Joshua Davis, to be available soon.
(via Hip. Young. Thing)
Unfinished Notebooks
Via CoolHunting, here’s a line of limited-edition notebooks that will appeal to collectors of unique art and design. They’re called Unfinished Notebooks, made by Studio Matador.
They look great, but I’d have a hard time actually writing in one of these, I think– when a notebook seems too special, it can be paralyzing! Who wants to write some mundane to-do list or journal entry in such a beautiful object? And at $30 they’re a bit pricey for that sort of thing…