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The folk of Kiki James, London-based purveyor of leather goods, kindly sent me a free Tuscan Wrap journal to review here on the site. I want to let the Kiki Jamesians know right off that they should have sent this journal instead to Spiritual Evolution of the Bean, for no one writes better paper and pen product reviews than she.
First off, I don't know where you stand on leather. Vegetarians, you're probably not in the market for a product like this. But as leather goes, this is clearly well out of the $16.99 purse from Target quality range. It's smooth and smells subtle, like a nice wallet, and closes with a leather... well, wrap. 
The notebook itself is firmly affixed to the inside of the leather notebook jacket-- no swapping out paper refills once you've filled this thing with grocery lists and Kilroy Was Here's. No sir (or madame), bring on the Big Thoughts. (That said, KJ offers similar notebooks that do in fact have refills). Kidding aside, I'd recommend this to people who aren't afraid to write in notebooks. 
The lined paper is quite sturdy and has a nice texture to it (not discernible in this awful, florescent lit photograph). I have no doubts it would stand up to a fountain pen. Why didn't I test this out? Well, that's where you come in. Welcome to the Second Official Strikethru Drawing For A Random Prize (SOSDFARP)*, in which you enter a drawing to win this journal by leaving a comment on this post. In your remarks, I hope you will consider sharing an experience in which you struggled with the dilemma of defacing a pristine notebook by actually writing in it. This is, I suspect, a universal dilemma among the pen and paper set.
There is a catch: if you win the drawing, you need to write in the notebook, and then provide me with the missing piece of this review -- how the paper stood up. I've got a good feeling about this thing-- it looks pretty major league-- but I need data to back this up. So promise you'll do that if you enter the drawing. I want to see some writing happening in this notebook. It doesn't deserve to be a trophy journal, tucked into your bookshelf next to other intimidating projects like Don DeLillo's Underworld.
Drawing will happen on December 15th. Journal will be mailed out end of that month. Hoping to see your notebook tale of woe down there in the comments.
For a proper review of this product, see the venerable Office Supply Geek Web site.
*Some time ago, I held the First Official Strikethru Drawing For A Random Prize (FOSDFARP), (note that due to an image overwriting snafu, you're seeing some entirely unrelated buttons in that post) in which was given away a set of typewriter buttons from The Regional Assembly of Text (ok, the typewriter buttons aren't specifically pictured in the Regional Assembly link either, but you get a better idea of what they looked like).
lighthouse lines
9 hours ago
27 comments:
For my 2009 NaNo, I had picked up some blank note cards and I struggled to write anything on them. I looked at the five individually wrapped packages and thought how could I be the one to rip them out of their homes and start defacing them with my bits and parts of ideas?
So, I decided to take a little notepad from work. I carried it around with me for several weeks and I think I wrote something down once. I decided that because it only had a cardboard back and gum adhesive top, that I probably wasn't writing in it because I was afraid that it would break apart.
I went to an office supply store and got a small, black book journal. It fit in my back pocket and had a nice elastic strap to keep it closed. I've always been fascinated with Indiana Jones' Dad's old journal and have dreamed about carrying something similar.
Anyways, I have written on one side of one page so far. Apparently scared that my thoughts and ideas will somehow make the blank pages less valuable...
The Death of the Journal
I struggle to fill journal books. There's this thing I have about them, whereby I'll start writing or drawing in them, initially enamored, smitten by their fine covers and pristine pages, eventually to lose interest, before they're full, and shelve them away for awhile. Then I'll start all over again with another journal book. It's like a disease. The result is a hodge-podge of various subjects, out of chronological sequence, scattered across an assortment of partially filled journal books.
I have a assortment of subjects I've journaled about – either drawing or writing – among which are: homemade cameras; photography; homemade abacus bead-frame calculators; experimental video production; and a project to design and construct a flying model rigid Zeppelin airship. This latter subject I've thought about on and off since I was a kid, but didn't have an opportunity to work on at length until a nine-month business assignment, about eight years ago, found me with plenty of time on my hands, at which point I began in earnest. The result, after returning home months later, was a scattering of journal-filled notes and sketches, poorly organized and representing various formats: both handwritten and in electronic document format via my Palm PDA and folding keyboard.
After I arrived back home and the dust settled, I decided to organize all these disparate notes into one concise project folder. It was at this time that I realized that the journaling method of writing into hardbound journal books was obsolete, at least for my mind, which was used to jumping around from one subject to another.
Bound books represent data in serial order; they cannot easily be reorganized without tearing out pages or rewriting. What I needed was a method of organizing both my writings and drawings in random access order. What I needed were a three-hole punch and three-ring binders. This new system is built around a template, designed on Page Maker and printed on B/W laser, permitting both sketching and writing. A bordered title section at the top, and left borderline delineating the punched holes, function to form a distinct, uninterrupted work area in the middle of the sheet, with a faint grid of guidelines, for both writing and drawing. Completed sheets have a subject heading or title; date; and indicate how many pages are included in this particular entry. Completed entries are filed away in distinct 3-ring binders that are organized by subject matter.
I could have simply scanned all my various sketches and hand-writings into PDF files, together with the electronic journal files already entered, to create one massive electronic project document. But I wanted the tactile permanence of paper to represent the final repository of my project's history.
The result of this random-access method of journaling has been a more organized body of conceptual work. But also a house cluttered with handmade pinhole cameras, highly experimental video tape productions, and a partially completed Zeppelin rigid airship model. I don't know if the model will ever be completed and fly, but there's always the dream, hidden away in those now-better-organized sheafs of journal entries, for my descendants to either read or toss, after I'm gone, at their whim. Such is the fragility of one's legacy, left for others to pick through, to keep or discard at their choosing.
I'm pretty picky about what journals I'll fill. I tend to fill up my spiral bound, college ruled notebooks by the end of the college semester with more stories that class notes.
Also, I'm good at filling up those composition journals. Not to mention I love to collect them because they come in so many pretty/amusing colors and patterns.
But I've never had a journal that cost more that $3, even the one I write my diary in (which is getting pretty boring, and I might just start dealing with my thoughts and filling that one up with stories too)
I'm afraid of expensive journals because they cost so much and really the only thing that makes them differ is the pretty cover, and maybe some history *coughmoleskincough* That doesn't stop me from admiring and pinning after all the journals in Borders, Waldenbooks, and Barnes&Noble though. But I'm not ready to shell out over $10 for some dinky notebooks that I can fill with mediocore thoughts, then have to buy a new one when I can fill the cheap ones for less than 1/10th of the cost.
Still, I do love the allure of carrying around a might fine notebook and sitting around writing and trying to be secretly impressive in my writerly ways. Of course, that might be because I fall into the stereotype, and I don't care! however, the thought always comes back. 'What should I write in it?' I tend to think expensive things should last a long time. I feel like I'd have to have some super amazing ideas for the special notebook, or no notebook at all. And since there's rarely a time that I have super awesome ideas, I'll probably stick to my cheap notebooks.
Unless I get a moleskin real cheap. Then it won't matter. Possibly.
Journals are such personal things. Yes, these are nicely made, but the paper is ruled (and for my own uses, that's unfortunate).
Enough years of being a book conservator has totally turned me off on leather covers/cases. Good cloth may not be as rugged, but it is archival.
Not enough line-free journals out there, so I'm grateful for the blank Clairefontaine notebooks, and for the Moleskine sketch books. (I'll add the faintly-ruled Rite-in-the-Rain journals, too!)
I knew there would be some good stories out there about the dilemma of the too-nice notebook. Spec, I see your point about leather-- it is definitely one of those things you have to have a specific taste for.
OOh! nice journal. I remember having a lovely notebook, every time I finished a page, I was unhappy with it so I would rip it out, until there was like, 5 pages left. I think in the end I just threw the notebook away.
So right now I have a pretty nasty journal with a sad looking flower on the front (but it does have multi-colored pages!), and its so ugly that I'm not afraid to write any old rubbish in it...which means ususally lists of things I want/need, names for books characters, stationary supplies to buy, things to pack for a holiday, possible interesting deaths for a book character, and then finally really weird stuff that I can't even writing like "alternative universes" and "clocks".
...I think the point is that the anticipation of writing is actually better than, well, writing!
I'm a perfectionist and get easily disapointed by a page filled with mediocre writing...the blank page of pristine notebook lets you kid yourself that EVENTUALLY you'll have something seriously important and meaningful to write about, and that it will pour smoothly from your pen, without smudges (fountain pen+ left handed-ness + shiny paper = one big blue smudge)
mispelings, or, uh, brain-blockages half-way through a sentence (is it normal to start writing a sentence and have absolutely no idea how its going to end?).
I can fill up a notebook faster than anyone alive. For this reason I buy Moleskine XL cahiers in quantity, and I really don't care how much they cost. Sure, I could do the same writing in a cheap Mead spiral, but years of student papers turned in on spiral notebook paper has given me a nervous tic.
I've had scads of elegant journals because this seems to be the one present everyone feels comfortable giving me for holidays and such. Unlike sweaters, journals always fit.
I had a Cavallini Roma Lusa journal once, leather with marbled edges. It took me two months to scribble it to smithereens, but I still take it out every now and then just to touch the paper. Elegant.
Well I tell ya, I've been reading these responses, and I can't really hold a candle to 'em, narrative-wise. Plus, that line by Monda, "Unlike sweaters, journals always fit," how am I supposed to compete with that?
All I can say is this: ever since I started working on my novel at night, a good pen and a good notebook have always come in handy.
I'd have one hell of a time writing in this.. normally to break the fear of soiling a new journal I just flip to the last page and start testing ink/pen combinations. That's just about the only way I can convince myself to write in it. Then, once it's "dirty" I'm ok. I think everyone I know has the same problem.
I have no trouble whatsoever writing in anything - in fact, I usually can't wait to write in any new notebook or journal I buy (hope that doesn't disqualify me)! Also, if I'm the lucky winner, I'm afraid all I could test it with are gel pens. I'm not a fountain pen user. And, full disclosure, I only use one kind of gel pen. So if I win I'll be happy to show the world how the Uni-ball Signo RT .38 and .28 pens do with this paper!
Sph33r.... that is ALWAYS what I do with new notebooks!
Steve, gel pens are all good, I just want to see some writing happening in this thing. In fact, I further challenge the winner to finish the WHOLE JOURNAL. It is a very rare journal of mine that reaches the last page.
Deek,
At the risk of overcommenting on my own post, note that I can't leave a post on your blog. Something is wrong with the comments field. I tried!!
Once, for my birthday, I was given a gift of the most beautiful notebook I had ever seen. It was square, in padded black leather, with 29 metallic leather circles in many different colours adorning the front cover, some overlapping, some floating free near the edges. The first page was bright, shocking pink, and smelled of book shops, and was followed by many, many pages of cream parchment paper with strands of golden glitter trapped, somehow, inside each page. Between these pages lay a black satin bookmark, built into the spine, tipped with two beads, one the colour of strawberry chewing gum and the other reminiscent of a glass of limeade on a sunny day.
I could not bring myself to write in it. For years, it sat on my bookshelf.
We moved house, and when I unpacked it I realised it had been damaged. There were lines of wear on the front, and a circle had faded from a rich burnt orange to a sickly gold. I picked up my fountain pen and loaded it with purple ink. I opened the book to the first page and wrote the phonetic alphabet; the ink shone as brightly as a new penny or an oil slick on a rainy day.
Since then, it has been half-filled with interesting or useful things. How to read someone's palm, signs of the Zodiac, Roman numerals, conversions, the 7 deadly sins, and so on. I look forward to filling it for the mundanities of life; how to iron a shirt or pay an electricity bill. But for now, I need a journal for my dreams, thoughts, feelings - for what is written expression if completely factual?
oh... i love a good give away and this one looks like a good one. The pictures of the journal have me intrigued. like you - i do struggle with writing in a new journal ... will what i have to say do the journal justice or will it just be the ramblings of a thirtysomething? i have found a way around that - at least for a couple of my journals :-) i turned two of my new journals into hollowed out books. while it may sound silly to some (including my partner) - i find that i now use them and enjoy using them on a daily basis though not in the manner the publisher intended them to be used (to be sure).
so - while i use my journals in non-traditional ways - i would like the opportunity to use this one in the manner in which it was intended to be used... i am thinking a journal for the new year.
@Strikethru said: "Deek,
At the risk of overcommenting on my own post, note that I can't leave a post on your blog. Something is wrong with the comments field. I tried!!"
I had a similar problem a while ago, turned out I had to clear my cookies; the browser wasn't allowing me to post, due to some dark software evil-doings.
Profbrug, I would totally read a blog called Ramblings of a Thirtysomething.
Joe, do you mean this helped you comment on someone else's blog, or fixed your own blog?
This very week I spent ages deciding to write a very specific thing in one of my new notebooks, the first time I'd ever thought before putting a pen to paper. I wrote some things in it for the first few days and was so exited and happy with how things were going. That is untill, I lost it. It literally vanished into the air and I have never been so devistated about an inanimate object in my life. No one had seen it or picked it up in any of the classrooms I had been in that day, it was very upsetting.
Very.
@Strikethru said: "Joe, do you mean this helped you comment on someone else's blog, or fixed your own blog?"
It was commenting on someone else's blog. I'd visited their site previously; there musta been an old cookie or something from that visit on my PC that prevented me from freshly posting feedback.
I do have one nice red leather book with blank pages that look appropriate for fountain pens, not sure about watercolors. My goal was to have each member of my family, grandparents and kids, pick their favorite poem and write that poem in the red book. This way I would have a sample of my grandparents handwriting and my kids would be obliged to save the book as a memory of their grandparents and a look at their own handwriting as it existed when they were 9 & 11. Everyone lives far away, excuses, excuses but I want to get this project off the ground so my kids and I will pick the first few poems, then mail the book with instructions to send it back.
OOOOooo, a James Journal! I like the ring to that... James, James Journal. EH maybe not, not as agent sounding as I would like... Oh well I tried.
I wanted the large, dusty RECORD book the moment I spotted it in an old stationery store in Oneonta, NY. Price: $40. But I was only visiting, and I was broke. Forced to leave the volume behind, I became obsessed with its 504 oversized pages of minty green, Eye-Ease® ledger paper, made in USA by the National Blank Book Company; a huge, “End-Bound” Account Book, with hard, black, pebbled covers, bound in maroon on top and bottom. The word RECORD was printed on its thick spine in gold caps. I had important plans for that book and as soon as I saved $40, I traipsed five hours back to Oneonta and bought it. That was in 1982. Since then, the book has resided in my footlocker, like a wooly mammoth frozen in time. I can’t recall the last time I seriously tried to determine its direction. Every time I open the footlocker, it seems to look up at me begging to be freed from its block of ice.
This week, while I dealt with the flu, that wooly mammoth took advantage of my feverish deliriums and claimed itself. I guess it finally realized that the possibility of containing memoirs, poetry, essays, short stories or vignettes was not likely. Those writings were gathered in other, more portable books purchased later. The Mammoth shook itself from the doldrums of my indecision and began consuming whole mountains of loose, scribbled scraps that had been accumulating in piles for years. Why not? Sure, there are more dignified assignments than the housing of colorful, disjointed nonsense, but what price glory? Gel pens in hand, I embraced the fun of transcribing sweet-nothings into the big book— writing, doodling and slowly recovering from the flu in time for Thanksgiving.
Like all of us who linger at the portals of this fine blog, I am a stationery head; I definitely have a stationery disorder. Perhaps this obsession lends itself to the notion of nurturing our Creative Bliss. Anyway, “why” doesn’t really matter. In a world gone mad, we odd birds are still having fun and that’s alot to be grateful for!
Happy Thanksgiving to all.
Oh, I am in awe of the beauty of this little gem.
For me, a journal such as this would start on the second page (the first is just too daunting) and would start with Friday, 1 January 2010, or equivalent.
I nearly always start everything with the day, date, year, and if a letter or a journal entry, the time and sometimes the temperature (just for the environmental cues).
I find that starting with the date is like setting the scene. I tend to write my journal entries like letters and my letters like journal entries, and both benefit from the structure of the calendar.
I also have one (or two) moleskines each year that I use for the year, attempt to fill up, and then start a new one right on 1 Jan. I start each journal with a list. Sometimes it's a list of resolutions, or a list of people I saw or just a list of other lists, but for me, lists get things flowing.
This journal is so spectacular looking, it looks like it begs to be held, and will age the year gracefully, getting better as it's used.
I would love to be chosen to review such a lovely piece!
I just found your blog searching for manual typewriters! I love the trial run you did way back in the day on your first machine. The line "the only place you can expect to find a manual typewriter is in a virtual marketplace" is really nicely expressed. Anyway, I just wrote my first novel for NaNo this year...50,000+ words completely by hand. Which got me to thinking it might be cool to bring back the typewriter...I like old things and vintage periods anyway, so it's not much of a stretch :) Oh, and I don't need to be entered to win the journal...I have the same abandonment issues as one of the other posters! It deserves a better home.
And the winner is... Alex!
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