Comments on Strikethru: Review and drawing: Kiki James Tuscan leather wrap...

Please see our leather wrap journal with marbled ...

2010-10-05T05:20:50.570-07:00

Please see our leather wrap journal with marbled edges at
http://www.shoppiamo.it/marbledarts/product.php~idx~~~1~~datasetpointer~~~1~~leather+wrap+journal+with+marbled+edge~.html

And the winner is... Alex!

2009-12-15T07:07:56.854-08:00

And the winner is... Alex!

I just found your blog searching for manual typewr...

2009-12-10T13:58:01.766-08:00

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.

Oh, I am in awe of the beauty of this little gem. ...

2009-11-30T20:12:08.325-08:00

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 wanted the large, dusty RECORD book the moment I...

2009-11-24T11:01:24.528-08:00

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.

OOOOooo, a James Journal! I like the ring to that...

2009-11-24T08:06:28.256-08:00

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 do have one nice red leather book with blank pag...

2009-11-20T10:18:20.949-08:00

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.

@Strikethru said: "Joe, do you mean this help...

2009-11-19T14:34:20.110-08:00

@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.

This very week I spent ages deciding to write a ve...

2009-11-19T10:09:29.420-08:00

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.

Profbrug, I would totally read a blog called Rambl...

2009-11-18T23:16:15.362-08:00

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?

@Strikethru said: "Deek, At the risk of over...

2009-11-18T16:30:48.467-08:00

@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.

oh... i love a good give away and this one looks l...

2009-11-18T12:17:56.201-08:00

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.

2009-11-18T11:11:41.032-08:00

This comment has been removed by the author.

Once, for my birthday, I was given a gift of the m...

2009-11-18T11:11:19.695-08:00

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?

Deek, At the risk of overcommenting on my own pos...

2009-11-17T23:25:20.057-08:00

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!!

Steve, gel pens are all good, I just want to see s...

2009-11-17T10:38:14.462-08:00

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.

Sph33r.... that is ALWAYS what I do with new noteb...

2009-11-17T10:36:09.250-08:00

Sph33r.... that is ALWAYS what I do with new notebooks!

I have no trouble whatsoever writing in anything -...

2009-11-17T04:57:24.213-08:00

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!

I'd have one hell of a time writing in this.. ...

2009-11-16T15:01:55.308-08:00

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.

Well I tell ya, I've been reading these respon...

2009-11-16T09:55:02.816-08:00

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 can fill up a notebook faster than anyone alive....

2009-11-16T04:52:06.760-08:00

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.

...I think the point is that the anticipation of w...

2009-11-16T04:48:39.092-08:00

...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?).

OOh! nice journal. I remember having a lovely note...

2009-11-16T04:32:58.686-08:00

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 knew there would be some good stories out there ...

2009-11-15T22:27:10.262-08:00

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.

Journals are such personal things. Yes, these are ...

2009-11-15T10:12:32.780-08:00

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!)