A strange obsession with notebooks
I love buying notebooks. I buy them even when I don’t need them.
The photo shows the notebooks I found in my study. (Which admittedly is a large room, and I don’t think there are too many other notebooks lying around the house; maybe just 3 or 4.) As you can see, I like my notebooks to be hardbacked, or spiral-bound, or preferably both…
Out of the 12 there, 3 have never been used, and another 3 are currently blank because I ripped out the old unwanted scribbles that they had. (I didn’t lose anything meaningful – just Italian vocabulary lists, a few pages of holiday spending, and some old work notes.)
All the ones that have been used have some sort of history. Even the ones that haven’t have something about them. That grey, blue and red striped one in the middle? Bought in Asda for £1 the other week just because I liked the look of it. No idea what I’ll use it for.
The little black one with the inset picture on the cover was a present from a friend 10 years ago, and never used because I couldn’t think of anything worthy enough to put in it.
That little blue plastic-covered one at the front was lost for a long time. When I found it in a box earlier this year, I was delighted to find some ‘lost’ poems in it, written about 7 or 8 years ago.
The brown striped one at the back has brown paper pages which look beautiful but don’t soak up fountain pen ink very well. I persevere though, because that’s my ‘official’ poetry notebook, and I like writing in proper ink with a proper nib.
The purple one with the elastic band and the NaNoWriMo stickers? Well, you can probably guess what that one’s been used for. It’s been my writing and note-taking notebook for a couple of years of NaNoWriMo, but since it’s mostly full, it’s been retired this year in favour of the mostly-white-and-flowery book over on the left.
The little blue one with a dandelion is my log of stuff (food, weight, to-do lists). It’s a journal of sorts, and I think that’s actually where my obsession comes from – the 8 years that I kept a journal, always in a hardback notebook of varying size (I think I got through about 6).
I like notebooks much too much. (And if anyone is ever stuck for an idea for a present for me…)
Anyone else have more notebooks (or pens or other writing paraphenalia) than they really need?
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on October 18th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
I confess, I’m another notebook addict! They’re everywhere in our house, from tiny pocket ones *just in case* I get an idea while walking/shopping/driving/ etc, to beautiful big expensive ones that remain blank because nothing seems special enough for them yet. When I see one of those displays of them at Eason or Waterstones, oh no, it’s like heroin. Or chocolate. Or chocolate-flavoured heroin. *sigh*
on October 18th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
I stockpile notebooks when they are on sale. Back to school time is bliss. What if I ran out. Oh the horror. Pens, too. I’m old enough that we didn’t have a computer until I was sixteen, but I wrote in some form or another just about my whole life. Running out of paper is not an option. My mother was the same way. She grew up very poor so, unlike me, she didn’t have the option to pick up a new notebook anytime she needed.
I’ve been in houses where the host can’t find a pen and pad to keep score in a card game. What kind of home is that?
.-= Tina Kubala´s last blog: Weeding the Library =-.
on October 18th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
It used to be pens with me, fountain pens, biros, felt tips, fibre tips, straight nibs, italics – I have so many of them and hardly use a one. Most of the time I grab a pencil to be honest. I have notebooks going back many years but I’ve only ever used one at a time. I’m currently using a moleskin one Carrie bought me – I’d never fork out that much on one for myself – but I’ve had it for years. So much of the time I work straight onto a computer even if it’s just a poem. I actually took a scan of the last poem I drafted by hand. I keep meaning to do a blog about it.
.-= Jim Murdoch´s last blog: Memories of Spike (part one) =-.
on October 18th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
I have all sorts of notebook/albums that are supposed to become journals of places I’ve visited, for souvenirs, tickets, photos, postcards. The bits and pieces are all in shoeboxes, the notebooks are waiting…
I have a gorgeous one my son brought back from Thailand for me, made of some sort of organic paper or something. I can’t think of anything worthy enough for that.
.-= A. @ A Changing Life´s last blog: PhotoHunt: a free choice =-.
on October 18th, 2009 at 8:32 pm
/So/ glad it’s not just me! And yes, chocolate-flavoured heroin is a reasonable analogy…
Jim, my obsession /used/ to be pens, about 15-20 years ago. I loved different-coloured inks, especially green and purple, and never had less than about 8 different pens in my case. These days, I use mostly pencil, or gel pens if I need to write something neatly. And my fountain pen, of course.
on October 19th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
I love them too, though I wish I had more pretty ones! I also love pens, pencil cases…
on October 20th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
I’m a notebook addict too, though I prefer the moleskin versions. I tend to buy them when I’m starting a new project. I think it provides me with inspiration.
.-= Jon´s last blog: The Happy Hiding Place =-.