I've been especially enjoying my Moleskine notebooks lately. Maybe it is the holidays with that little bit of extra time for contemplation and writing. (No, this isn't my work. It's the dazzling work of Lisa Laughy at Ninth Wave Designs.)
I like reading moleskine stories, learning moleskine hacks and seeing what people are doing with them. Evidence of the Moleskine phenomenon is spread all over the Web, but places like moleskinerie, moleskinerie's flickr community, the moleskine squidoo pages (moleskinerie and moleskine resources) conveniently bring all this activity together where it's easy to observe.
Size Preferences. I have a strong preference for the large notebook over the pocket-sized version. It gives me room to create. My hand-writing isn't particularly small. To me, the large size moleskine notebook is a real prize. But, of course, I carry a pocket moleskine when I don't have room for a large one.
My Favorite Moleskine format. This is a hard one. I've only gradually learned how much different the moleskines are from one another. The sketchbook, with its exquisitely thick and smooth 100 pages, is the Rolls-Royce in the Moleskine line. I've used my pocket and large sketchbooks occasionally, but often feel that I'm sullying the pages with inadequate writings and drawings. Even though I used to draw quite a bit as a child, as an adult, my drawing is confined to doodling and simple diagrams. The squared journal feels too busy, although it is handy for drawing neat diagrams. The simple, blank notebook is too free-form -- I like my lines to be straight. So, for me, the simple ruled notebook with its 240 pages is best. It represents a perfect compromise for writing notes and ideas.
Clairefontaine too. If I had never written in a Clairefontaine wirebound notebook, I would be totally satisfied with my ruled Moleskine. The frictionless Clairefontaine paper is bright white and not quite rustic enough to match the moleskine brand, but it sure is fun to write on! So, I have to confess that I also use Clairefontaine's large, vertical, wirebound note pads for my note-taking with clients.
Moleskine vs. Index Cards and Books. I've found that I can read my moleskine rather than read a book when I have a few moments. This works especially well when I've already entered a fair bit of content into my skine. I have about seven or eight moleskines - pocket or large - circulating at any one time, so that's enough content to make the reading interesting. By alternating moleskines from time to time and quickly transferring urgent items to do lists and occasionally transferring content to my computer-based reference materials, it is stimulating and workable. And, of course, you can stick a few index cards in the back pocket for to do items, URLs and phone numbers.
Annotations and Additions. I like to bring four pens with me: black, blue and red 1.0 mm Uni-Ball Jet Stream plus a Bic yellow highlighter. This lets me annotate my moleskine entries or write new ones or improve organization by making entries to the table of contents pages. I find that my own previous ideas and notes often lead me to other thoughts. This way I further develop my thinking. The ability to annotate is a key advantage to paper and pen(cil). The red, blue and highlighter give me options. Writing notes in books while I read and annotating them is the same thing. It's just that here I'm furthering my own thinking and writing. That's what these books are all about.
Spreading the Love. It's tempting to dedicate whole moleskines to particular topics of importance like you might do with 3-ring binders. But, I've found that impractical. Too many moleskines to lug around. What does work is to have multiple books strategically located in places like (1) my home office desk, (2) my livingroom, (3) my nightstand, (4) my backpack, (5) the passenger seat in my car.
Pencils. Like I said earlier, I'm not an artist. At least not yet. Maybe never. But, I was readin' on the Net about drawing people and that sounded interesting. So, I did a little research on pencils. Wow! Once again, the Net has a lot to offer. Start at Pencil Revolution and go from there. The latest hot pencil seems to be the California Republic Palomino. At least, the aforementioned, Lisa Laughy, thinks so. From what I read, at least, these pencils might very well convert one from pen to pencil. They are available at the Pencil World Creativity Store on eBay and at Ninth Wave Designs.
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