journaling (on paper)

[silverflight8]

Leaving aside the whole issue that's slowly developing on me regarding internet privacy and me hosting my journal (privately) on LJ...physical journals!

I don't longhand journal because I am too wordy and it gives me hand cramps, but I do like having a physical and I use it as a mix of to-do list, reading tracker (since 2019, maybe I'll buy Excel at some point), to-read list tracker, small offhand journal/today lines, and place to stick all kinds of flat memorabilia, ranging from ticket stubs and admissions to newspaper clippings found in old books and stickers.

I bought a small Moleskine early on and immediately hated it. It is fairly expensive but mostly the paper is horrendous. Top peeves in writing in notebooks:

1. Paper quality - ghosting/bleedthrough/feathering of ink - ghosting is seeing the shadows of the ink from the other side of the paper, bleeding is the actual ink showing on the other side, feathering is the ink spreading and making all your strokes fuzzy
2. Journals that don't lay flat so you have to forcibly prop them open with the other hand
3. Did I mention my feelings about paper quality?!

Anyway the ghosting and bleedthrough on the Moleskin were really bad. It made only one side of the paper useful, which is such a waste. I also miscalculated and got a tiny notebook, around A6 size, which made me feel like I was writing in a tiny cramped space. However, I did discover I really like dot grid. It's much less intrusive than graph paper or plain ruled paper.

I can't write in a straight line for the life of me, so some kind of ruling is necessary.

At the end of 2017 I looked briefly online and basically looked for a dot-grid with the least amount of ghosting, and ordered a Rhodia Webnotebook. And I love it! Honestly, it's really good in terms of paper - I actually switched midway though to using fountain pens, and it takes fountain pen ink really well; almost no ghosting, no feathering at all, nice smooth surface to accept ink, but not so un-porous as to make the ink sit on top of the paper too long (and lead to smearing). The pages are cream/ivory not white, and the cover is this sort of soft pleathery stuff that I'm afraid of scratching, but otherwise I really like it. Oh and I've put bookmark post-its in since there is only one ribbon, and no pen-loop, but otherwise meets my requirements perfectly.

I just spent awhile searching online through reviews for a replacement one once I run out of this one - though this one is taking a couple years so it's not like I need one urgently. And if I hate the next one I'm going to probably go right back to Rhodia...I was originally planning to try Archer + Olive's really thick paper ones, but I've learned that they are really bad with fountain pens according to reviews, unlike their site page which of course simply claims they are great with fountain pens. Grr. But the reviews have test pages showing front and back - I love that this is convention - and it's awful. So far I haven't found one particular journal that I really want to try yet. There are some like Tomoe River paper, a Japanese brand, with apparently crazy good reviews of the paper but which are pretty much one-side papers again; and I like the covers of Western-style journals better than the Japanese ones. Though then again I suppose I could black out the cover with some paint. I may try Leuchtturm1917 or maybe Franklin-Christoph. I don't want anything fancy with indices and table of contents and calendars. I just want plain dot grid.

I've also thought about using the refillable paper journals, to appease the super picky paper part of me - is good paper so much to ask for?! But I really like the aesthetics and durability and permanence of a good, stitched journal. And because they have a limited number of pages, they are a discrete unit of time.

Comments

[connie]

I don't have any fountain pens, but I do have a Leuchtturm1917 that I used back when I was bullet journaling. (I have since switched to a Filofax-type system.) There is definitely some amount of ghosting in the Leuchtturm, at least when using markers (Staedtler Triplus Fineliners, for example). It's not enough to bother me, but if you want to be completely unable to see one side of the page from the other, it might not be the best choice for you.

[silverflight8.livejournal.com]

First OMG Connie I haven't seen you in so long and I hope you're well. How are you?!

Hm how are you liking the filofax system? and how does it work?

I don't own any staedtler to test with but I think the ink is probably comparable. Honestly it's kinda surprising. As a child I thought having a set of Staedtler pens was the height of wealth and I coveted them. (And still kinda do)

[connie]

Hi! I'm doing well! Still in NYC, coming up on my second wedding anniversary this weekend, just hiked Hadrian's Wall Path in England last month. When I post online these days, it's on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or my own blog (possibleday.com), but I do still read LJ/DW most days.

I've been using the "Filofax system," by which I really just mean a pocket-sized binder whose inserts I've completely customized through a combination of Etsy and drawing out my own charts on paper, since early last year, and I like it because it combines what I liked about bullet journaling with some more flexibility. If I want to rearrange the pages, I don't have to make them all over again from scratch; if I screw up a page, I can just take it out and recycle it. I also tend to recycle most of my obsolete pages now instead of saving them forever like I did with my bullet journal, which seemed like a good anti-clutter move. I also like that it's smaller so that I can throw it in my purse easily.

And I totally know what you mean about the Staedtler pens! I used to see little packs of them at the bookstore when I was a teenager and think they were so ~fancy~, but then adult coloring became a thing and I learned that larger packs exist with lots of colors, so I have a whole bunch of them now. I do use them in my planner for some things, but not for everyday use because the pages are small enough that I prefer using a finer-tipped pen so I can write tiny!

[silverflight8.livejournal.com]

Congrats on 2 years! And that sounds like an awesome hike, I would love to do that someday. And the pictures on your blog are amazing. Ahhh I want to go so bad now!

The flexibility is pretty cool - the rearranging sounds super helpful. . But I like that once I fill up that journal, it's done. It stretches this particular time and now it's all filled up. Even if it has content that kinda makes me cringe haha. (Some bad sketches in pen here...all wonky lines trying to work out the design).

I knowwww - I have a whole set of 0.38 pens from Muji that someone kindly gifted me and I love how thin they go. Staedtler were always so fancy to me also just because they're generally high quality. Deep, opaque lines, tips are not going to feather out, etc. I kinda want to get a set of Micron pens, but I should use my other pens first.

[connie]

I do have some separate journals that I intend to hang on to... but I'm really bad about starting them and not sticking with them and then starting a new one instead of finishing the old one! I started getting into watercolor this year, and I was kind of hoping to watercolor journal during our hike, but after the first two days, I found myself way too exhausted to do it.

I have some Microns! I like them, but I feel like the tips aren't super durable, so I tend to only use them for drawing and not writing. I have a bunch of 0.4mm Pilot Hi-Tec-C Coleto gel ink refills (what a mouthful) and a pen body that holds four of them, and that's what I use for everyday writing in my planner.

[silverflight8.livejournal.com]

haha the magpie mind problem! Watercolouring on the go seems very ambitious but would be absolutely awesome if it could be done - that's taking en plein air to its limits. (Now imagining hiker's backpacks, already stuffed with towels and such, also featuring easel legs sticking out).

Interesting - that is good to know! I like Pilot a lot - I had the Metropolitan fountain pen for awhile (till I lost it on the bus, RIP, I overfilled my bag :( ) and the Juice pens are great. I should look into them - but I don't need more pens, self! I don't need more pens!

[connie]

When I said "during our hike," I definitely meant at the end of the day at the guesthouse for the night, not literally during the middle of the hike, if that makes it seem any less ambitious... and I had a tiny 4"x6" watercolor notebook with me, so no need for easels either! It was still too much, though. Next time, I would just take photos as normal and paint from the photos after I get home; heck, I may still do that for this time.

Random, tangentially-related side note: the Microns seemed to work better on watercolor paper than several other pens I tried!

[silverflight8.livejournal.com]

Oh that is a lot easier! haha
Painting off camera snapshots is a time honoured tradition.

I didn't know that - are they wetter maybe? They seem to be artists' pens anyway, maybe they were designed for that (like watercolour washes over top - they are waterproof right?)

[connie]

Yeah, it's definitely fine to paint on top of the Microns. They say that they are waterproof and fade-proof. I didn't even mean interacting with the paint, though; they seem to deal with the slightly rough texture of watercolor paper better than a regular pen does. Maybe you're right that they're wetter?

[silverflight8.livejournal.com]

That is cool. Most fountain pens are not waterproof at all (since it would clog the nibs) so you can't really combine them with watercolouring on top or anything.

[connie]

Oh, very interesting! I've never tried fountain pens, so I had no idea.