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Looking for the Write Stuff, Part One.
Oct. 9th, 2007 05:25 amI've been doing a lot of writing by hand, this past while. There are various reasons.
It was much quieter and less obtrusive than a laptop during those long days in the hospital with Mum (when having something constructive to occupy my mind counted for a lot.) It was also convenient: a pad and pen don't need power cables that people can trip over, nor do they need the related searching for sockets to plug said cables into so the writing devices can run on mains or charge their batteries. Diane and I call it the "Cyberskulk" – a hunched-over walk scanning the wall and skirting-board for outlets, and let's be honest, looking more than a bit like Groucho Marx on the prowl for Margaret Dumont.
I was also getting some (though far from enough) work done, and putting it straight down on paper was oddly restful. No distractions from the task in hand. No games, no email, no internet, and especially no "research" (pronounced time-wasting) with Wikipedia.
As a bonus, my handwriting is actually getting better – or more accurately, it dropped, indeed plummeted, through the Worst Fist Ever Perpetrated barrier a while ago, but with dint of more regular practice is now gallantly climbing up the far side and out of the Pit of Illegibility once more.
And yes, I bought myself a Moleskine.
At first I thought I should hang my head at such a confession of pop-culture lemmingism, but then recalled that I used a Filofax (intermittently, granted, but it was a Filofax, not a DayRunner or any of the other clones) before the yuppies discovered it, I used a Palm Pilot because it was useful and not merely cool, and right now I'm using a Moleskine to try it out, not because it's de rigueur. The head-hanging stopped right quick after that.
Apart from anything else, I'm reaching the final few pages of the last notebook of several I bought in Bern about ten years ago. It has a black cloth cover, elastic closure, and A5 size plain paper that started glued but finished, much more conveniently, as loose-leaf held in place by said elastic closure, which doesn’t just go around the covers but passes through two punched holes in each page.
This design is well thought out: when the book is closed, the elastic snapped around the cover (and through the pages) pulls them tightly against the spine. When the elastic is released to open the book, the now-loose pages are able to lie completely flat. Clever, eh? These books were bought at about the time, in fact, that Moleskine as they're known now were coming back into full production. So while I can't say I was using Moles before they were fashionable, I can at least claim to have used something similar for the life of the current Mole incarnation.
I can understand some of the hype; they're well-made, unobtrusive and the paper's pleasant to write on whether with gel, ballpoint or fountain pen, in my case the Parker 51 my father gave me when I started Big School all those years ago. (And Diane's Mont Blanc 146 – at least she didn't get the Zeppelin-like 149 – when I can pinch it.) I intend to get something newer at Christmas; a Pelikan to keep the Mole company, perhaps? (Or maybe not. Pelikan pens are pricey!)
My Moleskine is the "large" one, but it's still pocket-size where my dear old mangy, multi-squadron-patched leather jacket is concerned, because it isn't quite an A5, and a proper A5 (like the Bern-bought notebooks) is just a bit too big to fit the pockets without undignified effort and the risk that once in it'll never come out – or that the pocket stitches will give way and it will come out, never to go in again, at least not into that pocket.
However, the other bits of hype don't stand up to inspection. This notebook – "journal" seems the preferred buzzword – is, according to the official website, the same kind as used by Picasso, Van Gogh, Hemingway, yada-yada-yada.
Tain't anything of the sort. Not even the same one used by Bruce Chatwin (small confession of ignorance – I'd never heard of him before the Moleskine blurb, and still haven't read anything he's written. Bill Bryson is my preferred travel writer.) The ones from France that Chatwin so liked to use went out of production in 1986, and the present Mole name and design from Italy is no older than 1998. Thus my comment about using my Swiss-bought ones for the life of the current Mole brand is correct, near enough.
And quite frankly, though I'll continue to use them – the bit-less-than-A5 size is convenient, no question – I'm already looking for something better. And cheaper. Definitely cheaper. Determined shopping around helps enormously, but on average Moles are overpriced for what you get.
I'm currently (re-)writing a novel outline and the second of a series of short stories in an A4 composition book picked up at one of our local stationary (sic) shops (as opposed to mobile shops, obviously.) While the big book, "Supreme" brand, isn't as handy as the Moleskine, it's just as well made; its pages are sewn to the spine rather than glued, for instance, a feature singled out for special praise in Moleskines. Its paper is noticeably better: 100g/m² (26 lb bond in the US system, I think) which is about as heavy as any paper I've seen in anything not deliberately made as a sketch- or watercolour book.
The Mole's paper, by contrast, feels much lighter. I rooted about on several Mole-selling websites (including the official one) and couldn't find anywhere which listed paper weight along with the other specifications, but I'd guess it's 70g/m² or thereabouts. That's lighter than standard printer paper, probably so light that I suspect any broad-nib fountain pen – like the old italic-nibbed Platignum I used to play with, to say nothing of some pens, often horribly expensive ones, which lay down ink like a paintbrush – will bleed through, maybe so much that you couldn't write on the other side of the page.
Now, I may be wrong about this. Certainly Neil Gaiman speaks highly of the Mole, and uses a fountain pen himself when writing in it; so far he hasn't made any criticism of the book's paper thickness that I've ever seen. But if that stationer in Newbridge has A5 size Supremes with the same heavy paper as the A4, I think I've found what I'm looking for. Next thing will be to find unassuming plain leather covers for them all – A4, A5, Moleskine, the lot.
Next, a good think about what fountain pen to add to my Christmas list...
It was much quieter and less obtrusive than a laptop during those long days in the hospital with Mum (when having something constructive to occupy my mind counted for a lot.) It was also convenient: a pad and pen don't need power cables that people can trip over, nor do they need the related searching for sockets to plug said cables into so the writing devices can run on mains or charge their batteries. Diane and I call it the "Cyberskulk" – a hunched-over walk scanning the wall and skirting-board for outlets, and let's be honest, looking more than a bit like Groucho Marx on the prowl for Margaret Dumont.
I was also getting some (though far from enough) work done, and putting it straight down on paper was oddly restful. No distractions from the task in hand. No games, no email, no internet, and especially no "research" (pronounced time-wasting) with Wikipedia.
As a bonus, my handwriting is actually getting better – or more accurately, it dropped, indeed plummeted, through the Worst Fist Ever Perpetrated barrier a while ago, but with dint of more regular practice is now gallantly climbing up the far side and out of the Pit of Illegibility once more.
And yes, I bought myself a Moleskine.
At first I thought I should hang my head at such a confession of pop-culture lemmingism, but then recalled that I used a Filofax (intermittently, granted, but it was a Filofax, not a DayRunner or any of the other clones) before the yuppies discovered it, I used a Palm Pilot because it was useful and not merely cool, and right now I'm using a Moleskine to try it out, not because it's de rigueur. The head-hanging stopped right quick after that.
Apart from anything else, I'm reaching the final few pages of the last notebook of several I bought in Bern about ten years ago. It has a black cloth cover, elastic closure, and A5 size plain paper that started glued but finished, much more conveniently, as loose-leaf held in place by said elastic closure, which doesn’t just go around the covers but passes through two punched holes in each page.
This design is well thought out: when the book is closed, the elastic snapped around the cover (and through the pages) pulls them tightly against the spine. When the elastic is released to open the book, the now-loose pages are able to lie completely flat. Clever, eh? These books were bought at about the time, in fact, that Moleskine as they're known now were coming back into full production. So while I can't say I was using Moles before they were fashionable, I can at least claim to have used something similar for the life of the current Mole incarnation.
I can understand some of the hype; they're well-made, unobtrusive and the paper's pleasant to write on whether with gel, ballpoint or fountain pen, in my case the Parker 51 my father gave me when I started Big School all those years ago. (And Diane's Mont Blanc 146 – at least she didn't get the Zeppelin-like 149 – when I can pinch it.) I intend to get something newer at Christmas; a Pelikan to keep the Mole company, perhaps? (Or maybe not. Pelikan pens are pricey!)
My Moleskine is the "large" one, but it's still pocket-size where my dear old mangy, multi-squadron-patched leather jacket is concerned, because it isn't quite an A5, and a proper A5 (like the Bern-bought notebooks) is just a bit too big to fit the pockets without undignified effort and the risk that once in it'll never come out – or that the pocket stitches will give way and it will come out, never to go in again, at least not into that pocket.
However, the other bits of hype don't stand up to inspection. This notebook – "journal" seems the preferred buzzword – is, according to the official website, the same kind as used by Picasso, Van Gogh, Hemingway, yada-yada-yada.
Tain't anything of the sort. Not even the same one used by Bruce Chatwin (small confession of ignorance – I'd never heard of him before the Moleskine blurb, and still haven't read anything he's written. Bill Bryson is my preferred travel writer.) The ones from France that Chatwin so liked to use went out of production in 1986, and the present Mole name and design from Italy is no older than 1998. Thus my comment about using my Swiss-bought ones for the life of the current Mole brand is correct, near enough.
And quite frankly, though I'll continue to use them – the bit-less-than-A5 size is convenient, no question – I'm already looking for something better. And cheaper. Definitely cheaper. Determined shopping around helps enormously, but on average Moles are overpriced for what you get.
I'm currently (re-)writing a novel outline and the second of a series of short stories in an A4 composition book picked up at one of our local stationary (sic) shops (as opposed to mobile shops, obviously.) While the big book, "Supreme" brand, isn't as handy as the Moleskine, it's just as well made; its pages are sewn to the spine rather than glued, for instance, a feature singled out for special praise in Moleskines. Its paper is noticeably better: 100g/m² (26 lb bond in the US system, I think) which is about as heavy as any paper I've seen in anything not deliberately made as a sketch- or watercolour book.
The Mole's paper, by contrast, feels much lighter. I rooted about on several Mole-selling websites (including the official one) and couldn't find anywhere which listed paper weight along with the other specifications, but I'd guess it's 70g/m² or thereabouts. That's lighter than standard printer paper, probably so light that I suspect any broad-nib fountain pen – like the old italic-nibbed Platignum I used to play with, to say nothing of some pens, often horribly expensive ones, which lay down ink like a paintbrush – will bleed through, maybe so much that you couldn't write on the other side of the page.
Now, I may be wrong about this. Certainly Neil Gaiman speaks highly of the Mole, and uses a fountain pen himself when writing in it; so far he hasn't made any criticism of the book's paper thickness that I've ever seen. But if that stationer in Newbridge has A5 size Supremes with the same heavy paper as the A4, I think I've found what I'm looking for. Next thing will be to find unassuming plain leather covers for them all – A4, A5, Moleskine, the lot.
Next, a good think about what fountain pen to add to my Christmas list...
