I've taken the step back into using paper journals. To this end I purchased a Moleskine notebook. It's so tempting to be in some 'secret' band of creative types, to have chanced upon - unknown and unexpected - a great secret. I feel that a lot of the 'Moleskinesque' webpages that we see are no more than covert viral marketing ploys. And they work - I've gone out and bought a Moleskine myself. But 'real' artists / dreamers / poets / philosphers / diarists / notetakers and plain old compulsive paper-purchasers, well they write because 'its' in them; the urge to be, to release on paper, some part of oneself. But the page can be lonely too and it's only natural for us to want to face that off-white challenge in the company of others - even if we only know that those others are out there in time and space. Hey, thanks for the marketing to let me know that I don't need to be alone!
Perhaps (hopefully) what people are really excited about is the idea of thinking and writing when all they seem to be doing is raving as if the notebook had just been invented?
To be fair though, the Moleskine suits me - it's a touch larger than A4 folded in half and the paper is a nice buff tone and the covers are hard enough to write anywhere. The corners are rounded which is practical and the binding opens flat. All over a good range of qualities. Not cheap, but not bulky either. By the way, the paper seems fine even though many people complain of ink seeping through the pages. I'm using a medium Waterman (Phileas I think?) of some sort with blue Waterman ink. There's the odd splotch that appears on the underside of a page, but nothing significant. I've ordered a few Hero 329's (eBay - 3 for $9.95 plus postage!) as they have fine/fine nibs - plus they'll remind me of the old Parker 51 that I lost all those years ago ...
