Moleskin

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I just got my first one. It's pocket-sized with grid paper. Tell me about yours and how you use it.

― Ms Misery, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 18:27 (nineteen years ago)

i sit outside small cafes, furrow my brow, and write my shopping list

― botero, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 18:30 (nineteen years ago)

i have the same one. i use it as an all-purpose notebook/datebook, and i love it. grid paper is key.

― lauren, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 18:30 (nineteen years ago)

I've had at least 10. Full of drawings, lyrics, random thoughts, shopping lists, phone numbers, gig information... Pretty much my life. Moleskins are awesome. Just wish they were a bit less money as I go through them like candy.

Class doodle: http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d35/andimags/earlymanz-sm.jpg

― Andi Mags, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 18:31 (nineteen years ago)

I write sloppy so like the grids. I also like to draw and make knitting charts so grids are awesome.

I've been using a regular old notebook for awhile for lists, figuring out bills, etc. but I saw so many geeks at SXSWi with these I was jealous of their sleekness.

I shall know make my knitting charts with a furrowed brow.

― Ms Misery, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 18:32 (nineteen years ago)

maybe i'll also practice my grammar in mine as well. every ilx post I make could serve as a grammar how-not-to exercise.

― Ms Misery, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 18:33 (nineteen years ago)

yaay!
people will say they're over-rated and over-priced but whatever, they are nice

- i have a datebook with one week on one side of the page and a lined page on the other side
- small soft-cover (cardboard) blank paged notebooks (with pockets though too) that fit in the datebook's pocket
- a small grid paper hard-cover one (that i rjg sent me years ago in a sinister xmas xchange!) - it's halfway used now, as i seem to just type most of the time anyway
- a really good fake of the same small size but with lined paper. i am fine with lines, prefer blank really

― rrrobyn, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 18:34 (nineteen years ago)

I carry a blank sheet one in the 8.5x5.5 size almost everywhere (including SXSW!) as detailed here

― Oilyrags, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 18:35 (nineteen years ago)

― Ms Misery, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:03 (nineteen years ago)

You mean Moleskine?

― James Redd and the Blecchs, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:07 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.wildcatcommerce.com/productimages/large/26/moleskin.jpg

― rrrobyn, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:08 (nineteen years ago)

what the hell happened to my post up there?

― Ms Misery, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:13 (nineteen years ago)

i've got the same one as Oilyrags and tis almost-filled with doodles and randomness. I like that the pages are just the right thickness, thick enough to stop the ink from seeping through the next page and not as thick as regular art sketchbooks.

― Roz, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:15 (nineteen years ago)

I have the little reporters one which I use for "to do today" sort of lists...and sometimes random notes about techno when on the bus.

I have the bigger black one, about the size of a DVD box, and I use that for anything and everything, planning articles, sketching other ideas out...

I don't have the grids, mine are all lined. I'm surprised how addictive always carrying a moleskine and a Muji 0.5mm pen is...

― Ronan, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:17 (nineteen years ago)

i'm all about the Pilot G2-07 pens myself. Best pen ever.

― Roz, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:21 (nineteen years ago)

I have an irrational hatred of these things, and am almost always happier with almost any random pocket notebook, straight down to steno pads and 99-cent top-spirals.

― nabisco, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:22 (nineteen years ago)

Actually I think the source of my hatred is a kind of category error, in that I don't think my shit should be perfect-bound before I even write it.

― nabisco, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:24 (nineteen years ago)

am I the only one who didn't notice the e on the end? I did think it was called the same as those toe cushion things.

― Ms Misery, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:25 (nineteen years ago)

i'm with you nabisco. i love going to the grocery store and picking up a 1.29 notebook along with food for the week. two different people got me moleskines though? and i kind of love them. mostly for notes and stuff, which i never am able to keep track of in my spiral notebook.

― Mr. Que, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:26 (nineteen years ago)

I like that the pages are just the right thickness, thick enough to stop the ink from seeping through the next page and not as thick as regular art sketchbooks.

Also, the paper itself is really excellent: even though it's very smooth, they hold dry media like soft pencil surprisingly well!

― Oilyrags, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:28 (nineteen years ago)

All I have to say on the subject of pens is in that blog entry linked before.

― Oilyrags, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:29 (nineteen years ago)

what I said in my phantom post is that you more art stuff than I do knitting stuff!

― Ms Misery, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:34 (nineteen years ago)

It's my reason for living. I'd like to make it my reason for making a living.

― Oilyrags, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:36 (nineteen years ago)

the paper is really nice, true
my notebooks were gifts, so y'know, might as well use them. the datebook was an indulgence. i mean, if you have to look at something everyday and write in it everyday, why not get something you like a lot??

i used to be all about cheapass spiral bound notebooks but then i also used to be about staying in hostels, living with roommates and drinking the $10 wine

― rrrobyn, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:36 (nineteen years ago)

now i am just elitist and poor obv

― rrrobyn, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:37 (nineteen years ago)

and i use pencils now

― rrrobyn, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:38 (nineteen years ago)

I don't think my shit should be perfect-bound before I even write it.

I resisted them for a long time because I thought that they'd bend badly at the center (I hate drawing on a curved surface) and wouldn't lie flat for scans, but they do! I don't know how they managed it, but it's a fucking marvelous design.

― Oilyrags, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:38 (nineteen years ago)

I#'m not getting them, but I do like a good writing pad. I have a Paperchase one with squared maths paper in it and rows of chairs on the front which I almost don't want to use - I sacrificed two pages from it once for a mix-CD cover, never heard back on the track selection, was more bothered then about spoiling my notebook.

I'm a fan of Pukka Pads, spiral bound down the side and not the top, for everyday doodling.

― Mippy, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:46 (nineteen years ago)

Ha, Oily, my objection to the perfect binding isn't about physical characteristics, it's about a psychological sense of fineness and finishing that takes me out of the right frame of mind for making notes and drafts and random crap.

(I also can't start drafting a piece of fiction in double-spaced Garamond with a bold 16-point title at the top, or a cover page that says "by ME," because then it has this look of completion that gets me hung up on the completed weight of every word typed; I start writing in default wide-margin Times New Roman where it doesn't look like anything special and I can toy with it and repeat myself and it's just text, and then when I'm feeling done I'll give it a nice format and do the final revisions with that sense of completed weight hanging over everything. This is probably just a personal thing -- I only say it to explain why the niceness of the Moleskines grates on me. At the same time, I fully understand how if you want to save a bunch of notebooks over the years and go back to them, a nice neat stack of these will be way preferable to crumpled spiral-bounds or whatever -- but that's precisely because you WANT them "finished" for posterity!)

― nabisco, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 20:04 (nineteen years ago)

I also can't start drafting a piece of fiction in double-spaced Garamond with a bold 16-point title at the top, or a cover page that says "by ME," because then it has this look of completion that gets me hung up on the completed weight of every word typed; I start writing in default wide-margin Times New Roman where it doesn't look like anything special and I can toy with it and repeat myself and it's just text, and then when I'm feeling done I'll give it a nice format and do the final revisions with that sense of completed weight hanging over everything.

YUP. 100% OTM. I write fiction and I do this as well.

― Mr. Que, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 20:06 (nineteen years ago)

I just like that Nabisco knows what perfect binding is and used it in a sentence.

― Laurel, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 20:07 (nineteen years ago)

you know, my mother bought me one of these moleskines a few years ago for X-mas. she knew that i used to tote around regular notebooks all the time, and she thought that it would be a nice thing to get me.

i never imagined that these were that desirable (i'm so out of it re such things). i think that i still have it in one of my cabinets in my apartment.

― Eisbaer, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 20:07 (nineteen years ago)

I also have a BEAUTIFUL commonplace books at home, like with hand-made paper and a hand-knotted binding and I haven't been able to write in it ONCE since I received it as a gift about seven years ago.

― Laurel, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 20:09 (nineteen years ago)

Oh yeah, I can totally see that. The fact is that the physical process in intrinsic to drawing, but incidental to writing.

― Oilyrags, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 20:09 (nineteen years ago)

I have a bunch of the new ones without leather binding, lined unlined and gridded. Less fancy, but easier to write in since they open wider.

― milo z, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 20:12 (nineteen years ago)

I took the Moleskin Rome city guide with me and liked being able to write on the maps and scribble down information.

― Elvis Telecom, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 20:42 (nineteen years ago)

I also can't start drafting a piece of fiction in double-spaced Garamond with a bold 16-point title at the top, or a cover page that says "by ME," because then it has this look of completion that gets me hung up on the completed weight of every word typed;

I never realised it but this is really OTM. Of late I have been writing things in Notepad. I dont need the distraction of the finished page, I just desperately want to get the words out of my head.

― Trayce, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 21:18 (nineteen years ago)

Can we get back to how excellent gridded paper is? I need to transition over entirely to it.

― Casuistry, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 22:29 (nineteen years ago)

Ha, Oily, my objection to the perfect binding isn't about physical characteristics, it's about a psychological sense of fineness and finishing that takes me out of the right frame of mind for making notes and drafts and random crap.

otm, but on the other hand I don't entirely agree with The fact is that the physical process in intrinsic to drawing, but incidental to writing.. As someone with maniacally right-tilting, huge, loopy handwriting, I need a wide page. Also, I'm picky about the texture of the paper. Too glossy or too rough is irritating. And line spacing. Huge spaces make me feel kid-ish.

― emilys., Thursday, 22 March 2007 02:54 (nineteen years ago)

The mind inside my mind says that if you think yr thoughts are so perfect as to not be subject to revision -- read: tearing out the sheets of a tearable notebook -- then you need a taste of the rings.

― libcrypt, Thursday, 22 March 2007 03:02 (nineteen years ago)

you need a taste of the rings.

what does this mean?

― Oilyrags, Thursday, 22 March 2007 03:49 (nineteen years ago)

i write everything in liquid gold on moleskine notebooks made of ruby-studded papyrus, and when the words flow, no matter what the words, angels sing

― rrrobyn, Thursday, 22 March 2007 04:00 (nineteen years ago)

what does this mean?

It's a "bitchslap". I'm sorry. It was just the mind in my mind talking. My regular mind thinks that mind is an asshole.

― libcrypt, Thursday, 22 March 2007 04:15 (nineteen years ago)

otm, but on the other hand I don't entirely agree with The fact is that the physical process in intrinsic to drawing, but incidental to writing.. As someone with maniacally right-tilting, huge, loopy handwriting, I need a wide page. Also, I'm picky about the texture of the paper. Too glossy or too rough is irritating. And line spacing. Huge spaces make me feel kid-ish.

Yeah, if you think that the physical process of writing is incidental, you're probably doing much better than I am in the penmanship stakes.

― C0L1N B..., Thursday, 22 March 2007 04:21 (nineteen years ago)

Type and feel of the page is irrelevant to me (except I find it hard to write with a pen on one sheet of paper or with a pencil on multiple sheets), but pen quality is huge. With a ballpoint (or rollerball that doesn't put ink down well enough) I think faster than I write and then my handwriting gets worse and then my fingers cramp from holding too tight...

― milo z, Thursday, 22 March 2007 04:29 (nineteen years ago)

Sorry to offend those of you who like to write longhand. Speaking for myself I

#1 - hardly ever write except on a word processor

#2 - am not much of a writer anyway.

― Oilyrags, Thursday, 22 March 2007 13:12 (nineteen years ago)

thoughts are so perfect as to not be subject to revision

The types of things I write in notebooks, and therefore my new moleskine are so far from perfect! But the neatness and compactness of the book containing the madness within helps my mind feel organized and tidy. I wrote in it for the first time last night, a bunch of scribblings working out a knitting pattern I'm writing. hooray.

― Ms Misery, Thursday, 22 March 2007 13:17 (nineteen years ago)

I use Bienfang spiral-bound sketchbooks and Pilot Precise V5 pens. We live in the age of the pen. When I was going to art school I had to buy a rapidograph. I never used it. Too fussy. Now you can buy a pen that good at a convenience store. Unless you want a super fine line. But you can always draw it and shrink it. The "original" sometimes doesn't even exist.

― Beth Parker, Thursday, 22 March 2007 14:13 (nineteen years ago)

test

― Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved, Thursday, 22 March 2007 14:23 (nineteen years ago)

A rapidograph? Man! They made us use crowquills! Not from actual crows, but still, dip that sumbitch in the inkwell crowquills!

― Oilyrags, Thursday, 22 March 2007 14:23 (nineteen years ago)

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