Most of my creative writing is handwritten. I usually use legal pads, or more preferably wire bound legal pads. It’s easy to write on both sides of them and for some reason the yellow just does it for me. Every once in a while I decide to by a fancy notebook. In the past it was Moleskines, more recently it was ones from etsy made with Tomoe River paper. I have a (cheap) fountain pen, so I figured I’d try some better paper.
The problem I run into is that I never use the fancy notebooks. The paper is better, and the ink flows smoother. It has a better tactile feel to it. But it is a fancy notebook and it should only be used for the good stuff—the stuff I want to look over a decade or two from now and be proud of.
So I’ll be very careful and take my time to write in the best handwriting possible. I’ll last for a few pages before my handwriting gets sloppier, or a have another idea that doesn’t fit, and I abandon that fancy notebook. I go back to the spiral bound legal pads which contain a chaotic jumble of non-linear thoughts. There are notes and poems in the margins, things crossed out all over the place, and handwriting that becomes only legible to me if I squint real hard at it and pick it up from context.
So how do you feel about fancy journals. Are you able to treat them as the paper they are, or do you too put them on a pedestal?
My favourite notebooks for fountain pens are Claire Fontaine notebooks/paper. They are not too expensive and are so good to write in, the pen just glides over the paper.
I also have a stack of cheaper notebooks from Muji which is a Japanese mini department store that sells a small range of everything at a reasonable price.
I’ve also purchased some some handmade beautifully bound leather notebooks from Japan. When I received them, they were so nice that I couldn’t bare to write in them.