The Journal Shop goodies!

Very quick post...

I'm feeling poorly and since nothing cheers me up and makes me feel better than buying a shed-load of stationery and since it is National Stationery Week and since The Journal Shop is still doing 3 for 2 on selected notebooks and a 25% off offer...

I bought:

• Tombow Object Fountain Pen
• 2x packs of J Herbin ink cartridges in diabolo menthe
• 80ml bottle of diamine steel blue ink
• A C.OVER Gum diary in kiwi
• 3 large Cartesio notebooks (in blue, taupe and red)

The Journal Shop were absolutely fantastic as I was having a bit of trouble with my order so I Tweeted them and they helped me out. At 9pm on a Friday. How good are they!!!

Reviews of all the goodies soon.

Book-planning notebook - which one to choose?

I’m starting to plan a new book. Yes, I know none of the others are published (yet) but there’s one beginning to demand to be let out of my head.

Now, although I will use Scrivener to do the computery bit, I know I will do a huge amount of planning and writing in a notebook too. I always do. There’s something about writing on paper that triggers my thoughts and imagination in a way that typing straight into white space can never accomplish.

But which notebook to choose? I have, after all, rather a large selection to select from!

Discounting anything significantly smaller than A5 (I need space to plan and to write in and smaller books just won’t work), in the notebook emporium currently there are:

[links are to reviews of the notebook by me]

• 2x Cartesio large (13 x 21cm) notebooks
• 1x Moleskine plain notebook (13 x 21cm)
• 1x Clairefontaine school exercise book
• 1x Ciak A5 leather-bound notebook
• A spiral-bound A5 lined notebook with cats on the cover (no idea where that came from. I suspect someone gave me it as a gift as I write and have a cat)
• 1x Midori World Meister Dainel A5 book (which somehow didn’t make it into the photo!)
• 3x Oxford Activebooks
• Several A5 filofaxes
• 1x Quo Vadis Habana notebook (~15 x 23 cm)
• 1x Clairefontaine A5+ notebook (a few pages missing but still mostly intact)
• 1x Clairefontaine Age Bag A4 notebook
• 3x spiral-bound A4 notebooks

Top row, L-R: cat book, Age Bag with A5+ on top, Ciak, Habana
Bottom row, L-R: A4 spiral bound, Moleskine, exercise book, Oxford Activebook, Cartesio

How to whittle that down to one book to use?

Okay, well, it has to be fountain-pen friendly paper, so that’s the two Cartesios out.

It has to be lined, so that’s the Moleskine out.

I’m not a fan of spiral-bound books as I find the binding gets in the way, so that’s the cat books and the three A4 books out (despite all being surprisingly fountain-pen friendly!).

I’ve tried the Clairefontaine A5+ book before and although it’s lovely to write on, the very wide margin is too annoying and it won’t lie flat.

The Quo Vadis Habana book won’t lie flat enough (I use another one as a running log and it drives me batty for this!)

The Midori World Meister doesn’t have enough pages (it has just 92 sides) although otherwise is glorious (review coming soon)

The school exercise book also has too few pages (96 sides)

I’ve tried an A5 filofax before and although it worked reasonably well, I eventually reverted to a bound book, so that’s the filofaxes and the Oxford Activebooks out (though the Oxford paper would have been a dream to write on and the paper could be filed in either filofax or Mulberry A5 binders).

So what am I left with after that initial whittling?

• 2x Cartesio large (13 x 21cm) notebooks
• 1x Moleskine plain notebook (13 x 21cm)
• 1x Clairefontaine school exercise book
• 1x Ciak A5 leather-bound notebook
• A spiral-bound A5 lined notebook with cats on the cover (no idea where that came from. I suspect someone gave me it as a gift as I write and have a cat)
• 1x Midori World Meister Dainel A5 book (which somehow didn’t make it into the photo!)
• 3x Oxford Activebooks
• Several A5 filofaxes
• 1x Quo Vadis Habana notebook (~15 x 23 cm)
• 1x Clairefontaine A5+ notebook (a few pages missing but still mostly intact)
• 1x Clairefontaine Age Bag A4 notebook
• 3x spiral-bound A4 notebooks

The Ciak A5 notebook or the Clairefontaine A4 Age Bag notebook.

I’ve gone for the Clairefontaine. It lies flatter than the Ciak (though admittedly, not as flat as a bat, but not far off), the paper is divine – far smoother than the Ciak – and the acres of space invite free-flowing thought (I hope!). I used the same kind of notebook for the last book (just with a green cover) and it has been glorious to work in. Fountain-pen just glides across the paper and with 192 pages, there is more than enough space to write.

Sources:

Bureau Direct:

Clairefontaine A5+ notebook

Clairefontaine Age Bag A4 notebook

The Journal Shop:

Quo Vadis Habana notebook

Cartesio large (13 x 21cm) notebooks

Ciak A5 leather-bound notebook

Midori World MeisterDainel A5 book

Amazon:

Oxford Activebooks

A5 filofaxes

Tesco:

3x spiral-bound A4 notebooks

Gifts:

Moleskine plain notebook (13 x 21cm)

The spiral-bound A5 lined notebook with cats on the cover

Review of Clairefontaine A5 cloth bound exercise book

Happy day!! A parcel of new notebooks arrived this morning from Bureau Direct (my new favourite stationery store).

Those of you who are cast in the same mould as my DH will be saying, “Why do you need more notebooks, oh owner of The Notebook Emporium*?”

*the name DH gives to my stash of books

Because, this happened when I started to write in my Cartesio notebook the other day!!

Cartesio acting like blotting paper

Yikes!

Now, I love my Cartesio notebooks (see where I have blogged about them here) but, oh heavens, what a mess!

I had wanted a nice notebook that I could stick in my handbag to use for jotting notes for a book in. Cartesio books are just about perfect for it, except the paper seems to have converted itself into blotting paper!

So, I did a search for Clairefontaine A5, and a few options came up.

Why Clairefontaine? This picture sums it up…

Label from another Clairefontaine product

 

Why A5? Because my writing filofax is A5 so I wanted to have the freedom to take the book around with me for jottings on the go, and the ability to take the pages out and file them in the filofax.

That of course, led me to want a Clairefontaine notebook that I wasn’t going to be precious about!

Anyway, the two kinds of notebook I ordered were the Clairefontaine A5 cloth bound exercise book, and two Clairefontaine 1951 Vintage-style exercise A5 books. Today I will review the cloth bound exercise book. (The vintage-style books will be reviewed soon.)

Front and back covers:

The cover is made of stiff card with a glossy finish. I bought the purple, but there are a variety of colours to choose from. On the front cover, at the bottom right, there is the logo with Clairefontaine written beneath it. The pattern on the cover reminds me of when our digital TV receiver has a hissy fit and pixelates everything, but as this is a notebook which will ultimately be ripped apart, I don’t mind that I don’t really like it.

The back cover has the logo and Clairefontaine in the middle and then the bar-code and a small description at the bottom.

Front cover

back cover

The binding:

The binding is, as it says, cloth, with the pages glued in. I’m sure people who know more about binding would be able to tell me the proper phrase, but that’s the best I can describe it. The pages are glued in, in a block, not in sets of pages. They are glued in pretty tightly and there would be no chance of pages becoming detached by accident. I have torn one page out and it didn’t tear cleanly (but maybe as more pages are removed this will be easier?)

The paper:

Clairefontaine describe their paper as the best in the world and I would have to say they are not boasting undeservedly. The paper in the exercise book is 90g/m² but I’m sure most of us would know that it isn’t just the weight of the paper that counts, but the finish. The same weight paper can behave very differently with fountain pens (um – see above pictures!).

The paper is white with a wide margin on the left of 3.75cm. For me (who is going to be taking the pages out) this will work well in the filofax for the RHS page, but when I turn over, the wide margin could be a pain. Although the book was described as A5, it is actually larger than A5 at 16.5cm x 21 cm.

There are 96 sheets/192 pages in the book but as usual, the front two pages are hard to remove. The first one (which is plain white on both sides) can’t be easily removed as it is stuck to the cover; the second page (the first lined page) is stuck to the plain page. It is the same for the final two pages of the book, so really, there are 94 removable pages.

The corners of the pages are squared off rather than rounded.

Open. Not much flattability.

Line spacing:

From the top edge of the paper to the first line is 12mm. Then the lines are 8mm apart, with the bottom line being 14mm away from the edge of the paper. There are 24 lines on the page. The margin is in red and the line colour is a purple-grey and feint.

Flattability:

Limited. I’m sure that with some vigorous bending and persuading it could lie flat, but it doesn’t at the moment.

Fountain Pen Test:

The paper is gloriously smooth to write on and even my wettest ink/nib combinations worked fabulously with no discernable feathering or bleed through. The toughest combination I use is the italic Parker vector with an italic nib and Waterman’s ink, but this was a dream to write with on this paper.

No discernable feathering...

No bleed-through

Summary:

I love the paper. I’m less enamoured of the very wide margin, I would have preferred it to be A5 (not wider) and I would also prefer to be able to tear out the pages more easily, but on the whole, this is a great, fountain-pen friendly notebook at a decent price.

Stationery purchases... Thank you The Journal Shop!

Oh, I just can’t resist them… Cartesio and Ciak – from The Journal Shop. Even better as they are 3 for 2 at the moment!

I always have a page per day, red leather Ciak as my journal. I love the way the elastic strap holds a pen against the pages and I adore the paper (although this year I did wonder if they had made it thinner than in previous  years as there was a tad more bleed-through).

I also have a Travel journal by Ciak – royal blue cover, with plain paper on one side and lined paper on the other. I tend to stick things to the plain paper side (either directly or using corner mounts like you get in photo albums) and then write about it on the facing page. I don’t use it nearly enough though.

Anyway, when I ordered my usual red, day-to-page journal I spotted that there was a “buy two get another free” offer. As many of you will realise, I love notebooks and I have come to the realisation that any notebook smaller than a large Cartesio (also in the three for two offer incidentally) is just too small. To cut a long story short, I quickly added two royal blue A5Ciak notebooks to the basket, one of which was then free.

I was going to stop there, but then… well, then the Cartesio was calling me and I fished out my current Cartesio (sea green) and remembered how utterly gorgeous it is and why it is usually my notebook de rigeur). So, I popped a couple of them in my basket (again in sea green. I would have gone for another colour had there been any in stock in size large, but there wasn’t. So sea green it was again. This isn’t a problem. The colour is fantastic!).  And then, because that covered the ‘buy two’ part, I needed something for the ‘get one free’ part, so I popped in the only Habana smooth (twin pack) in 16x24 cm that they had – red. Not my colour of choice. I would far rather have had them in Hawaii (vivid blue) but it was not to be.

What are they all for? (Sorry – that must have been the influence of DH breaking through!)

I will probably give one of the Ciaks away to my sister (who likes stationery as much as I do). The other Ciak may well turn into a notebook for ‘writing for ten minutes every morning’ in. Either one of the Habanas or one of the Cartesios will become the notebook for my next novel. It mostly depends on whether the Habana lies flat. If it doesn’t, it’s sacked as a book notebook (which has to lie flat next to my laptop otherwise I will get very grumpy!).

I do find it hard to choose between the Ciak and the Cartesio for my everyday notebook. The biggest selling point for the Ciak is the horizontal elastic closure which holds a pen against the edge of the paper with no worries at all. However, it has a softer cover and does not lie flat (that’s its most annoying feature!). It has a beautiful feel to it though and the paper is high quality and despite the softer cover, it is good enough to write in whilst perched halfway up a mountain waiting for DH to take photographs of the view.

The Cartesio is glorious as a notebook – beautiful cover, high quality paper, lies flat, has a stiff enough cover to write in it whilst perched up the aforementioned mountain. But (and it’s maybe only a small but) the closure is vertical, which means the pen falls out.

In all honesty, the fact that the Cartesio will lie flat usually outweighs its inability to hold a pen. Hence me giving a Ciak to my sister, not a Cartesio! I can always put an elastic band around the Cartesio to hold a pen!

I did have a good rootle around the Journal Shop site (since there was a 3 for 2 offer on. It would have been rude not to!). I have long been intrigued by the C.OVER (“see over”) notebooks but I don’t really fancy either the fact that it only comes with plain paper, or the fact it only comes in black. The Mood refillable notebooks are also intriguing but seem expensive and it isn’t clear how many pages come with each refill.

Anyway, the ‘notebook emporium’ (as DH refers calls my stationery stash) is now nicely restocked. Thank you The Journal Shop!

In-the-bag test of the Baroque (part 1)

After I did a compare and contrast for an ‘in-the-handbag’ filofax (A5 or personal – see here) I have been bag-testing the Baroque personal.

As it was when it arrived...

I bought this gorgeous little thing from the French filofax site and I use its baby sister the mini as my wallet. When I bought it, I was thinking ‘Why?’ as I have tried to use a personal size filofax in the past and always given up (and just been disorganised. I don’t especially get on with electronic things either…). It always seemed too small to write in.

A personal has failed for me for one main reason. When I am out and about, I like to write. These could be blog ideas, character notes for a story, plot ideas, etc. The personal never worked for me because the rings got in the way. Someone on here suggested that I try a slimline filofax as the rings were smaller but the rest of my writing stuff is in an A5 binder and an A5 slimline (do they even exist?) would probably still be big.

But I think I have solved it.

If the journey is big/long enough to warrant taking my writing filofax with me, it goes on the trip. If it isn’t, then it stays at home and I take my Cartesio notebook with me. On short trips, I am probably just scribbling ideas that need fleshing out (which I can then do when I am at home and reunited with the A5 writing filofax) and so the smaller notebook isn’t a problem. The Cartesio, having sewn-in pages, has no problem with the rings getting in the way and although not a true hardback, is firm enough to write in with it balanced on your knee.

The Baroque then covers everything else that isn’t writing-related. I realise this isn’t ideal and that I’m carrying two things rather than managing to combine them, but I’m willing to give it a go as the combined weight of the Baroque and the Cartesio is still less than the A5 filofax.

I admit it... the A5 is a bit of a beast

I’ll post on how I finally set the Baroque up soon.

sneak preview...

Other posts on the Baroque:
In-the-bag test of the Baroque (part 2)
The Personal Baroque (part 3)
The Turquoise Baroque is here…

Cartesio - I take it all back...

DH is a keen photographer and while that is wonderful, it does also involve quite a lot of waiting around while the clouds become ‘just right’ and the light is in the right place and so on. During these times, I usually spend a few minutes gazing at the scenery and then I usually wander off into my own little world in my head, the product of which can be a blog idea, a character developing a personality, a plot development or other such thing. In my last post, I was bemoaning the fact that I wanted a notebook for jotting down these creative ideas, but that I wanted to be able to sort the pages and re-file them into different categories.

Well, since then, I’ve been away on vacation and I packed to take with me: my A5 writing filofax (Finchley), a personal size filofax (Domino) and my Cartesio notebook. And what did I write in the most and which did I carry around with me the most? The Cartesio.

So, were the others there just for a trip?

Hmm… kind of!

The A5 was a) a bit big to carry around (although, I did have a rucksack with me so that wasn’t the main problem) and b) not quite stiff enough to write on. I love that it lies flat on my desk, but it is a bit floppy for writing on whilst perched on a rock, somewhere halfway up a hill in Mull.

The Domino was taken on holiday because I am trying to record a food diary, although I did carry it around with me to use as a notebook after the A5 failed me. As ever, the rings got in the way for writing and it annoyed me, so although it was stiff enough to work well for scribbling in, I gave up on it pretty sharpish.

Which left me with my old friend the Cartesio, which is small enough and light enough to travel easily, has a stiff enough cover to write in it with it perched on my knees and lies flat enough (and has no rings) to make scribbling my ideas down easily.

Picture from The Journal Shop

But… my complaint was that you can’t re-file the pages when you get back from out and about.

It has turned out to be less of a problem than I thought it would be. I’ve started to do two things: 1) coding what the scribble is about (writing in corner of the page and circling it… yes I know. How original!) and 2) cutting the corner off when I have dealt with the scribble.

I found that when I came to deal with the scribble, I was generally using it as a spring-board for more detail. Rather than needing to file the notes as something that was ready and complete, I was tending to flesh out the notes and I could do that straight into the writing filofax.

So, my trusty old Cartesio is my steady travelling companion and we’re getting on just fine.

You can (and should) judge a book by its cover…

I’ve blogged earlier about different kinds of notebooks (see here) and about what makes a good notebook. I’m currently hunting for the perfect notebook for jotting down ideas – ideas about blogs, articles, stories, etc. These are not ‘remember to get the dry-cleaning’ kind of jottings, or ‘look for this book’ etc. For those, I use a mini filofax (the purse-o-fax – see earlier blog post here). The notebook is to capture creative ideas while I am out and about.

Why not just use a filofax? Instead of/as well as carrying the mini, carry a bigger one to write in? And I do love a nice filofax! I love a) the flexibility of the system and b) the tactile feel and luxury of them and I already have a good number to my name (some without uses at the moment!). So why don’t I just use a filofax for an ideas notebook?

Hmm… this is where size starts to matter. Whatever I use needs to be light enough for me to want to carry around, even on a small walk (as opposed to a proper walk with a rucksack), but not so small or awkward I won’t enjoy using it. If I carry a personal filofax, the rings annoy me and writing in it is a pain; anything bigger than that starts to be a bit too heavy.

Okay, so what’s wrong with my current notebook de jour – my Cartesio  in sea-green (large - 21cm x 13cm)? This is the perfect size, has a beautiful cover that makes me want to use it, and if needed, it tucks into the vertical pocket of my A5 Finchley filofaxes. Sounds perfect, no?

Well, on Monday I might have a thought about a blog and on Tuesday think of a great plot for a story and Wednesday think of an article… and then all the ideas will become jumbled up. I want to be able to file things and a sewn notebook like the Cartesio doesn’t let me do that.

So, I’m torn between the flexibility of being able to move pages around and the ability to write easily across the whole surface, without having to stop and take pages out (as I would with a filofax). And, whatever I decide on has to feel beautiful to use and be fabulous to look at.

What I really want is a notebook where I can pull the pages out to file them, has paper that is a delight to write on and which has a beautiful cover. (Otherwise I could use any one of a whole host of nasty little notebooks where you can pull the pages out).

Any suggestions??

What makes a good notebook?

I’ve been thinking about “What makes a good notebook?” partly because, after years of teasing me about what he refers to as my 'book fetish', DH asked me if I had a spare notebook he could use. He wanted something really small so he could carry it around with him and it not weigh much. Of course, the Notebook Emporium (a large box of notebooks I possess) yielded the perfect notebook for him, but it left me wondering why so many of my notebooks were lingering unused in the Emporium.

I came down to three main qualities: functionality, size and feel.

Functionality and size are pretty linked. What is the notebook for? For jotting things down on the run, a large A4 Moleskine would not be the one you would choose, whereas for long, involved notes and plans, perhaps an A4 Moleskine would be perfect. To me, the sizes fall into three: pocket, handbag and desk, linked to their functions. To others, I guess pocket and handbag are one category, but I think a true pocket sized book is pretty small.

Other aspects of functionality would include – does the book lie flat (and does it matter if it doesn’t?). If it sits on a desk, be that at home, work or on a train/in a cafe etc, yes, it absolutely has to lie flat! If it’s for scribbling in on the run, not so vital. My filofax has to lie flat (but thankfully I haven’t had to resort to rocks to ‘train’ it yet, unlike Yvotchka and her pocket Finsbury!)

Then there’s does it have a page marker? Many nice notebooks do, but not all. Quite often I need to marks several pages, so in many ways it doesn’t matter as I have generally resorted to post-it notes anyway. For a diary/journal – yeah – you need a page marker.

Does it have a closure? And what’s the functionality of it? What do I mean – what’s the functionality of it? It keeps the book closed of course! Ah, but does it also hold a pen against the closed pages like the Ciak books do? If it’s horizontal, it can. But then you can’t open one cover out and slot it into the pocket of your filofax. If it’s vertical, it doesn’t hold loose papers tight against the cover securely. Do the closures get in the way of you writing? If the book is large, do they seem a little slack after a bit?

Loose leaf versus bound. This can be the killer. A loose-leaf book is useful for re-filing notes. Bound books are nice for posterity and keeping things securely together. But if you don’t use all the pages in a bound book before the project is completed, what do you do with them? Start another project in the book? I guess it depends on the use of the book. I don’t like to have lots of projects in one book, but I also hate having spare pages at the back of a book.

So that leaves feel. How does the book feel? How is it covered? Does it have a nice texture or colour or design? Is the cover hardback or softback? What’s the paper like to write on? Is it smooth, thin, thick, hateful to fountain pens, dreamy to write on? If the cover feels horrible in your hand and your favourite pen blotches and weeps through all the paper, the chances are the book will not get used.

So, why is the Notebook Emporium so full of intact notebooks? Well, DH would say that it’s because I keep buying them (and he would be right!) but also, although they are functional in size, most of them fail the feel test. I just don’t like writing in them because they are not beautiful enough and they don’t fill me with joy.