I did a favor for bookshop recently and they paid me off with a Moleskine notebook. At any given time I normally have half a dozen notebooks to hand, but they’re usually pretty budget. If I’m heading out the door to a job I tend to grab whatever piece of crap is lying around that I can write on. Often at the start of a new book project I’ll assign a leftover school exercise book as the project notebook for that title, but there’s nothing special or magical about it. Just something to scratch a few notes in.
I quite like this Moleskine thing, however. It has a wonderful, old world analog feel to it. Like something Hunter Thompson may have used. Or Kerouac before him. Or Hemingway in Spain. Or, more appropriately, some grubbing roundsman on a Chicago tabloid in the 1920s.
I don’t want to fetishize it, because I’ve come to understand there is a whole world of Moleskine fetish culture out there, particularly on teh interwebz, where thousands of people seem to be in headlong flight from digital convenience back to analog clunkiness. But I’ve been making an effort to carry the thing around with me and use it in the way that writers are supposed to use notebooks. To jot down thoughts, observations, plans, to take notes and so on. It’s been an interesting exercise for somebody who hasn’t really picked up a pen in 20 years.
I divided the notebook up into a couple of parts. A sort of inbox which takes up most of the 1st half, where I jot down those immediate notes that might get scribbled onto a post-it if I was at my desk. I’ve also been using it to jot down a few things while I’ve been doing this year’s restaurant reviews, and occasionally to block out ideas for a blog or a column or a feature when they come to me.
About half way through there’s a little tab, behind which I’ve set aside a bunch of pages for ‘books’. I tend to take my time writing in this section, as it is where I compose and work through ideas for the next series as they occur to me.
At the backend of the notebook I have a few pages given over to what I think of as ‘the long arc’. This is stuff I may not get to for months if not years. But stuff that is worth storing somewhere permanently. For instance a friend contacted me by e-mail the other day with an idea for a graphic novel that I thought was kind of brilliant. I’m so deeply mired in negotiations and preparations for the next longform series, and of course the e-books I’m trying to write over the Christmas holidays, that I have no time to spare to think about it. But it’s a cool idea and one that could be totally worth investigating somewhere down the road.
All of these things are possible to keep track of with digital devices, of course. And I’m still working my masters shiny precious gadgets like a fiend. It’s perhaps because of that, that I’m also enjoying unplugging, slowing down and writing a few things out the old-fashioned way each day, including a brief diary entry before I go to bed. How odd it is to write something like that with no expectation that anybody anywhere will read it.
Unless I gather up all of my papers, as I do every couple of years, and ‘donate’ them to the University for state library for a tax write off.
Hey, Sweet Jane, I love the Great Gonzo too. But I prefer the Swedish Chef. Beaker’s pretty cool. But you can keep Fozzie Bear.
@ Mayhem’s Mum. A word to the wise isn’t necessary. It’s the stupid people who need advice.
Hey Birmo, I know the pool ponies came back a little er, soiled & deflated last time, but if we promise to take slightly better care this time, can we race your crazies?
How would one weight / handicap them?
Either I or Abe could take bets, Abe would probably give more accurate odds, but my novelty bets would rock.
I’ll offer 10:1 on SJS getting half way down the track then degenerating into a hissing, spitting, thashing ball of angst & self recrimination going nowhere.
Mayhem’s Mum would probably bite the opposition @ the starting gates. Or perhaps through the starting gates.
I just want to say that I am a professinal historian (antiquity) and have enjoyed immensely your alternate history. In the acknowlegments to Designated Targets you referred to the works of Stirling and Flint as “much superior”; that is crap. You have an eye for the differences in cultures that these guys miss, such as the observation that people from the near future would be constantly choking on the cigarette smoke of the 1940s. Little stuff makes it more believable. Stirling recognizes, unike others, the economic scale necessary to manufacture something like firearms, but in his River of Time books, for example, his Bronze Age characters think just like moderns, rather than in the mythic terms and modes force on them by the totally different conceptual world they live in. Likewise, Flint’s 30 Years War books fail to recognize the very different mindset of pre-industrial Europeans, especially in the area of religion. So far your books have dealt with modern society, but I expect that you would do a better job of capturing the very different minds and cultures of, say, preclassical societies. And if you ever do something dealing with antiquity, feel free to inquire – or read my Greek history. Keep it up.
I’m with CCat on Beaker and the Chef, and I’m also an eternal admirer of Waldorf and Statler. But I fear I’m a borderline heretic for thinking that Doctor Teeth is cooler than Animal.
I’ve always loved moleskines and damned the expense I’ve used them. Blarkon’s comment about the Duomo journal got me thinking, though. I’ve always loved old leather books. Duomo doesn’t sell to the US, but a google of ‘Italian leather’ and ‘journals’ brought immediate results. It quickly led me to the world’s most expensive leather journal, at $9,500. As that is beyond the credit limit on my plastic quickly sought alternatives, and then landed on a custom leather website that produced leather covers for moleskines notebooks as well as leather “recession” bags for laptops, iPads, and tablets.
In no time at all I had ordered a leather bag for my laptop, and leather carrying case for my new iPad, and a leather cover for the moleskine notebooks. Just so you know, Blarkon, your off-the-cuff comments were powerful suggestions and I’m now $400 poorer.
Plus, I have buyer’s remorse. But not much.
Ah Robert, I suspect you’ve stumbled across my favourite peddler of leather porn.. Saddleback Leather. I’m still fighting the urge to buy a backpack.. and a folio.. and a wallet.. and..
Fozzie Rules (its the hat) however Sam the Eagle is a close 2nd.
Hey JB, what of the AoT character / technology inclusion contest?
Late to the party this week. Beeso, don’t know if you’ll notice this message but I wanted to say that film clip / music for Mantra was great, and I see what you mean for JB.
Therbs, I reckon yourt writing (and you know I love your style) sounds exactly like you jotted it all down spontaneously in a book. Or a coaster , yes, more likely.
JB, I think using a quill & parchment makes for more spontaneity than looking at the dull little letters on the square keys. My theory is that typing is an industrial activity so we have mixed associations with it, historically.
Duomo has several “levels” of notebook.
This one is pretty nice: http://www.alittleluxury.com.au/products/duomo-amalfi-journal-tan-13cm-x-18cm&cName=gifts-duomo
As is the following: http://santinas.com.au/tuscany-journal-medium-tan.html
You can probably call Santinas and get them to ship to you in the USA.
Oh and Dammit Robert – $100 iPad case and $600 Bag. Dammit.
Yeah, JB, what Chris B said. The second bit, not the bit about Fozzie – whom I still say you can keep (hat notwithstanding).
Yeah, I really oughta judge that comp.
“How odd it is to write something like that with no expectation that anybody anywhere will read it.”
I seem to recall something call Axis of Time growing out of “… with no expectation that anybody anywhere will read it.”
Yep. Times change.
Robert – after this thread I picked up two more Duomo today from http://www.maisonliving.com.au/catalog/Duomo-128-1.html – they take phone orders and are happy to ship internationally (I went with the tuscany journals – 12×17 and 15×21)