#112

I spent a lot of time trying to create an organized note-taking system, and have since decided that I never will. I always come across some flaw in my system and have to abandon or alter it. I now just write the date, then write a random note. If I need to find something I just look for it, my notebook is small.

That said, I don’t have a backlog of notebooks to flip through either. I usually just throw them away after I feel done with them, as I found I never looked at them. I will year out and sort away the important pages, but 80% of all my past notebooks have been trashed without regret. They also didn’t contain any especially valuable ideas, though, haha

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#113

Years ago I was sooooper-organised (see my post further up the thread) but when I picked up notebooking again this year I quickly realised that this was no longer my way of working. Now I just doodle and write whatever, wherever in my various notebooks – and once a fortnight I collate and transfer the important stuff (aka ‘valuable ideas’) into their relevant digital documents (which are easily organised in ‘post-production’, as it were).

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#114

I think on reflection, I’m not super organized in my note-taking, and that’s unlikely to change. I can probably just scaffold an index onto my existing notebooks so I can track things better using one of the systems outlined above, and eventually, stuff needs to be scrapped when its usefulness is outlived.

I will at least start by copying some of the more relevant stuff out of a notebook that is falling apart.

#115

I’ve always dated my notebook entries with Walter Benjamin’s thirteen theses on writing in mind:

keep your notebook as strictly as the authorities keep their register of aliens

After poking through this thread, I think I’ll try using this as a launching point to try indexing and some other strategies mentioned.

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#116

If any of you wonderful people are in Manhattan, and you’d like to enjoy a blissful half hour of socially-distant shopping for stationery and pens and assorted writerly accoutrements, pay a visit to Goods for the Study, either on 50 W 8th Street or 234 Mulberry. The latter is a few doors down from a Sees Chocolate Shop where you can get your ur-Wonka on.

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#117

Sounds like I know what I’ll be doing this weekend!

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#118

Does anyone have tips on improving handwriting, particularly longhand cursive? I taught myself cursive years ago when I started journaling regularly, and it was once readable but now it’s just as atrocious as my printing.

I’ve already checked YouTube but most of that is people doing calligraphy. I just want to make my writing legible, which involves forming some new habits, and maybe some practice paper of some kind.

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#119

Quite a few years ago I “fixed” my (pretty bad) handwriting by essentially writing the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog hundreds of times. Taking a similar approach to music, I started slow and with great intention in my motions, then tried to work up my speed to a more realistic writing tempo.

I think from there, in your regular writing, you might take mental notes of any letter combinations that trip you up or could be improved. Then it’s a matter of going back to slow and intentional with those things until it’s “fixed”.

I’m not totally happy with my ‘m’, ‘u’, ‘r’, and ‘n’, but it’s been a while since I did any sort of practice.

edit: having pictures of peoples’ handwriting you admire nearby can be helpful too, I took inspiration from a few different places when I was relearning

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#120

i love moleskine (blank pages) notebooks, all sizes , from super tiny to the bigger onew. i had the chance to do sound design for them (and LEGO) more than a decade ago, have a look :slight_smile:

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#121

I remember a friend had one of those!
What a great video!

#122

Hi, slightly outside the topic, or not. I got an ad in my Facebook feed about a course from this site Domestika. It was probably a black friday-offer because I got an offer for a course of 10 bucks, so I enrolled. Pretty excited about the teacher and his Moleskine-doodles becoming both art and a career.

His site shows how he draws in his notebooks. https://mattiasadolfsson.com

I find his story very inspiring as an esthetic principle. Just work on your thing and stay with it, find your style, amplify it - and it will become something special and interesting.

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#123

:slight_smile: yes, i like it too :slight_smile:
they did a pretty good job with the slow motion.
i used the ms-20, my fave sound design mic ( sennheiser mkh 416) recording various sources (paper, aluminium, scraping of various objects), some library sounds and some sounds i recorded on movie sets. i think the sound design came out fine enough (i’d do it very differently now, but i still kinda like it). i was also asked to do a music soundtrack (which i did, it was a strange morricone meets nursery rhyms kind of style hehehe) but then they decided to not put music on it.
anyway, i’m glad i did it for the brand which produces my fave notebooks :slight_smile:

#124

Wow! I didn’t see this before. Time to order my first book with blank pages.

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#125

I’ve been using Life Noble Notebooks for a long time as I’ve not found anything comparable for the writing feel. The main gripes I have with them is the rather flashy covers and the difficulty of opening them flat enough to write comfortably near the inner margins.


I haven’t usd the Midori MD paper but it looks like it might be better.

I also use Pilot Iroshizuku inks as they’re pretty cheap over here in Japan and the bottles are just lovely.
My current ink of choice is Kiri-same, a warm grey ink. Having never used grey inks, I was a bit wary that it would look like watered-down black ink, but it’s actually rather lovely to use, especially in a pen that has fairly decent flow so it gets some shading.

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#126

New notebook day! Picked up a fresh Leuchtturm 1917 to dedicate to learning Teletype.

I am such a sucker for new notebooks. What is that? The feeling of potential? I don’t know.

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#127

I have a thing for pencils and do all of my roughdrafts and notes in pencil, and while I use a bullet pencil on the go (for a field notebook kept on my person), I’ve long had a thing for lead-holders or clutch pencils but have generally felt underwhelmed by the quality or form of most. There are some interesting options between the $30-$70 range, but as that’s a good chunk to spend on a pencil (even a mechanical one), I was never keen to spring for one that wasn’t going to be an obvious improvement over the cheaper ones. Then I stumbled across this:

I’ve found it to be a rather elegant approach for the writing I do at home. It doesn’t work with a leadpointer (at least not the one I have), but manually sharpening bare lead is hardly a chore anyhow. The actual design of the thing seems most reminiscent of a dip pen or even a calligraphy brush and is quite comfortable to use, even with that ring there. Anyway, I’m quite pleased with it.

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#128

My recent obvious epiphany has been that journaling when I have something worth writing down is much more rewarding than trying to set a schedule.

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#129

Oh yes, that is a great idea.

I occasionally create sketchnotes to learn, grasp and memorize things (an excellent tool!). Here is a sketchnote about Stockhausen’s Four Criteria of Electronic Music.

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#130

looking for desktop pencil sharpener recs.

so while I always did and kinda still do hate writing with pencils over pens, graphite has crept its way into my artwork over the last couple years to become a pretty important part. I’ve tried a bunch of different brands of pencils, using some mechanical ones mixed in too for where I need really fine and consistent lines. I can’t find a good and thin mechanical graphite that is accessible enough though - the only one I really like is harder to find and I still don’t like it as much as my caran d’ache pencils. but, my sharpener doesn’t do such a good job and I think maybe its time to invest in a good desktop one for when I need a really fine tip. I’ve tried using a razor and sandpaper, but when I want a point rather than a chisel tip I can’t consistently or easily enough get what I want. I think its time to cave for a better sharpener and I’m looking at the Jakar crank sharpener but am curious what other people have found good or bad about similar ones.

#131

I am sure that there is a whole world of delineation among pencil sharpeners that I am not aware of, but I have two different sizes of the muji desktop sharpener and it’s served me extremely well.

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