For the past year or so, I’ve been wanting a lap desk. I’ll admit that I haven’t been actively looking for one, I tend to just wait until something pops out in front of me and begs me to buy it. Oddly enough, I was walking through my local Walgreens this past week and happened to find just the thing I was looking for.

It’s a fairly simple item and the quality isn’t amazing but for $14.95, I can’t complain. The legs can be folded up into the bottom of the desk, or folded down as shown in the picture. They also adjust to 2 different heights which is quite handy. I tried to use both configurations while sitting on my couch and the most comfortable for me was to fold the legs up and set the desk on my lap. As you can see, the larger section tilt upwards with several different choices to set your desired slope. The smaller section stays flat which is handy for keeping writing instruments nearby or even as a pad for using a mouse with your laptop.

Unfortunately I haven’t been able to give this a good test as a writing desk, I’ve never used a sloped surface for writing and I wasn’t able to get into a comfortable position when I tried. I personally feel the large black plastic rail at the bottom of the desk is obtrusive and I might replace it with something thinner or remove it all together.  I also found it mildly annoying that there is no lock to keep the legs open. I’m a bit fidgety when sitting and side to side movement causes the legs to start to close up.

Other than my few minor complaints, it’s a handy desk and for only $15, you can’t go wrong. If you’re looking for something that will let you read, write, or use your computer while sitting in bed or on the floor, you might want to give this little desk a try.

The Michigan Renaissance Festival is… interesting. I mean that in the most kind way possible, it’s literally one of the most interesting events I attend each year. My brain has a very hard time coping with the sheer amount of input that my eyes are feeding it. Between the incredibly diverse costumes (Of note: I saw a pimp and a bunch of ninjas… not sure how that fits the period), the interesting people, the shops, and the wide range of food, I nearly have smoke pouring out of my ears by the time I leave.

Naturally I always keep my eyes open for writing related items. There’s a very talented calligrapher who has a shop there each year that provides a great amount of inspiration. There’s also a gentleman who sells very nice handmade leather bound journals. Even the paper is handmade and claimed to be archival quality. I purchased a mid-sized journal from him last year but couldn’t bring myself to mar the pages. This year I wanted to find something more affordable that I could perform some ink tests on. Luckily he had these very small 3″x2″ leather bound notebooks that are simply delightful in their simplicity. They contain the same handmade paper bound in a single stitch to a small leather cover and there’s a small string to wrap around it. Look for a full review of my findings shortly.

I also found a booth selling stationary printed with various Celtic and other unknown designs. The artist is named John Benson and he is a Michigan printmaker who is known for his wildly illustrated cards. I couldn’t decide on a single print design so I picked up the sample pack; it contains 10 cream colored printed pages, 10 plain pages, and 10 envelopes. He assured me that it would work very well with fountain pen ink which I’ll test soon enough. I’m not sure where the paper is sourced from but it’s a decently thick stock that has a nice texture to it.  He’ll be at my city’s art gallery in November so perhaps I’ll bother him to find out more information.

This has ended up longer than I wanted it to. I’ll just say that if you’re a Michigan resident and can make it over to the Ren Fest, do it. It’s a whole lot of fun!

This is a nice cheap way to store your pens.

Step 1. Go find yourself a cigar box. I got this box for free because a friend of mine is a wine salesman and is always in shops that sell cigars. Most stores around me have empty cigar boxes for $5 and they vary in size. Try asking around at any place that sells good cigars, you’ll probably find something very cheap.

Step 2. Buy your choice of color of pen tray from Go Pens. These are of a good size, I bought 2 and have enough to line 4 cigar boxes.

Step 3. Cut to size and press into the bottom.Take your time with this and use a straight edge to cut the tray as cleanly as possible.

That’s it! Here’s the finished product:

I made this one for a friend. It took all of 5 minutes and will hold 11 pens. They’re so easy to make, I strongly suggest you try it if you need a better way to store your pens.

It’s Thursday and you know what that means? It’s time for Question of the Week!

Ok I made that feature up just now but I kind of like it so let’s see how it goes!

This week the question is: Do you send or receive any handwritten correspondence?

My answer: Nope! I think the last thing I received that was handwritten was a Thank You card and I don’t count those. Anything you’re practically forced to write shouldn’t count. Maybe that’s too harsh, I should appreciate that the sender write anything at all. And the last time I sent anything handwritten… I can’t even remember. Sad when you think about it, I have pens and ink galore and I’m keeping it all to myself.

Ok, it’s called “question of the week” so you get to hit the comment box below and give me your answers!

Question of the Week Rules and Regulations

1. You MUST talk about QOTW (blog it, twitter it, tell your friends!)
2. You MUST talk about QOTW.
3. If this is your first QOTW, you have to answer.

I mean I need to quit trying so hard. This is advice given to me by more than one person and the more I think about it, the more true it rings.

If you’ve been reading this blog, you know that I seem to mainly whine about how I can’t find my muse and I’m a lousy creative person and I can’t do anything. Let me establish some proof.

Last night I spent all night fiddling around on Twitter and pen websites instead of doing anything constructive. In the back of  my head, I wanted to pick up my journal which I haven’t used in 7 months. But that’s sort of a daunting task for me and I think it’s because I feel pressure to be great.  How can one be great in their own journal? It’s just supposed to be MY thoughts and I can’t be wrong if I’m writing things that are in my head… right? Who feels pressure to perform greatness in a journal?

Finally I forced myself to turn away from the computer and grab my journal. I selected my Pelikan M200 filled with MB British Racing Green, put nib to paper,  and waited to see what happened. What came out of me was this odd list of things I observed about my behavior prior to picking up my pen. It was kind of refreshing because my journaling has always been very methodical; I sit down, write out several correctly formatted paragraphs, and put the journal away. This entry had nothing in common with my previous entries, it felt spontaneous and  very different.

Then I sat down with another notebook, this one is an idea book where I’m hashing out ideas for projects or just random thoughts about things. I wanted to perform a very simple task: draw a very simple registration screen for a website I’m fiddling with. It consisted of maybe 5 rectangles and yet I balked at the job. I sat there staring at the blank page with my Sharpie pen in hand and wondering where to start.

Where to start? Draw a frickin rectangle you dope!

Eventually I managed to scrawl out a very simplistic mockup that should have never even given me pause at all. Once it was done, I felt sheepish. It took that much energy to draw a few rectangles in a notebook? Why am I so crazy?

I think at some point I got the idea in my head that things on a notebook page need to be perfect, even if it’s just something I’m using for ideas. I’m a perfectionist with everything I do, yet I’m not capable of being perfect. See the conundrum there? I can’t be perfect because I’m not an artist, yet I won’t try unless it’s perfect, even when it’s supposed to be a rough sketch. There has to be a term to describe this level of insanity.

This week I think I’m going to force myself to doodle. Can you believe I won’t even doodle because I fear it won’t turn out right? That’s right, I won’t doodle because it might look stupid. Someone smack me in the head please.

Sure you could walk into your local store and grab one, but perhaps you’d like to toss your hat into the ring to win one over at The Pen Addict? The winner also gets one of those lovely retractable  Sharpie pens that I just told you about yesterday.

The Pen Addict is a great blog on pens that gets updated quite frequently so if you’re a pen nerd, you’ll probably want to head back there often.

I wonder when society decided that it was ok for a female to carry a bag for all her stuff, but a male should be able to fit his crap in his pockets. OK, I over-simplified that. But still, it’s sort of the “manly” thing to not carry an extra bag of stuff around. Men used to carry their stuff in bags around when we all rode horses, the business man made the briefcase “cool”, and in some areas I know the messenger bag thing is normal. Unfortunately I’m not riding a horse, I’m not a business man, and I’m not in an area known for having bike messengers. I need to carry a bunch of stuff somehow *pauses to scratch chin*.

Today I’m carrying… a bag of some sort. I guess I can call it a mini-messenger computer bag? Last night I managed to cram my Dell Mini 9, the current book I’m reading (the Lifehacker book in case you were wondering), a couple notebooks, an external hard drive, all the power bobbles needed for such things, and a bunch of pens. I tried to fit my little Aiptek HD camera in there but I was unsuccessful. If only I was carrying a slimmer book!

Needless to say, I felt a little funny walking into work today. It wasn’t that bad since I normally carry a backpack for my work laptop and it sort of hid the messenger bag. Walking out to my car for lunch will be a different story. All of this stuff was crammed into the work laptop bag + a bunch of other stuff and was just getting too painful to dig through so I have deemed 2 bags necessary. If this bag looked more like something other than a small woman’s purse, I’d be a bit more comfortable carrying it.

Now I just have to get comfortable carrying this around and not feeling self conscious. Or perhaps I should go shopping for something that’s olive drab and looks like it belongs on a special forces guy?

So many blogs seem to take a single subject approach. In fact, that’s one of the main suggestions from “pro” bloggers on how to get your site read. People don’t like to show up to a blog and not know what randomness might be showing up today. As much as I wish I could provide my readers a singular subject matter, I just cannot. Why, you ask? Well I’ve updated my About Me page to try to explain what level my brain works at. Hopefully it explains a lot.

Click the “About” button at the top of the page, or simply click here to read it.

Don’t worry, I feel your pain!

Yes, I’ve been using Sharpie pens. Up until today, I had the standard ones but at lunch I popped into the local office supply store and picked up some retractables. I, like so many others, feel a bit guilty about this fact. I’m supposed to be a fountain pen guy and here I am using a marker?

Maybe I’m just a pen guy. Come to think of it, I have purchased a few ball points in the past 2 weeks.

If you haven’t tried the Sharpie pen yet, I highly recommend it. I would get more indepth, but you can just read what both The Pen Addict and Office Supply Geek have to say about them. They cover everything I could possibly care to say.

I will add a couple of my favorite points. The best thing about these pens is they don’t require ball point pen pressure to write. Similar to a fountain pen, the pressure on the page needs only be very light.  I also find the ink colors, however limited they may be, to be quite rich and vibrant. I’m particularly a fan of the red.

This is a question I’m sure a lot of us ask ourselves. I don’t, because I’m pretty sure I’m not.

Last night I was perusing my Twitter account and found an interesting article linked by @richardink. His tweet pointed me to a blog entitled “Write to done” which was new to me but now resides in my bookmarks of good blogs to read when I have time. In an article entitled “Are you a Writer? Really?“, Mary Jaksch touches on the fear of proclaiming ones self a writer.

The article’s message bounced around in my head all day. Am I a writer because I’ve had a few short lived blogs? Am I a writer because I scribble random thoughts into a notebook? Do my incredibly spotty journal entries make me a writer? What about the handful of short stories (for the lack of a better term) or that unfinished zombie themed novella I started writing last year? Does any of this make me a writer?

My thoughts seem to echo hers, she actually has a book published and still can’t consider herself a writer. In my case, I know I’m writing something but I don’t feel like I write.

I’ve had this fantasy of being a writer for a very long time. Despite this rather ambitious dream, I can rarely bring myself to actually sit down and write. Blog posts? Easy. Author something of substance like a short story or novella? Incredibly hard. My brain insists that a writer actually has to author something “real” like a book or be employed at a magazine or newspaper. Surely my pitifully small lifetime word count can’t make me a writer… can it? According to Mary, it sure does.

So if you write something, anything, do what I’m going to do. Find a mirror, stare into it, say “I’m a writer” and see if, with enough repetition, you start to believe it.