As promised last Friday, today one of the commenters on my Piccadilly Primo gets one for free. And Random.org has chosen…
Comment #21 which was by Donna Brown!
Donna, I’ll be sending you an email for your details. Congrats!
Come, let us celebrate the new world of Twitter, for most of us probably wouldn’t know about half the things we do.
For me, one of those things is Doane Paper and their unique stationary offerings. Their website is fun, their products are simple, and they don’t bury you in options. I don’t need 15 different pads; give me a few options in a couple sizes and I’m good. Doane must have the same belief because they offer 3 different style pads, with a maximum choice of 2 sizes. That’s perfect and I must thank them for it.
I’ll admit, I was tempted by their legal pads. There’s just not a lot of good legal pads out there but not being sure what to expect of their paper, I ordered the small “Idea Journal” and figured I’d feel it out from there.
Clearly their most unique feature is the paper and even more odd is the fact that they provide you with the template for free if you want to make your own. Have a love affair with 32lb HP paper but dig the Doane lines + grid format? Not a problem, grab their template and make your own. How cool is that?
The Idea Journal is a pretty simple design; thick recycled covers, a strong spiral binding, and bright white 60lb paper with their signature and unusual lines + grid format. I almost hate to say this, but it’s so simple it might cause some people to overlook how good it is. This thing isn’t flashy or trying to be fancy, it’s just a good solid journal. That’s not a bad thing, let’s make that clear. We live in a world flooded with notepads vying for our attention with all sorts of marketing schemes. It’s nice to find one that isn’t trying to act like something special only to leave you annoyed with the lack of quality.
As with every notebook review, it always comes down to the paper. I’ll just come out and say it, it’s good stuff. The lines + grid layout doesn’t really resonate with me but that’s mainly because I feel the, big horizontal lines are too far apart. They’re spaced 3 grid lines apart when I’d prefer them to be only 2. Of course, that’s just an opinion and once you get past the line situation, the paper is fantastic. No feathering, no bleed-through, and practically no show-through even with wet pens and dark ink. Combine all that with the bright white color and I can’t find a thing to complain about except those pesky lines.
I’m not exactly sure where this journal is going to fit into my life as I still haven’t made up my mind on lines yet. For some reason I see this line format working wonderfully for the legal pads but in a journal it seems out of place. As always, you’ll have to get your hands on the design to see how it feels for you and seeing how they offer their template for free, that’s not too hard to do.
If you’re picky about your paper, I’d put Doane Paper in the top contenders. I think I’ll have to get my hands on those legal pads after all.
National Novel Writing Month is upon us! November 1st thousands of people will begin to pound on their keyboards or scribble on notepads to try to hit 50,000 words by November 30th.
Simple question, are you one of them? Tell us in the comments!
And as a reminder, last Friday’s blog post had a giveaway in it and all you had to do was comment. If you haven’t commented yet, I suggest you hurry because the drawing is tomorrow! I’ll even be kind and link you right to the article. 
Piccadilly Primo Review.
Good luck to all who entered!
Ah the cursed arrival of the fall season is here and I utterly despise it. Nothing puts me in a more foul mood than watching the trees turn beautiful shades of orange and red, and then die right before my eyes. And once October is over, November rushes in with colder temps and a promise of at least 5 more months of this wretched weather.
But let us focus on a tiny little bright spot; November also brings National Novel Writing Month and for those of you who love to write, love sitting inside, or just love being anti-social, it works out perfectly. Who really has anything important to do in November other than Thanksgiving? From November 1st to November 30th, your job is simply to write a novel. No one is telling you what it has to be about or how good it has to be or how clean your dialog must be, you simply have to write a novel.
For several years now I’ve watched NaNoWriMo come and go and thought “I should do that” but there’s one thing that always holds me back: I’m convinced I can’t write a novel. I’ve started one but got lost in my plot and gave up. I’ve written several very silly short stories to amuse friends but never actually tried to write something of any real substance in such a short time. The creator of NaNoWriMo says that the very thing that makes this process work is very simple, you have a deadline. 30 days to write 50,000 words isn’t exactly a cakewalk, that’s 1,667 words per day and while I know for a fact I can crank out a blog post that rivals that in an hour, that’s me spewing my opinion and not trying to tell a story about… ? But the deadline is what makes it possible. You have a rather frantic sense of needing to be done by a certain date and it helps motivate your writing, or so the belief goes.
And thus, I have committed to NaNoWriMo this year. At the very least, I’m going to start a novel and that’s a step above and beyond every other year which in itself is an accomplishment. I’ve purchased the “No Plot, No Problem” book written by the NaNoWriMo creator and have been pouring over it feverishly for the past couple days in hopes that he will tell me something that will quell my fear. Guess what? He did.
I’m a perfectionist who is never perfect. It’s a curse really. Some things in my life must be clean, straightforward, exact, and then the rest of my life is a jumbled up mess. I strive for perfection only to fail miserably which always leads me to not want to try whatever that was ever again. But here’s the key to NaNoWriMo: you’re just writing a rough draft. This is the kind of manuscript that Stephen King urges you to write and then throw in a drawer and forget for 6 months. If you’ve read his book “On Writing” you know that he feels the most important part is getting the story out onto the paper in whatever form you can and worry about the plot holes and character flaws and all the other little bobbles, AFTER you’ve written it. You set it aside, let the story ferment, then come back and see if it’s worth another draft.
To steal a quote from the book, Ernest Hemingway is quoted as saying “The first draft of anything is shit”. Let those words ring in your ears as you write!
And thus, I’m heading into NaNoWriMo knowing that whatever I produce will undoubtedly be utter crap and I fully expect it to be. In fact, I want it to be! After all, it’s just a rough draft and my only goal is to hit 50,000 words in 30 days. That, I’m positive I can do.
I hope you join me in this quest, it’s gonna be a blast.
I don’t do many reviews of “normal” pens because quite frankly I find them boring. Does it write? Ok, it’s good. 
So what I’m going to do here is a “quick view” of a pen. I’ve been a bit of a fountain pen snob for a few years so I’m starting to feel my way around the world of non-fp pens and am finding things I like. One of those is the Pentel Slicci. My first experience with the Slicci was one with a .4mm tip which is MUCH too fine for my taste. I’ve developed a preference for pens that have at least a .7mm size as I get older and writing with the .4mm was like writing with a needle. I used that as an excuse to place yet another JetPens order and try the .7mm Slicci.
Once I had my hands on my preferred size, I began to really like this pen. My biggest complaint? The barrel is very slender and I’m a fan of a much fatter pen. But something about the needle style tip and the combination of the beautiful blue ink keeps bringing me back to this one. The combination of the price, the available ball sizes, and the great ink make for one great pen.
Hey Pentel, if you’re reading this, can you make one that’s a little bigger diameter?
For the past 2-3 years I’ve been trying to improve my penmanship as well as turn writing into a hobby. I’ve spent hours sitting at different tables, chairs, etc and I simply cannot get comfortable. It may have to do with my 6′2″ height, or it may have to do with my poor posture when writing. You see, I can’t write very well without leaning over the paper and that causes my elbows to cramped up.
I also fight with the problem of holding onto my pen much too tightly. While I’m able to focus on that and get my hand to relax somewhat, it’s only a matter of time before my elbow starts hurting due to being bent for so long. I’m also resting a lot of weight on my arms as I’m bent over so far. I have to admit, I”m sort of at a loss here.
At the moment, I sit in a normal swiveling office chair and write at an old oak desk that I picked up from a friend for cheap. Sitting in my chair, the top of the desk sits at my mid-belly which I think is about as good as I can get it. Any lower and I feel like a kid sitting down at an adult table, and any higher makes the desk seem super far away. As I mentioned before, if I don’t bend myself over the paper, I don’t write very well. I’ve tried sitting up straight and writing but it seems the quality of my penmanship begins to suffer.
Perhaps I just need to practice sitting straight up and working on that penmanship problem but regardless of what I try, I’m never comfortable. If I can crank out 3-4 pages in my journal before becoming annoyed by the discomfort, it’s quite the accomplishment.
Any suggestions on how to alleviate the pain I’m facing? I’d love to be able to sit down for hours and write but at the moment, it just doesn’t seem possible.
I don’t think it’s a secret that I’m a fan of Piccadilly. In fact, it seems almost normal to be a fan these days considering the great pricing of their products. Sure, their products are made in China but so is the mega-star Moleskine. It’s also been my experience that their paper is less inconsistent than the beloved M as well. The Piccadilly Primo journal has been popping up a lot on the ‘net so I went on a journey to find one. After 3 tries, I found a Borders that had some in stock.
They come in 3 sizes which are named… ready for this? Small, Medium, and Large. And would you know it, 2 or 3 shopping trips later, I had all 3!
These journals have 100gsm wood-free paper, the conventional ribbon bookmark, a somewhat unconventional elastic band closure, and a nice cream colored paper. But by far my favorite part is the smell. Yes, I like the smell of the cover, I don’t know why, it just smells … booky? I’m not sure what it’s made of, but it seems like rubber and it’s quite flexible. Something about this design screams “I’m a journal!”
But I know you don’t care about the looks, the smell, or how it stays closed as much as you do about the paper. While it clearly performs better than a Moleskine, it still isn’t perfect which I didn’t really expect seeing how the paper is 100gsm. Despite the fact that most pens work well, it still has the same peculiar single thread feathering that the other notebook suffered from. I managed to capture the feathering using the macro mode of my camera.
I wouldn’t let this keep you away from the Primo, the feathering is slight and really seems to depend on the pen. One thing I notice a lot when reading reviews of paper is the distinction that fine tip fountain pens tend to feather less than mediums. Unfortunately for almost everything I review, I’m a fan of a medium/broad nib and therefore I’m probably a bit harder on the paper than I should be. When it comes to “normal” pens; gel, Sharpie pens, and ballpoints, this paper works great. Unlike my experience with the Moleskine, gel ink dries instantly and without much drama at all. I also managed to find a fountain pen that wasn’t a big fat wet mess and the Primo handled it without any feathering at all.
I do have to give points to Piccadilly for binding this journal so it opens flat on almost every page. There’s also a ton of pages (288) which makes this journal a bargain. The Borders in my area sells the small journal for $5.99 which means you get a lot of space to write for very little cash. In my case, that would probably last me 2 years.
Sure it has its shortcomings but when you look at the price and the fact that not everyone is a fountain pen devotee, it’s a pretty darn good journal for most people.
And now, a contest! I’m going to give away a FREE small Primo! All you have to do is post a comment. I don’t care if it’s as simple as “I want to win” or you feel like waxing philosophical about my review, any comment gets you entered to win (you can only enter once). On October 30th, I’ll pick a winner at random and that person will get a free small Primo journal! Simple eh?
Here’s a question I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I’ve come across bloggers who hand write their entire blog post before typing it into the computer. I’ve also found many examples of other types of work that people prefer to write out by hand before entering into the computer. Let’s face it, we live in a computer age and most of what we write for the consumption of others ends up on a computer.
So this question is for those of you who write for the public eye, be it a blog or simply a report for work; do you hand write it first? How do you feel it helps your process? Is it simply therapeutic or do you feel it brings out better writing? Are you more apt to keep it simple? Or perhaps it just lets you get your first draft out at a leisurely pace which helps keep the re-writes to a minimum.
Hit the comments and share! I’m very interested in the responses as my blog posts tend to come straight from my mind to the keyboard. I don’t think I have the patience to handwrite all the words that want to tumble from my fingertips.
As a person who has had many hobbies, there’s always one adage that gets thrown around everywhere; you get what you pay for. In most cases, this means that you’ve opted to buy something cheap and it failed and someone is lecturing you on the benefits of spending money on quality. One of the best examples that I’ve found where this isn’t true is fountain pens.
If you’re new to the fountain pen scene, you’re probably enamored by the sight of the big money pens. People lust over all different brands and styles and usually these tend to be out of your financial reach. Trust me, I’ve been there before and I still find myself lusting over pens that cost a lot more than I could ever bring myself to pay. The most expensive pen I ever bought was a Visconti Van Gogh Maxi. I was so excited when I got that pen and naturally I expected it to be an amazing writer. Instead I had a beautiful pen that couldn’t get through a single page without drying up. Regardless of what I tried, I couldn’t get it to write with any consistency and it ended up going back to Italy to have the feed replaced. By the time it came back, I wasn’t in love with it anymore and I quickly parted ways with it.
That served as a wakeup call that no matter how much money you spend, you’re not guaranteed a flawless writing experience. The simple truth is, if a pen can hold ink and perform the simple capillary action required of a fountain pen, you’ll have a pen that won’t let you down. There’s a reason so many people swear by some of the cheaper pens coming out of China right now. The Hero 616 is a favorite of many due to its obvious resemblance to the Parker 51 and the fact that it just plain works without breaking the bank.
Then there’s the Platinum Preppy. For a whopping $3 at JetPens, you can own a cartridge pen that writes great and is refillable. If you’re crazy, you can spend 2x the amount of the pen and get a converter that will allow you to use bottled ink. There’s also a very popular modification that turns these pens into eyedroppers which means you’ll have a literal tank of ink at your disposal, perfect for those times when you need to write a lot.
Move even farther down the scale and you get to the disposables. Pens like the Pilot Varsity, Pilot Vpen (same as the Varsity but just look a little different), and the Sailor Ink-bar are some of the more popular options. These pens are non-refillable (although some resourceful folks do refill them) and are as reliable as can be. Just last night I was using a blue Pilot Varsity to test my new Rhodia Webnotebook and it was as smooth as silk with great color, all for less than $3.
The lesson here is to remember that you don’t need to spend a ton of money to get a great writing pen. I’m not knocking people who prefer pens that cost more, that’s simply a matter of preference. If you’d rather be using a Parker 51, then you should. But if you’re looking for a good fountain pen that isn’t going to give you trouble and doesn’t break the bank, don’t automatically assume the cheap pens are a waste of money.
Last week I finally broke down and bought a Rhodia Webnotebook. Tired of dealing with the inconsistency of the Moleskine paper and as always, under the influence of my paper fetish, I found a seller on Ebay who happened to be in Michigan and had free shipping. I swallowed the pill of paying $15 for yet another 3.5×5.5″ notebook and waited a whopping 2 days for it to show up.
Obviously when it comes to Rhodia, the people who use their products have come to expect a certain level of quality. I didn’t even bother reading reviews of this notebook, I blindly trusted the Rhodia name and assumed it would be good. That’s a spot most manufacturers want to be in but it’s also a dangerous one. If you put out a bunch of good products then follow up with a flaky one, you’ll never live it down. It would seem that there’s more disappointment to be had in the 3.5×5.5″ range than there is joy but as you’d expect, Rhodia doesn’t drop the ball here.
I don’t want to give too much away because I’d like to do a full review, but I’ll comment briefly on the paper. Because I didn’t read any of the reviews, I missed the fact that they didn’t use their normal bright white lined paper for this notebook. When I cracked it open, I was pleasantly surprised to find a nice cream colored paper with light grey lines and a Rhodia logo at the bottom of every page. IMO, if you’re shooting for the Moleskine, you must have cream colored paper and thus I was quite happy to find that Rhodia already knew this fact.
The rest of my thoughts shall be saved for an upcoming review but I’ll leave you with this. If you’re tired of spending $10 on a Moleskine only to play Russian Roulette with the paper quality, spending an extra $5 for the Rhodia will end that pain forever.
Watch for a full review soon!