Whew! NaNoWriMo is over and I’m sort of … sad? It’s funny how your mind can change from fear and uncertainty at the beginning of the month, to the complete opposite at the end. Well, I suppose that’s not true if you don’t win but lucky for me, I did! I didn’t think I’d make it, but I came out alive with a word count of 50,203.

What did I learn from the month long experience? A lot! It’s not easy sitting down and writing anything that long and I’m sure the first time you do it is always the worst. Here’s a few things I learned along my journey.

• If it’s your first time (or maybe second, third, whatever) you probably want to make this as easy on yourself as you can. I started with a story idea but it felt like I was dragging it out of my head through a swamp. Six days into the process, I dropped that story and changed subjects to something I’m very comfortable with. I think the worst thing you could do on your first try is venture down a road that you’re not familiar with. Simply changing subjects helped me write a lot faster and the story sort of just came out.
• Ditch the editor. It’s SO hard to try to not think about what you’re writing but you must! Early on it’s a bit of a chore but you must put your head down and run past that mean old editor! Once you get used to pouring words onto a page without the editor’s interference, you become a lot more relaxed.
• One thing I didn’t do was plan anything out. I had a piece of paper with some character names scribbled on it and that’s about it. If I had it to do over again, I might like to plan out the scene of the novel a bit more, re-think the characters and the number of them (I have WAY too many nameless characters in my novel), and maybe think about how I want it to end. I like to leave the middle open for the characters to weave their own story, but my ending sucks!
• Don’t lose track of your characters! I have at least 4 scenes where I started out with 2 characters and ended up just focusing on one. I would be three thousand words in before I realized I had lost the other guy in my memory. Oops! Again, probably something I could have avoided with a little planning.
• If you have a day where you really get in the groove of writing, wring as much of that out as you can! There are enough days where you struggle that it’s worth it. I did find that those days where I struggled, sometimes just hammering through a few hundred words would get things flowing nicely.

I guess that’s the basics. In the end, I have a novel that I wrote myself and even though I know it’s poorly written and needs major work to be good enough to share with anyone, I’m still extremely proud of myself and looking forward to editing it. I even started a new novel, imagine that!

To all the winners, congrats. To all those who tried, there’s always next year. Keep hammering at it!

Nothing makes a review harder than trying to write about something that’s high quality. I’m staring at this Clairefontaine Basic notebook on my desk and I’m tempted to make this review as complex as “It has Clairefontaine paper. You know what to expect.” and call that good. But alas, I think I’m supposed to say a few more words than that.

The picture you’re looking at above this sentence is the Clairefontaine Basic notebook. I think Basic is a good name for it although at first glance you don’t see “basic”. When I think “basic” I think about the Mead single subject notebooks I used in school. I suppose putting this next to the Quo Vadis Habana or the Rhodia WebNotebook might force you to focus on the “basic” Basic but we’re not going to do that here. Instead, I’ll just run over the basics (yes, pun intended) of this notebook.

The Basic has nice textured hardboard covers with a raised Clairefontaine logo in the bottom right hand corner. It might not be super fancy but I think it looks great. It’s low key yet a lot better looking than a lot of other notebooks. Besides, I don’t think we buy notebooks for their looks… do we? Oh maybe we do and if that’s the case, this is a handsome notebook so you should be delighted. It’s also nice and flexible as I shall now demonstrate in the ever classic “bent notebook” picture.

Perhaps the “basic” name comes from the binding, unlike everything else I’ve held in my hands that came from Exaclair, this notebook has a cloth binding. I don’t know that I own any other notebooks with this kind of binding, in fact I know I don’t. The beauty of this type of binding is the flexibility that allows the notebook to open flat on your desk. I think we all know the pain of dealing with a bound notebook that doesn’t lie flat. Basic yet functional, no complaints there.

And now we’re at the part of the review where one would typically scribble some random gibberish on a page and take a picture of it. Well guess what, I’m throwing that part out the window. This is a notebook made by Clairefontaine so I think you know what paper it uses. All you have to do is open the cover and caress a sheet to know it’s going to be a delight. I’m so confident it’s going to be an absolute dream to write in, I’m not even going to try. It’s Clairefontaine! Why bother? I’d bet we see the Lions in the Super Bowl before you find yourself disappointed with the 90g Clairefontaine paper inside these covers. It has the same amazingly bright white color you are familiar with in the Rhodia pads. The line spacing’s the same as well and the lines are just a bit brighter blue.

Let me break it down to you. If you’re picky about your notebooks and you want something light years ahead of the stuff you’ll find at your local drugstore, go get yourself a Clairefontaine Basic. It’s 192 pages of pure Clairefontaine bliss and if you’ve touched anything with Clairefontaine, you know I’m not exaggerating.

And now I must get back to my NaNoWriMo writing! And you need to go shopping for a Clairefontaine Basic.

Oh the beloved Lamy Safari, what can be said that hasn’t already been said a hundred times? This pen is probably one of the most reviewed pens on the ‘net right now. By now, you’re probably bored to death with Lamy Safari reviews! When I decided to do this, I asked myself what I could talk about that might be slightly different from all the other reviews out there.  That’s when I came up with the idea of focusing on the various design aspects that set this pen apart from the others.

Obviously the biggest selling point is the price. Yes, that’s a lame joke, ignore it and move on. Go read just about any “what pen” thread and you’ll find numerous people suggesting the Safari, regardless of the question. Why? Well it’s a flat out good deal. This pen delivers more in the sum of $30 or less than a lot of much more expensive pens have ever managed. Granted, you need to buy the converter separately but it’s an amazingly versatile pen for the few bucks the converter might cost you.

Let’s look at some of what makes this pen great shall we? To start, we’ll head to the top of the pen and check out the clip.

Look at that, it’s a monster! In the world of the utilitarian, this pen has a clip to put all others to shame. Need a firm grip on your shirt pocket? You got it! Need to slip it on your notebook cover? No problem! It’s a simple wire loop that just plain works. Sure it’s funky looking but this isn’t a normal pen so who cares?

Next up, let’s look at the body. I’m not sure how exciting you might find this feature, but it has a built in window that gives you a glimpse into the ink reservoir.

Yes, I’m aware this isn’t an amazing feature but hey, take a look at the pen with the body unscrewed. That ink window is an exact science. There are 2 indentions in the section that match up perfectly with the windows in the body of the pen. Unscrew the body a tiny bit from the section and half the window is obscured. When the body is screwed tightly onto the section, the window is all you see. That’s engineering!

While we’re talking about the exterior aspects, check this nib feature out.

Yes, the nib just slides off the feed. Why is this great? You want a Fine point today and a Medium tomorrow but don’t want to pay for 2 pens? Buy 2 nibs! The nibs slide off and back on with an ease that I’ve yet to find in any other pen. What’s that? Your Esterbrook has interchangeable nibs? Bah! This is even easier! No unscrewing required, you just slide the nib off and slide a new one on. Want to sign that birthday card with an italic nib? Slide your current nib off and slide the italic nib on, sign the card, and swap them back. This is pure genius.

You want more? Take a look at any inexpensive pen you own that has a converter. Chances are it just slides on like a cartridge would. This means it can be slid off without much thought. Sure, that’s not a big deal but what if you were a German, would you really engineer your pen that way?

Yes, you’re seeing correctly, the converter has little bumps that lock into the section. Seems like such a little thing but it really makes the converter a part of the pen instead of just something you stuffed into the front section. I know what you’re thinking, the German’s can really engineer a pen! This thing is starting to seem more like a BMW than Kia right?

While we’re on the subject, check this converter out.

Yeah it looks like your normal piston style converter but it’s SOLID. I’m not kidding, don’t mistake this with a cheap converter, this thing is precise. Sure, that’s not a a huge deal but trust me, it matters.

And finally, I want to take a look at the section. Most pens have a round section and we’re all quite familiar with that. Lamy threw the normal design out the window and made the Safari section a little differently. Or if you want me to be candid, they made the darn thing comfortable.

See that? Those 2 flat spots are perfectly placed for a proper pen hold. I love writing with this pen!

And there you have it, a glimpse into something I hope most reviews have ignored. If you want to hear people gush about how great they write, there’s a ton of reviews for that and just between you and me, those other reviews are absolutely correct, this thing is a joy to write with. But I won’t get into that, because you came here for a funky review and I hope I delivered.

I’ll toss you one last tip. If you head to Lamy USA’s website and click on the Care, Repairs, & Parts link, you can find parts for your Lamy. Say you wanted a Lamy Safari in Charcoal and you can’t find it anywhere (a quick Google search proves this to be false but play along anyway). You can actually build the pen from parts right on their website. I don’t know if they ever release any of the limited edition colors but right now you could get the parts for 5 different colors. If you happen to find one of those colors sold out and you simply MUST have it now, for a few bucks more than a complete pen, you can build your own. Hey, you could even build yourself a crazy multicolor pen!

Now, if you don’t have a Lamy Safari, go get one! And if you already have one, get another! You won’t regret it.

Wow, NaNoWriMo is beating me up! If you haven’t tried writing a novel, it’s no walk in the park! I think the first time is probably always the hardest and thus, I was sort of expecting this to happen.

Last Thursday I abandoned a week’s worth of work (I’m not sure if it qualifies as a real week’s worth) and started a new story. Oddly enough, the words began to pour out of me and I finished 3,300 words in one sitting. The next night I sat down and cranked out 2500 words. I was feeling great!

Then came Saturday in which I expected to make up a big chunk of my deficit. Unfortunately that didn’t happen. Sunday I tried to write and it just wasn’t coming out.

That has me sitting here tonight on Monday thinking about how I’m 9,000 words behind. Oh well, I can’t complain, I’m actually getting somewhere.

By the way, I’m aware I’ve been ignoring my blog and I apologize. I have 3 nice products from the Exaclair line that I will be reviewing as soon as I can. It’ll be worth it.

I don’t know about you, but 99.5% of my time spent in front of a piece of paper, I’m holding a pen. Very rarely do I bother with pencils unless I’m attempting to sketch something which is quite rare.

It seems like there’s a lot of people quite dedicated to the use of pen just as I am but surely there are those wild and crazy folk who would rather hoist graphite than pen?

Feel free to admit your love for pencils or go ahead and tell us that you never use them.

Oh my, it’s Monday night and I haven’t posted anything on my blog. Allow me to shove the blame over on NaNoWriMo please?

I’ve spent the past week quite stressed out about the whole novel writing business. I’ve often fancied myself as a writer yet I don’t write so… yeah that’s a problem. As Nov 1st drew closer, I began to panic about not having a story or characters or any of those things you might expect to be in a novel. Oddly enough, while I thought I was kind of ignoring it, I was actually stressing out about it in the back of my head and it started to affect my sleep quit badly. The last night I slept well was Thursday and I’m firmly placing the blame on this novel stuff.

However, I pulled an idea out of my head and decided to at least give it a start. At 9pm last night, I began to write and cranked out 1700 words before succumbing to fatigue of the fingers and brain. I tell you what, it’s not easy to drag a story out of your head if you’re not used to it. I imagine if you’re not used to writing fiction – which I’m not – then you’d find yourself in the same place I was, dragging the story out of your brain as if pulling a large log through a mud field. Not easy!

After last night’s insanely fitful attempt at sleep, I’ve decided to take a day off. Today is my birthday and in a couple of hours, my Fiance will be home and we’re going out for dinner after which I fully plan on passing out with a nice full belly. Hopefully a good night’s rest will help spur me on to writing well tomorrow as I’ll be a day behind! I have not given up on NaNoWriMo… yet.

I’m going to move the updates to this blog from daily to Mon-Wed-Fri for now. I think that’s about all I’ll be able to handle and write a novel.

To everyone participating in NaNoWriMo, good luck!

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.