Journalling

Hi everyone!

Today, I thought I'd show you how I journal.

For starters, there's not much to it -- I don't follow a prescribed  set of 'rules'. I simply write what I want, the way I want.   What it's all about is merely a little bit of discipline to write on a regular basis.

Early this year, I decided that I wanted to document my life.  I never really wrote in a diary as a teenager, and never kept a regular journal.  Later on in life, I was too busy with family, work, and life in general, to journal.  Now that I have some time on my hands, I figured I would try it and see if it made sense for me.

Months later, I'm still keeping it up.  I try to write something during the day, whenever the urge strikes.  It will usually be some trivial thing that happened, tasks/errands I do during the day, and even the occasional rant and rave.  It usually wouldn't be anything too personal (it seems I'm an introvert, even in my journaling, LOL).

(While on vacation, I only wrote a snippet of my day -- what I did, where I went -- since I was busier than usual.  But I tried to keep it up during that time.)

After deciding to do this, I first needed to find a book to write on.  I searched local bookstores/stationery shops.  I searched online. I even tried to use my Filofax to journal.

What I realized is that I needed a bound book to do this.  As much as I would have loved to use a Filo, it just didn't work for me.  I needed the pages to be lined and bound and feel like a real 'book'.  (Call me crazy.)

And I found these.

I stamped and laminated a tag to make it seem like a real Journal. 

There are 193 pages back-to-back. I know, I numbered the pages by hand!  (:   At the top is space for the date.  The pages are cream, lined, and fairly thick. I use a fountain pen, and as you can see from one of the photos, there is very little bleed-through. (I'm on page 83 now and I started the book in April so these will last me a while.)  And they're very inexpensive at less than US$2 each!

Space for the date comes in handy

I had to number each page by hand

Lined, cream paper.  Hardly any bleed-through, even with
a fountain pen .  I prefer an EF nib.

They come in many different colors.  I wanted them all to be in black, but the store only had one at the time so I picked up a yellow and a red as well.  I wish I could find them again in black later on.  I would love for them to be uniform.

As I mentioned, I use a fountain pen to bring back some nostalgia to my journalling.  As I was researching what fountain pen to get, I came across several, but none appealed to me in my price range.  (There were tons I wanted though in the hundreds of dollars, but I wasn't spending that kind of money on a fountain pen!)

I knew about the Lamy Safari, and didn't even consider it because I previously found the design to be clunky, chunky, and in one word, ugly.  I have completely changed my mind about them though, since as you can see, I now have three.  They write well, are very reasonably-priced, and come in great colors.  I won't review them here as there are already tons of better reviews online.

I also got some converters and inks, but find that cartridges are so much less fiddly and messy.  And I really only wanted to write in blue.  So, since I didn't use them anywhere else, one color was fine.  I did put black ink in the black pen though, just to match.

Pens and paraphernalia

J. Herbin inks.  Reasonably-priced with a wide array of colors.

I may try again with colored inks later, but for now, I'll just be using Lamy cartridges.

(I would love to hear from anyone who uses J. Herbin inks as they're easily accessible to me here, and I would love to make them work.  I'm sure it's just me because lots of people like this ink, but I can't seem to get the true colors to come out with my Lamys.  Would appreciate what you think.)

So, that's how I journal.  Not very interesting maybe.  But it's a whole new experience for me, and I'm loving it so far.

Thanks for visiting!