International Correspondence Writing Month
One a day. Every day. February.
The challenge, write and send one letter or postcard each day this month. Even though we are one day in, I’d argue that it’s never too late to start.
The Connection Between Writing And Sleep | Psychology Today
The Connection Between Writing And Sleep — Psychology Today
Sharing for this bit (emphasis mine):
Throughout the day, we have all these things cycling through our head. Some of them seem to continue to cycle. There’s something about the act of writing, physically writing something on paper, that tends to offload it a little bit, or help us hit the pause button on it. The outcome seems to be [that] you decrease cognitive arousal, and you decrease rumination and worry.
Of course, anybody who regularly journals or keeps a paper task list already knows this to be the case (I’ve recently moved my to-do system almost entirely to paper, and I’ll be sharing more about that experience soon), but it’s always great see to such things backed up by cognitive science.
(Hat tip to my friend Jessica Williams for sending me this link.)
How to make learning to draw a whole lot easier. – Danny Gregory
How to make learning to draw a whole lot easier. – Danny Gregory
I’ve been helping folks to start drawing for ages but more importantly, I have helped myself to start drawing. And by teaching myself, I have learned a few things that could help you to get past those first few challenging steps. So this story is less about drawing techniques than it is how to incorporate drawing into your life, how to keep yourself motivated, and how to learn to learn.
This is great. I’m one of those people that have always wanted to draw but feel like I continue to suck at it. I’m going to incorporate several of the ideas expressed here immediately.
Why the Composition Book
by Steve Best
The following is a guest post from friend of the site Steve Best. He’s someone whose work I’ve known about for some time now. His blog is very cool because every post has it’s own layout and design — each one art directed. Well worth a visit for that alone.
I have written about my love for the composition book on a couple of occasions on my personal site. The first was more or less to share my analog task management system, and the second was to heap praise on the composition book, while also sharing my brief move away from it and how it drew me back in. In that piece, I touched on a few main reasons that I prefer the composition book, including the fact that it is cheap in price, durable, and in my opinion, the perfect size.
I like the feeling of security that comes from using products that are ubiquitous as well as tried and true. Not to sound like too much of an old geezer (fact is, I am middle-aged and actually like technology), but unfortunately, it feels like nothing these days is made to last. TVs and computers certainly don’t last as long as they used to. My parents had the same living room TV for most of my childhood. The same goes for their dish washer, fridge, and HVAC system. I have been in my current home, which was built new, for roughly 5 years. I have gone through a number of TVs, two dishwashers, and my HVAC system has been repaired on a few different occasions. None of these things were cheap in price, mind you. It seems like clothes don’t last as long as they used to either, even for brands that traditionally stood the test of time. Certainly phones appear to be designed to be replaced at an ever increasing pace. And again, this is not limited to price bracket, as my wife’s iPhone 6S barely made it a year before she replaced it with the 7.
Circling back to the topic at hand, I mention all that to say that I have had my fair share of expensive things that needed to be replaced much sooner than I thought that they should, and as such, I may have become a bit cynical. Instead of purchasing the most expensive thing, I most often choose the cheapest thing that also gets the job done; fully accepting that what I buy will not last forever. This is especially true with an item the very nature of which is to be consumed, like a notebook. Yes, I could buy an expensive notebook, but it will eventually get filled up and sit on a shelf (or actually in the floor of my closet). 🙂 In fact, my last notebook before I switched back to the composition book was an expensive 300+ page leather bound journal. Guess what — it filled up eventually (albeit at a slower rate than would a composition book), but it was a huge, bug smasher of a notebook that was a pain to carry around. It was also lacking in the durability department. By the end of its life, it was well worn, and not in a Wabi-sabi kind of way. The composition book, as such, is perfect for me because it is super cheap, and each one is basically the same size, weight, shape and durability as the other, no matter which brand you buy. It is truly an ubiquitous product. One can go to any grocer, drug store, or big box store and find one. If you have kids, you may already have a few lying around the house, as the composition book remains a popular school supply, even in an age where traditional textbooks have been supplanted by the Chromebook.
Not only is the humble composition book ubiquitous, it is the Goldilocks of notebooks. At roughly 9 ¾ inches tall by 7 ½ inches wide, the composition book is not too small and not too large. I have tried some “full sized”, executive style notebooks in years past. They always seem to get in the way, and they aren’t as portable as I would like. There seems to never be quite enough desk space. At the same time, going with something smaller than a composition book (like a Field Notes, maybe) will not give me enough room on each page. I don’t want to squint at my notebook.
The composition book is flexible, yet it is extremely durable. I’ve said it before, but I appreciate the fact that the composition book has sewn-in pages. I have never been a fan of notebooks with perforated pages or those with spiral bound pages. They seem less permanent to me, like I might accidentally lose a page or two if I am not really careful with them. As such, I am confident that what I put in my composition book will stay in my composition book.
If you have not yet done so, you should give the humble composition book a try. You may just like it.
Steve Best is a husband, dad, and Christian. He’s a tech enthusiast and loves Japanese cars. He’s an information security professional at a large company and maintains a small site as a creative outlet of sorts — a place to practice HTML, CSS and work on his writing.
Inside One of America’s Last Pencil Factories – The New York Times
Inside One of America’s Last Pencil Factories – The New York Times
Such radical simplicity is surprisingly complicated to produce. Since 1889, the General Pencil Company has been converting huge quantities of raw materials (wax, paint, cedar planks, graphite) into products you can find, neatly boxed and labeled, in art and office-supply stores across the nation: watercolor pencils, editing pencils, sticks of charcoal, pastel chalks. Even as other factories have chased higher profit margins overseas, General Pencil has stayed put, cranking out thousands upon thousands of writing instruments in the middle of Jersey City.
In further proof that I’ve not given this site the attention that it deserves, it seems this is the last pen and paper blog on the planet that has not linked to this. Stunningly beautiful photo essay.
In Defense of Cheap
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about how we in the pen and paper blogosphere tend to focus on the relatively expensive. I’m even guilty of this. Part of the reason is that I like quality tools and, well, quality costs more. But, for some, even things that we privileged folks view as a tremendous value — A $15 Pilot Metropolitan or a $10 pack of three Field Notes — may actually be a barrier to entry for some folks.
But, there also may be a barrier to usage, too. I’ve had several conversations with folks who’d like to write by hand more but, because of unhappiness with the quality of their own output, don’t want to “mess up” something “nice”. Therefore, they don’t start or feel a certain guilt while using them. There are some who don’t start at all because they are led to believe they need the “right” pen or the “right” paper.
The truth is, if you take a look around at many successful published writers who write by hand and the tools they use, more frequently you’ll find cheap. Author Neal Stephenson wrote his 3000 page Baroque Cycle on legal pads. Emily Dickinson wrote many of her most famous poems on the backs of envelopes. Neil Gaiman seems to grab any old notebook that’s lying around.
In the case of the Neal/Neil’s, one could argue that they used expensive fountain pens, sure. But, my larger point is that writing is messy. It includes mistakes, errors, corrections, scratches, half-thoughts, and a lot of junk one must scribble over, cross out, and replace. You want tools — paper especially — you can get messy with. You want notebooks you don’t feel bad crossing entire pages out of or even ripping out a page and throwing it across the room in frustration.
For pens, consider standard issue US Government Skilcraft’s at ten bucks for a dozen (here’s a fascinating article about their history) or stop in at any big box or chain drug store and get anything you can afford. For paper, a 12 pack of Mead composition notebooks will set you back twenty bucks and a pack of legal pads from Amazon will set you back twelve. Or, when you stop into the chain store for a cheap pen pick up a the cheapest spiral notebook you can find as well. If those combined cost more than three bucks you likely are paying too much for both.
But, more than anything, you want to reduce your fear. Fear of the blank page. Fear of “messing up”. Fear of the un-good. Fear of “spoiling” something “good”. You don’t want to get caught up in not having “the right pen” or “the right paper”.
Any pen is the right pen. Any paper, is the right paper. Just write.
Onward for The Cramped
I’m just going to put this as plainly as possible; I have not been giving this site the attention it deserves. That’s going to change. Here’s the plan…
I started The Cramped to promote, endorse, and celebrate, the act of writing by hand or other analog writing tools like typewriters. There are plenty of great pen and paper blogs that do a fantastic job on reviews and stuff to buy. I wanted a site that focused less on reviews and buying stuff and more on the “What comes next?” of using those tools. That remains my mission here. Because of this, you will continue to see a lot of links, quotes, and original posts that speak to this idea.
That doesn’t mean you wont see the occasional review or links to new products or mentions of things I love and use. You’ll find some of that here now and will continue to moving forward. There just will be far less of that than you may see on other pen and paper blogs because it is not the focus.
I also wanted to fill some gaps that I felt were missing in the broader conversation in this area. But, I knew I couldn’t do it myself. So, despite the fact that I’m right-handed, I worked really hard to reach out to a left-handed guest writer to create a really great guide for those folks. I also love this guest post about improving one’s penmanship. I love guest posts. I want this place to have a variety of voices. I plan to reach out to more folks to write guest posts not only about subjects I think are not well covered but, also, from voices (women, people of color, etc.) that are not well represented in this space.
I’ve updated the What We Use page to reflect my current tools. That had not been done since the site started in 2014. Expect other contributors to show up with their current items in the coming days.
I also want to re-emphasize that there is no “schedule”. There may be days where there are no new updates here. I don’t post things for the sake of posting things to keep you “engaged” with our “content”. I value your time and attention and only post things I think are worth them. There may be times where noting reaches that high bar, and that’s as planned too.
If you have something you’d like to see here, feel free to get in touch. If you are interested in writing a guest post, please get in touch. If you’d like to in any way chime in or just say thanks, get in touch. The bottom line, my email inbox is always open to you.
Thanks for reading.
Onward!
Patrick Rhone
How to Write a Blog Post – Rands in Repose
How to Write a Blog Post – Rands in Repose
Repeat until it starts to feel done in your head. If it’s handwritten, type it into a computing device. When you are close to done, print it out on paper. Sit somewhere else with your favorite pen and edit your work harshly. If this piece is important, let someone else edit harshly.
I agree. Even if you write it on a computer, print it out and edit it by hand on paper. You’ll see things differently. Things that get missed on the screen. The writing will be better for having done so.
A journal is a record of experiences and growth, not a preserve of things well done or said. I am occasionally reminded of a statement which I have made in conversation and immediately forgotten, which would read much better than what I put in my journal. It is a ripe, dry fruit of long-past experience which falls from me easily, without giving pain or pleasure. The charm of the journal must consist in a certain greenness, though freshness, and not in maturity. Here I cannot afford to be remembering what I said or did, my scurf cast off, but what I am and aspire to become.
— Henry David Thoreau, journal entry, January 24, 1856
Rohdesign Dispatch: Logbook Your 2018
Rohdesign Dispatch: Logbook Your 2018
I’ve been keeping a logbook since 2014, and it’s become one of my most important tools. I use a logbook to track my life, capture ideas and experiences, and remember my days.I encourage you to try one this year.
First of all, Mike Rohde has a newsletter?!? Immediate signup! Second of all, in this issue he covers why you should consider keeping a logbook in 2018. He includes some great links to resources and ideas to help you get started. I’ve kept one for years myself and can vouch for everything he says.