For some reason, book people are also often quite fond of stationery products – and of course, as a writer, one can never have too many notebooks or pens. It’s quite funny to see how popular expensive stationery is, when we are writing less and less by hand! I will be including some Japanese products as well, for January in Japan, and because they are masters of paper production!
Her blood – tar treacle.
A pump runs on mute,
enchurned in inner workings,
warped in yearnings
glossy-small or rough-large.
Where do the butterflies of summer alight?
Why do we always mention their gossamer twinkle
and do nothing about it?
When will it be my turn?
The moment passed.
So long ago.
Is there any writer out there who doesn’t love stationery? Of course, there are plenty of stationery lovers who are not writers (just hoarders or designers or… procrastinators), so there is no immediate causal link there.
Based on a conversation we started over at dVerse Poets Pub about the tools we really need as poets, I collected a few of my favourite things in this post.
1) Of course I appreciate Moleskine and the reinvention of a brand, but my personal favourite is much simpler and cheaper. Rhodia notebooks have been the smoothest writing experience in France for 80 years now. They have all sorts of ‘nouveautés’ (novelties) every year, but I just stock up on their most basic black or orange note-blocks.
2) I like high-quality fountain pens. In fact, I have my eye on a Montblanc Virginia Woolf pen when I sign my publishing contract – or perhaps for autographing my books.
3) However, more realistically and practically, I bulk-buy Pilot G2 gel rollerballs. They work really well with the slippery-smooth Rhodia pages.
4) I’ve just discovered these rather funky notebooks from Huck and Pucker. An elastic to keep them closed is always a good idea and of course I’m bookish and proud of it!
5) Finally, a trip to London always means a stopover at Paperchase on Tottenham Court Road: a stationery-lover’s idea of heaven. Sadly, they seem to have discontinued (at least online) my favourite notebook type, so you’ll have to make do with my own pictures. It’s a chunky A5 notebook with elastic, colourful plastic covers, 5 sections (lined, squared and blank) with dividers (with pockets to stuff notes in), plus more plastic covers and a zipped purse at the back. Just the most practical, wonderful notebook ever: I carry my whole life around in it! Paperchase, please, please bring it back!
Apparently there is such a thing as National Stationery Week and it’s this week. So, let me know what your ‘cannot live without’ items of stationery are. Do you hoard lots of pretty (and empty) notebooks? Oh, and point me in the direction of your luxury items too, while we are on the subject…
The incredible joy of colourful notebooks – the best flu medicine ever!
I’ve lost my poetry notebook.
That slender scribbler with blue and white boats on the cover
fitting instantly in pockets
unobtrusive on nighttables
familiar with coffee shops and handbags, desks and grassy mound,
alert and keen
it waited for flighty inspiration.
I’ve lost the mad jottings,
the crossing out, the changes,
synonyms in endless lists,
invented words mocked by their conservative neighbours.
I’ve lost my mind
my moment of respite
my calm in eye of storm
the grips that hold me onto life.
And in the world I know
nothing is ever fully replaceable.
findingtimetowrite 