Angela Booth's Writing Blog

Guilty writing pleasures... Violette Pensee

What's your guilty writing pleasure?

I've just been browsing delicious Swisher Pens (there's a new color in Pelikans!), and realized that I'm almost out of J. Herbin's Violette Pensee fountain pen ink.

Yes, it's purple. So sue me.

I love this purple ink. It's my guilty writing pleasure.

Share your guilty writing pleasures in the comments.

Technorati Tags: fountain pens

Pens and ink: hacking your Moleskine

Moleskine writing template (click to enlarge)

It's not a secret that I'm a dedicated Moleskine fan. In many ways, using notebooks is easier than using a computer. Of course it's easier to find stuff on a computer, so I use Post-It (tm) notes and tabs to let me flick to various sections in a notebook. Here's a vital tip: number the pages, and leave several pages for an index at the front of each notebook.

Great tabbing hack

Moleskine hacks (customizations) abound online, and I love "The Moleskine Multi-Tab Hack" and have adapted it to my own use.

I currently have tabs for This Week (I move it each week), Today (moved each day), My Web Sites (to do lists for my sites), Personal (a catch-all tab for shopping lists and such) and Free Writing (what it says - I like to keep my free writing and browse the sessions when I get bored, or need ideas.)

Technorati Tags: be more productive, diary, fountain pens, GTD, Moleskine

PocketMod: Get organized with a single sheet of paper

click to enlarge

When I was browsing for a new Moleskine notebook this morning (I'm a Moleskine notebook fan) I came across this delightful DIY notebook idea.

The PocketMod is amazing. It brands itself as a "disposable organizer" made from a single sheet of paper. I use the DIYPlanner, printed out on heavy paper, so this intrigued me.

Easier done than said - a new notebook in a couple of minutes
I dragged across the pages that I wanted, folded and snipped - and wow, an excellent little notebook for my ideas. It's ideal to take on my daily walks, and to stuff underneath the elastic of my primary Moleskine which lives on my desk beside my computer.

Try the PocketMod - I give it ten stars for usefulness and another ten for cuteness.

Technorati Tags: be more productive, diary, Moleskine, DIY

Pen-mania

Love fountain pens?

Here's some gorgeous pen wallpaper to brighten your computer desktop.

Technorati Tags: fountain pens

Easy essentials: Try a paper planner for the new year

I've just bought a paper planner for 2006. I do most of my planning on paper these days. Don't get me wrong. I write for tech magazines and I love, love, love technology. I'm never happier than when I'm tinkering with my computers or trying out a new piece of software.

Unfortunately I spend a lot of time tinkering with my planning systems, too, time when I should and could be getting more writing done. As Douglas Johnston of DIY Planner says about his own habits and those of a colleague using a paper planner, you can spend a lot of time tinkering with your systems:

While I would carefully set up my list of 50-odd next actions, prioritising them, categorising them, setting alarms, and syncing between all the technology tools I had at my fingertips, Bettina would just glance at her book and get things done. This is not to say I was a slacker -- on the contrary, I did manage to plough through an extraordinary amount of work and training-- but a certain needless percentage of my time was spent tweaking my productivity system and trying to make it all work smoothly as a whole, mostly after-hours.

I still use MS Outlook, Tinderbox, and OmniOutliner, not to mention BackPack, and couldn't stay organized without them, but paper helps me to organize myself, the tech tools organize my tasks.

Technorati Tags: Planning

DIY Planner: a must-visit site for writers

You're writing, writing, writing... and before you know it you've got hundreds of pages and dozens of files and you're completely exhausted. You need to get organized.

I'm convinced that a lot of writers' procrastination is nothing more than a lack of organizational skills.

If you spend five minutes at DIY Planner you'll collect at least a couple of ideas you can incorporate into your own processes. Of course, you'll never develop a perfect system, but you will be empowered.

I love the Writer's Hipster.

Technorati Tags: Motivation

The problem with PDAs: putting stuff in, getting rid of old stuff

I love my Palm PDA (Personal Digital Assistant). I'm (almost) ashamed to admit that lately I've only used it to play games while I'm taking a breather between writing tasks.

 

I'm using paper notebooks, and index cards as my primary writing PDA again. I'm a big fan of the Hipster PDA, otherwise known as index cards.

  

When I've finished with a card, I recycle it. Rip and it's gone.

 

Yes, the PDA is useful. However, it's not a tabula rasa. If I open it to jot down a note, I'm distracted by all the other notes I've written in the past day and week. And, by the time I'm into the swing of Graffiti again, I've forgotten some of the brilliant idea I just had.

 

OTOH, with an index card, I scrawl a quick note and prop it on my desk --- I'm not distracted by other cards, and I can add to the card whenever I happen to glance at it.

 

Works for me.

 

Mess it up and write

I've got a weakness for nice notebooks. You know the kind. They're hard-backed, with artistic covers, and smooth ultra-white or ivory pages.

  

The problem is, used to I love these notebooks so much that I hesitated to use them. I "saved" them. They disappeared onto high shelves and into deep drawers. When they've been stored somewhere for a few years, they're no longer special. When I rediscover them, the pages have dried out, and the spines have cracked.

 

So now, before I buy a notebook, I decide exactly what I’ll use it for. Then, as soon as I get it home, I write in it, quickly. I write across the pages, make tiny sketches, and make a list or two. I deliberately mess up the notebook, so that it's mine.

 

You can use the same technique to mess up a writing project so that it's yours. If you've been procrastinating on a project because it feels "special" to you, mess it up. Start. Write anything. Write lists for several pages. Write about what you're going to write. Just write.

 

The next day, have another go at messing up your project. Before too long, it no longer feels so special, and you're no longer intimidated by it.

 

Your handwriting is you: change it, and you change

I've been practising changing my handwriting since last Christmas. Weird as the concept sounds, changing your handwriting to change your life does work.

  

So what's changed for me since Christmas? The first thing I did was change the reversed lower loop on my "f"s. This little habit is called a self-sabotage stroke – and changing it works. I can see that I've had a habit of self-sabotage, and just changing this one little stroke has made an immense change in my outlook.

 

Self-sabotage handwriting strokes indicate the fear of success:

  

>>> 

People that have this trait have a pattern of getting close to success and NOT crossing the finish line. Imagine getting close to a promotion, getting close to a raise, getting near the wedding date, but something always goes wrong. They may blame others, but in reality it is a form of self-sabotage. Close, but no cigar.

>>> 

 

Changing your handwriting is not easy, but it's fun. It's meditative to practise, but it takes time to see the results in your everyday writing. However, after almost three months I rarely reverse the lower loops on my fs. Do I still sabotage myself? Time will tell, but I can see and admit to the habit, which is huge progress.

 

Waterman Phileas reigns supreme

My Waterman Phileas slipped out of my hand and speared into the carpet on my office floor yesterday afternoon. Oh, the horror. When I picked it up, the nib's prongs had lifted out of alignment by at least a couple of millimetres.

 

My favourite turquoise pen with a medium nib… I stared at it for a while, then pressed the prongs back into shape on a piece of paper.

 

Guess what? It writes. Of course it doesn’t write the perfect way it wrote before, but it still writes. Magic.

 

On my next order to Pendemonium, I'll be ordering another of these little treasures. :-)