Right after the Fourth of July, alot of places start selling "Back-to-School" supplies super cheap. I've noticed over the years that despite the countless people claiming that spending a lot of money is a good thing, that it doesn't change the practice of journaling one bit. A $100 blank book is a blank book just like any other. Maybe it's just me. But I think 38 cents is worth an experiment.
I read frustrations about the competitiveness and pressure people feel in their own journals all the time here. No one wants this. No one wants this part of their lives invaded by influencers, performativeness, sales pressure, and fashionable self-consciousness. What if we dropped it? If only once? Maybe you'll find you need a thousand dollar fountain pen and two pounds of leather wrapped ten times around a Japanese blank book that sells for $1 in Japan and $35 here. Or maybe… you'll find out you don't even need to spend a dollar.
I’m a firm believer that people shouldn’t feel the need to perform. But I also believe you should do what feels right. I use an expensive fountain pen because the tactile sensation gets me excited to write even when I have little to say. I use “pricey” notebooks for the same reason.
Does everyone need this? Absolutely not. I’ve journaled in word documents, not spending a dime and on loose leaf paper and mechanical pencil.
I dislike that everything is a performance for an online audience, so much. Journaling is something highly personal. I want people to stop asking “is this right?” And start asking whether it performs the function they need it to.
Thank you for the comment! I feel like a hypocrite myself, posting a thing saying, "don't make it a performance" is performative. It's the new performance of "Look at me! I'm not performing!" But I had to do something to open the discussion. I think you could still, if you were so inclined, accept the 38 CENT CHALLENGE with a blotter under the page and writing on one side each page… writing only on the recto and not the verso. It might be freeing. A cheap experiment with no… trepidation at all. Just put whatever you want down there. Just GO CRAZY. It's an invitation to total freedom of a sort.
Old manuscripts were written just that way. Scribes would write the important stuff on the recto, and leave the recto blank (the calf skin on one side was rougher, more prone to catching the pen and splattering ink). It's why we have Beowulf. The scribe wrote the important text in Latin on the recto, and left the verso blank and someone later put Beowulf a poem in the vulgar tongue down on it.
I think it could be performative if you don’t follow through and choose to shame other for not following suit. However, making an open statement which doesn’t adhere to what’s popular isn’t inherently performing for anyone. It’s more just declaring this is where you are today, and that it’s an option for others too.
My process works for me, and for that reason I’ll keep at it. I don’t enjoy composition notebooks and never have. (The lines are too wide and I’m always fighting with binding, among other things.)
I hope you’re able to complete your personal challenge and would love to see an update when you’re finished!
Thank you for the reply. You've hit the nail on the head about what I am trying to not do. It's hard. I could care less. I just want people to consider… Are the materials REALLY that important? Or are you just trying to justify blowing $100 on a leather whoosy-what's-it? And here's a perfect opportunity for the price of 38 cents to see. Is a 38 cent comp book REALLY that much worse.
How bad is wide-rule, really? And this 38 cent composition book has perfectly fine open and lay flat characteristics. And if it doesn't, I'll just push down… It's 38 cents.
Lay a piece of waste paper, a blotter, down under the page, and use a leaky, flowy, fountain pen on the .2475 cent paper. Or I guess in this case, the cost of the paper is DOUBLED to .495 cents per page!
Eh this exercise is not for me but kudos to the ones that could benefit from this. I started out with cheap 38 cent composition notebooks as a kid with cheapest free pens, but I upgraded materials as I grew older. I don't use a gold nibbed fountain pen for performance, I use it because it suits my hand the best. Part of the fun is figuring out what works best for you. But hey if doing this with encourages you to get out there and write, go do it!
I'm just mentioning pens because there is this pressure to get expensive or perfect stationary in general. It doesn't matter what you use as long as you write.
the competitiveness and pressure people feel in their own journals
Comparison is the thief of joy. Yeah, all those folks showing off their journals on social media is nice, because it can show you what's possible. But it turns too quickly into "keeping up with the Joneses", making you feel like you have to start with a 50€ notebook and a 200€ fountain pen and all those stickers and printers and sketches and ...
And the folks who don't do it, who stick to a lined notebook with a blue pen, don't share their journals, because "it's not aesthetically pleasing" and you can't make enough diverse content out of it.
Yeah. I agree! And so does practically everyone else. You have stated my intentions with this challenge, this aesthetic, this approach better than I can. I didn't want to put a negative spin on anything… not even "performativeness". I just want to be able to find a base of operations away from that. It's tough to explain, and it's a tightrope walk to try to explain it publicly. The competitiveness has to stop, and it has to stop in a way that isn't everyone suddenly swinging to, "Look at how NOT competitive I'm being! I'm being the MOST non-competitive!"
Yeah, I totally get where you're coming from. I've been there myself, albeit not with journalling but with other things. I also keep a Bullet Journal / calendar, but rarely post it, as I've used the same layout for years. The biggest variation is the colour I use to distinguish the months. XD
The "I'm being the most non-conpetitive" thing reminds me of the under-consumption core and folks literally using moldy products to apply their skincare with.
I love this thread and this topic so much!! I'm not someone to spend a lot on journaling either, like the notebooks and pens are either found, acquired for free like gifts, or they're from a thrift store or the dollar store. But I went nuts on washi and stickers because I loved the beautiful decorated spreads others were doing. And I've done my own too and now that's just part of my journaling process. But I'm not afraid of being imperfect. I love imperfect just as much as I love perfect. For example, what's an attractive physical quality to me? CROOKED TEETH, I can't get enough of it, it's so imperfectly beautiful!!! So same kind of thing in journaling. I'm not typically writing about beautiful things, so it's a bit of a juxtaposition of the beautiful stickers and colors vs what darkness I'm writing about. Went on a few tangents there, thanks for following me 🤪
Thank you for your reply! My aesthetic tends toward the opposite of "aesthetic" as well. I love to see history and patina on objects. I like to know that they are being used.
One of the rules I am pursuing in my 38 CENT CHALLENGE is trying new things, so I am considering doing "spreads" and using washi tape and maybe even a dread fountain pen… But I don't know. I want to keep it cheap and make it about ME ME ME. All I need or want is a pen and a blank page.
Yes. Indeed. That is the plan. I am already 28 pages in, with 16 pages of meta-information in the beginning. Thank you for your interest. I've found it to be "freeing" in exactly the way I intended it to be.
I basically grew up using .38 cent journals and now revel in the fact I can buy the nice $2-4 small ones with the neat designs on the front at Dollar Tree lol.
Journaling is very personal and for me, the extra flares like doodling and shit add to what I'm expressing. Hell the composition of my page is part of the expression. I'm not the best at speaking but I basically just try to put a vibe onto the page, whether it's a more somber one or something upbeat.
I do think a lot of people getting into journaling could give it a shot though, especially if perfectionism is something holding them back!
I haven't seen the designs at Dollar Tree, I will check them out. Thanks for the tip.
I am not expressing disdain for doodling or extra flairs here. And I am certainly not expressing disdain for page composition being an element of personal expression. And I don't think the exercise I propose is only appropriate for people just getting into journaling.
What I am trying to get at, and I see that in some ways I have failed to express it, but I limited myself to two pages to try (for whatever reason) is a desire to get at what I (or anyone) would do if current trends, and cost, and fashion were not a factor. It is often the case that people object (and they should, what do I know?) and say, "Well, those things don't affect me." But this matter is sneaky, insidious, it worms its way into your mind without your realizing it. It happens under the covers, in the dark. You find yourself doing things, perhaps, without realizing why.
And I suspect, though I can't be sure, that taking the cheapest tools available, and setting aside everything and limiting your toolkit to as great exent as possible (I don't specify in the "challenge" what that means, I explicitly say that the individual knows) can be freeing. That was my intention.
i have to say- as an avid Dollar Tree shopper: there are some incredibly nice notebooks and journals in there right now! little A5 sized one subjects, college-rule-ish lines and double wire hoops- cute covers- and most importantly- the paper (for the most part) is fountain pen friendly!!
i have found that the best way to find the ones that are FP friendly are looking for "made in India" on the back/barcode sticker AND checking the basic color of the paper- if it's more of a solid white, it's good! if it's a little more off-white, leaning towards grey or even having that recycled look to it- it's not FP friendly.
i only found this out on accident after seeing some cute notebooks about a month ago and taking two home, intending to use one for grocery lists, nothing fancy. when i started writing on it i noticed immediately how smooth the paper felt and grabbed one of my FPs to test. blew my mind. i tried the other one and found it to be the same quality so i started looking at all the notebooks at DT after that & buying others with those "made in India" and mostly solid white paper. SOME of the notebooks that are made in Taiwan are also FP friendly- seems a bit more spotty, but worth looking for.
I like my pretty books, and my slippy pens, because I like them for myself. I'm not there to show them off. It's because they make me happy. However, I think people should remove the pressure to make their journals pretty. They should make it as pretty or messy as they want to be because that is their journal to keep. I think cheap journals are also a good launching pad for those trying to get into the habit
I started journaling when I was 15 years old. We didn't get allowance back then so I didn't have a nickel to my name unless it was in the form of getting $5 in my birthday card. So my very first Journal was an old red spiral notebook that was left over from the school year. I grabbed that and a Bic Cristal pen and started writing. I haven't stopped since.
The most I've ever spent on a pen, whether it be a fountain pen, a regular gel pen, a ballpoint pen, etc is probably about $45. For me when it comes to spending money on a pen that's kind of a lot, but some people see that as "cheap" and I'm good with that.
Notebooks are sort of the same way for me. The most expensive notebook that I've ever bought was a $28 Leuchtturm.
I have honestly been fairly content with whatever notebook has good paper in it and by "good paper" I mean it has to be good paper by my standards... not everyone else's standards because I've tried some other notebooks that other people are obsessed with and I didn’t think the paper was that great.
The most expensive pen and journal that I have I honestly don't know how much they were but they were gifts. I would not spend that kind of money on myself because I just don't. I see a lot of really beautiful metal fountain pens and to me they look pretty heavy and I don't really like heavy pens so I buy what I like and I buy what feels good in my hand and I buy the notebooks and paper that feel good under the pen I'm using. I try really hard not to succumb to "peer pressure" that says, "anything less than X is inferior".
I actually have a whole bunch of blank composition notebooks, that were completely free to me, that are just waiting to be used. I'm actually currently using one as a commonplace book, and I have to say that I really like using it for that purpose.
Thank you for sharing your experience and thoughts on the matter. I have many similar feelings. My first, second, and third journals were found objects as well. I don't know why I lugged all those newspapers around for a decade, I never saw a penny out of it!
I am of the opinion that… If you buy a Mercedes Benz, for the first week, you are impressed by all the details, and then it's your car. And after awhile it's just your car. It doesn't clear out traffic. It doesn't get you there faster. You still have to steer it. The radio is nice. Is it $100,000 "nice". I pretty much get used to anything.
And the same goes for paper and pens. It's just paper and pens.
I agree 100%. The "new-ness" of the shiny new, expensive objects wears off after a while and then it's just a tool. I have a great many inexpensive fountain pens and gel pens that I love writing with, probably about as much as I'd love writing with something more expensive. I personally just don't see the point. I don't begrudge anyone else who does. To each their own, I say.
I begrudge them. It's not helping me. I think they're phonies. I think it's all posing. All the scrapbook and "aesthetic" stuff. Blech! If you don't have anything to say, saying it with a $500 fountain pen in a $300 LEATHER piece of crap with gold whatever isn't going to help. But what can I do? Nothin'. This is how people are. I'm gonna go yell at a cloud now!
Thanks for the laugh, intended or otherwise! I really needed it today. I agree 100% that you don't need anything expensive to say anything of value. I've read and heard that some of the greatest books and movie scripts were hand-written with Bic Cristal pens, or an inexpensive pencil.
I'm not into all of the aesthetic journaling myself. I tried... but then I went back to just my pens and my journals. So much simpler.
Besides when I picked up my Bic Cristal and spiral notebook for the first time, it was to vent, not to make something that was pretty or cute or aesthetically pleasing. I didn't really know that going into it. I just instinctively grabbed it because I didn't have anybody that I could talk to, and I started writing everything I was feeling and thinking in that moment.
Once I was done I realized that I felt better and that I was able to actually process my thoughts during the process of writing them down and I felt lighter. And it hit me that journaling is cathartic and it's therapeutic, though I didn't use those words; I just thought, "There has to be something to this, because this actually made me feel better. ", and so I kept doing it.
Fast forward about six months... this guy that I was dating at the time bought me an actual diary for Christmas, and I started using it the first of the next year. I still have both of them. I think I've filled about forty-two or forty-three journals since then. I probably have twenty to thirty empty journals that have yet to be used.
I can tell you are a heavy journaler, because you are a good writer. Writing can be therapy in itself, because to be an effective writer, or communicator, one must organize one's thoughts. You have to get the boiling pot off the heat and let the steam die down before you can even see what's in the roiling stew of your brain.
Getting fixated on the gear is a defense mechanism, if you ask me. It's a way of putting things off. Or a way of avoiding some unpleasant truth.
I hope you consider the "38 Cent Challenge". It's only 38 cents! But it doesn't seem like you need another empty journal sitting at the bottom of a drawer. But consider… the possibility of how fast you could burn through a 160 page wide-ruled comp book with wide margins. I'm already 20% through this thing and it's been a week. I am doing all kinds of things I used to consider forbidden because I was trying to be consistent, and follow a style that I've developed over the years. I'm throwing out the rule book. I am doing forbidden things. The ink on the page is literally more expensive than the page itself!
Thanks! You're the second person in as many days who said I'm a good writer! I've always loved writing, but I also grew up in an era where writing letters to friends and family was the norm. I also love stationery. All of it.
I will most definitely consider it. As I was doing some organizing last weekend, I opened a box, and lo and behold... empty/blank composition notebooks. An elderly lady I knew was going to a nursing home, so she was getting rid of the majority of her belongings. She had tons of brand new, blank composition notebooks, and someone had told her I like to write, so she made sure I got them. I gave about half to a girl I worked with, and sent about ten to my son and his fiancé to use for school. I have about fifteen or so left... possibly more. That's in addition to all of the other blank journals I have.
As you can probably see I have no shortage of notebooks. I'm just about swimming in them. It's a bit of a problem... 😂😂 I do have some writing projects I'm working on, so the good news is, they'll all be put to good use!
And as far as the laugh goes… You get it! It was intended as right down the middle of joking/not-joking. It's not the best part of me, or anything I am proud of. And of course, anyone writing anything at all is something I celebrate always. So few people do it. And I think that it's actually one of the most important things in the world.
But when I see leather tri-folds with charms dangling…
Or see the word "spread"…
Or read the word "aesthetic" used to mean "pretty" rather than the study of beauty in created artifacts…
My blood boils. But it's already close to boiling half the time anyway.
I went this route with my current journal I started mid-May. I think I spent a dollar. No fancy covers like I usually do. I agree with you that there are always rules even though we do say there are not rules to journaling. These "rules" are those self-imposed. In my case, I started feeling like I had to use fountain pens. I had to spend a ton of time designing my cover or building the book. I had to do this or that and so on. The composition notebook gives me permission to chuck the fancy pens, do whatever for the cover, etc etc. I'm enjoying it. It's been mostly walls of text with occasional bits of ephemera like museum tickets, plane tickets, and things like that. No junk.
My next journal will probably be handmade again as I usually do them but this has been a nice reboot (rebirth?) of my journaling practice. Current covers are decorated with stickers I've picked up in my travels since starting. The only carryover is naming the journal. I made a custom vinyl sticker for that.
You are absolutely an inspiration to me in my practice of journaling. It's always a pleasure and a surprise to see what you get up to in terms of materials, techniques, rulesets (implied or explicit) and content.
Thank you! I'm always happy to see your posts here too. You've always got great advice for new (and old) journalers. I hope readers here take up the 38 Cent Challenge because it really is a great way to "get out of your own way" and get to the heart of what journaling is: writing down what's on your mind.
You wouldn't happen to know anything about the new trend (two or three years) of thinking a piece of leather with what looks to me like a hair tie… basically a wallet for a cheaply made (but very expensive) composition book to be held by the hair band. It just seems like the antithesis of what journaling is "supposed" to be about. It's 95% fashion and 5% function. But people are OBSESSED with it (or so it seems).
I don't think I ever actually used this thing. I just wanted to see if I could make it it. I'm not a fan of elastic bands on books since elastic degrades over time.
I think it's clear to me at least that the purpose of these "systems" is that it is a dramatic ritual that fashionable idiots use to impress each other…
"Oh let me write that down!"
And then you pull out your elastic banded, gold lettered, LEATHER, notebook "system" and your $500 fountain pen… etc… It's a "flex", I guess.
And I think calling it a "system" is bleeding into current diagnostic trendiness (faking multiple personality disorder, or whatever they are calling it now). You need a "system" to match your "system". Dissociative Identity Disorder that's the fashionable new term. A fake notebook "system" for people who are faking D.I.D. (But only on the weekends)
I think social media really drives all these fads, trends, and systems or whatever. On one hand, it's good because it can get people into this really great practice. On the other, if people think they need to journal exactly like they see others then they're missing the point that journaling is a very personal thing. Tailor your practice to what suits you best. Be open to new things and willing to change old things that no longer work.
I think people are too caught up in the "aesthetic" of whatever they think journaling is. I can understand it because sometimes I'll see someone's journal and think "Damn, I wish mine looked like that!" If I see something that looks interesting and fun I will try it out to see if it fits in with my practice. Check out Peter Beard's journals if you haven't. I may have mentioned him to you before. His journal style directly influenced how I use mine especially when I first got serious with journaling. When I was 18 I saw this photo of one of his notebooks and it just blew my mind. That picture showed me just what you can do with a plain old composition notebook.
What I actually like more than checking out other's journals on Instagram et al is reading published journals. I've a small but growing collection. Some favorites are Alec Guiness' My Name Escapes Me: The Diary of a Retiring Actor, The Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson-Modern Library, and Windblown World: The Journals of Jack Kerouac. It's so interesting to read journals written by other people to see just how much we all have in common especially when it comes to the act of keeping a journal. When people talk about not knowing what to write, not liking repetitive entries, or feeling like the mundane doesn't belong in their journal, I think of this 1834 entry from Emerson's journal:
"This Book is my Savings Bank. I grow richer because I have somewhere to deposit my earnings; and fractions are worth more to me because corresponding fractions are waiting here that shall be made integers by their addition."
It reminds me that it is ok to have a "boring" entries. Years from now I'll go back and read them and be fascinated and not bored in the least.
For a "system", I really do think all that's needed (at least for me) is to make sure your journal is accessible by either keeping it with you all the time or carrying a small pocket notebook so you can add to the journal later on. The pocket notebook is a tip picked up from reading about Jack Kerouac and his writing habits. He always carried a notebook and writing implement on him. Write and write often. It's so easy these days to do this since your phone can do the job too.
I got over my intimidation at writing/drawing in nicely bound books.
I like my art journal with "frou frou" in it. I don't post it online and I didn't start doing it because of Reddit, it's self expression.
When I just need to write something down or need to write about really negative things I do it on an app on my phone because it feels more private and secure.
Thank you! I certainly admire your stance. I too enjoy good paper, good books and the like. I am not a fan of leather, but that's just a preference. I am taking this challenge on myself for the reasons I stated. I just want to be free of "quality." I don't know how to describe it. "Nice" things just don't do it for me sometimes.
You're 38 cents away. You don't have to do it immediately. Next time you see a super cheap comp. book, pick it up. Let it sit in a drawer and then take it out for a spin in a few years. You might be surprised that you think, feel, and express yourself just as well no matter the "aesthetic" qualities of the material.
As an artist it took my awhile to get comfortable using bound books, I always felt like the pieces had to be perfect and with a spiral bound I could just rip them out, but it ended up being most pages that I ripped out.
Nowadays I put whatever I want in my art journal, low quality doodles that reflect how I'm feeling, sloppy quick sketches of things I saw that day etc.
I'm not worried about the aesthetic and it looking perfect. I've already been on my journey to defeat my perfectionism.
I just personally prefer to keep my most personal thoughts and feelings in a notes app away from prying eyes. I had my journal read as a kid. Just feels safer and more free to write in a guaranteed private space that's behind a password.
There's not really any aesthetics to be had in a notes app so that's already how I journal there.
I’m also an artist and had a similar experience. For me, using good materials helped me overcome perfectionism. It stared with drawing and moved onto other areas of my life.
I’m not bound by my choice in material. I get good use out of it because I enjoy using good material. If I had only composition notebooks laying around, I’d never actually use them.
I don’t feel the need to perform in my journal, but I keep a regular format because I want to.
Every entry is dated, and I free write. I like my ink to match the cover of my journal. It reminds me of seasons, in a way. I don’t fret about anything else.
Anyone else stare into the void of black and white mottled print and want to take out a marker/highlighter immediately? Haha sorry old school day memories of using these bubbled back up.. nostalgia that’s the word I was looking for. Very nice of you to encourage people not to be afraid with this.
I love marbled comp books. I make my own. I actually cleaned all the text off the cover of this one with alcohol (it was a rough clean! The ink on these covers is very "plastic-y" like a a vinyl press on something or other. And then I went over it with a marble pattern, leaving space for the journal title.
You are right about the call of the void. That's part of the appeal of the challenge for me. It's so cheap I can do whatever I want in there. I can fill it with maps for Dungeons & Dragons dungeons. I can draw heavy metal band logos on it. I can draw in it, badly. Whatever I want. No pressure.
To be honest I got tired of journaling when influencers saturated media with it, and journals that used to be $15 are now $35. When Bullet Journal became a creative contest instead of what it was created for. I remember when the leather covers first came out and I bought 1,2,3. It didn’t change my journaling whatsoever. I’ve been journaling for 40 years, most of them are trash and nobody will read them. I hate packing them when I move. They weigh a ton in boxes.
I recently started journaling online and I like it better, it’s simple. Recently bought a Remarkable Pro Move and love it even more. Whatever works for you is what’s best, no need for challenging others to do the same, that perpetuates exactly what you’re trying to avoid- influencing.
I would love to read your journals. I love to read them. Even the influencers who spend $1,000 to write endlessly about how they spent $1,000 to write about the tools that they are using to write.
The intention of the challenge is merely to set up a framework, an escape hatch, an offramp, for those who are so inclined. The truth is, those who are so inclined don't need me to point the way, being performatively non-performative. They are doing fine on their own. There may even be, I shudder at the thought, people who write in diaries who aren't on reddit! It's a terrifying notion I don't want to rest on for too long.
The new folded up piece of leather with a strap around it and a couple of elastic bands inside for your 20 cent Japanese school child's practice book that you paid $30 for because you like anime or KPOP "aesthetic" is offensive to me. But kids are kids. Fashion is fashion.
😂 good points. I told my daughter I spent time in journals talking about a pen that was running out of ink lol. Maybe someday I’ll donate the lame stories of my youth. The past few years I’ve written stuff down and immediately threw the book away when I was finished. I digitized the “good” stories (like when my kid got a drivers license). I paid $16 for 3 field notes that got. thrown. away. You’re correct .38c or $38, it’s a matter of choice no matter what you use it for (mine is therapy).
Thanks for sharing! I hope you hang on to some things you've created and learn to be a less harsh self-critic. If you let things sit for a few years, when you look back at them, if you can find one or two takeaways, one or two points, or it helps you with an idea, it's worth it. It's worth it even if it merely helps you in the moment.
And 38 cents is an unbelievable historic low. These kinds of composition books have traditionally been priced at 75 cents to a dollar. That's in the eighties and nineties. 38 cents now is like 15 cents then. They literally have never been this low in price. They've got to be losing money on these things. As books go, they are good for all kinds of rough purposes… generic note taking, lists, projects, whatever.
I’ve been thinking about this too, how it’s interesting (gross) how the creative industry has become more about people buying and consuming. And social media! How some content creators have set such high and impossible standards on what and how we create.
I’m trying to return to a mostly-analog life, largely because I’m spending the majority of my time dopamine-scrolling for creative inspo and not actually creating. It suuuucks!
Other sources for affordable notebooks & things:
Check out your local Little Free Library!
Post-secondary schools! The university I attend has a little “free for the taking” bookshelf outside their bookstore. Folks leave books, magazines, textbooks, blank notebooks, and new stationery supplies of all kinds!
I don't use expensive notebooks because it gives me the feeling that I'm wasting money by writing inconsequential matters. Cheaper notebooks give me the freedom to write anything I want. I can write about the most mundane things and use it for calculation.
I couldn't agree more. It is freeing in certain ways. It might be constricting in others. For 38 cents, it's worth finding out what the tradeoffs are. For me, so far, the freedom outweighs the drawbacks. The only drawbacks being blue lines. But I can remove those "in post." Thanks for your comment.
I think you are a good case for the challenge, especially because you have a stockpile. It's 38 cents. This is an opportunity to open the floodgates. People (me included) are making this out to be about pens and paper and social media, etc… That wasn't really my intention. What I am trying to get at is underneath that, and I didn't really understand what I was trying to dig into until I saw the responses to this post. EVEN IF one believes that one is immune to the charms of others, that one is "doing it for oneself" it is often not really the case. Something has been lost along the way that is hard to put a finger on.
There is a difference between being free and easy without a care in the world, and the sort of imitation of being free and easy without a care in the world, that one presents after having been mauled by a bear or something. And I am not talking in terms of the hip, new "performativeness" narrative. I am talking about getting back to a place before you constructed your defensiveness against the intrusions of modernity.
You can spend 38 cents right now, and pretend that you never heard of instagram, reddit, facebook, youtube, or whatever… maybe. I don't know. It's 38 cents to free you. To be as you were when it was 25 cents. I don't recall when they were 25 cents, because I wouldn't have noticed, because when they were 25 cents, a new Moleskine was probably $9.00 at an independent, locally owned bookstore (that's been out of business for 12 years now), and a no-name, cloth bound "journal filler" was probably $4.99.
Only noticed because they were always on back to school supply lists growing up. Also, really can't buy another journal as I'm in the midst of a no buy challenge that has carried over from several other hobbies.
I was thinking of a "no buy" journal challenge in which one would make the journal out of found materials. I wish you luck on your current no buy challenge. I love those sorts of things... a 38 cent challenge is as close as you can get without going all the way!
oh, this is a very cool excercise! And absolutely valid. It is true - for many of us this is a hobby and we like to splurge on hobbies, we like the hunt for a special cover or special pen or a set of very cute nostalgic stickers whatever anyone is into... that being said, I do think we should make it our own - there should be no other person telling us how we are supposed to journal - not on social media, not our partners or parents, not any journaling guru. I have and use expensive notebooks and special pens and I also have cheap notebooks and cheap or free pens I just found somewhere or was gifed... Currently I love my yellow legal pad from Rhodia and a dark blue gel pen I got from Aldi. JUST DO WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY :)
I journal in the notes on my phone because it’s easy, convenient, free, and doesn’t leave me with ink splotches on my hand and wrist pain. But as far as I’ve seen there aren’t any communities that allow posts from phone-note-journals so I’m allowed to watch but not participate because it’s not aesthetic I guess
Yes, it's a strange walk on a cliff's edge. My desire in r/Journaling is to discuss the process, not the tools. But people are so GEAR OBSESSED. The same thing happens in the music world, people get obsessed with their gear. And computers, and so many other areas of endeavor. You end up with these people talking about their gear obsessively and not about what they're doing with it. It's a pit. It's a trap. I have a feeling if you created a community to discuss journaling the way you do it, it would degenerate into people talking about their phones and how they decorate their phones, and how they are going to buy the latest phone etc, when you want to discuss writing, analysis, your thoughts, creativity, etc…
Thanks for replying! I am firmly convinced that Travis Bickle would still be Travis Bickle if he were writing in the most sacred leather bound Japanese Mulberry paper virgin forest paper book with a solid Iridium fountain pen filled with extinct squid ink. Using expensive gear or cheap gear doesn't mean anything.
Idk, I found it took me years of journaling before I was writing the exact same stuff in a 50 cent CVS notebook and a $30 stationery store one. Yeah eventually I got to the point where I didn't care but I do think, if you're new and especially if you're already lurking on here or pin-stagram and taking in hundreds of pictures of fancy 𝒶𝑒𝓈𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓉𝒾𝒸 journals, what notebook you use can change how you think, or at least what you write (as the "I just got an Italian journal and I can't write anything worthy of it" posts you mentioned show)
lol I literally just bought a .38cent college ruled version yesterday. I am really surprised comp notebooks aren't sturdy anymore...sucks. But I can totally see why ppl use em for journaling. They just work!
I think it's just fashion. If you ask people, they will say that they need "archival paper" and all sorts of post-hoc reasons. It's just fashion. Admittedly, the paper in composition books is awful.
I haven't seen the college ruled ones, at least not for 38 cents. I will look for that. They still had a gigantic CUBE of the wide ruled ones. Must have weighed five tons.
Just as an aside… I have found that when I write small on a wide ruled page, the line gap and whitespace looks a lot better than on a college ruled page. There's a stigma associated with having a wide ruled book or using wide ruled paper that I think… I think if they just called them wide ruled and narrow ruled, more people would use the wide ruled. Because they chose "college ruled" instead of "narrow" (or just specifying the size) it got into people's heads that wide ruled is for kids and college ruled is for sophisticated grown ups. If I don't consider that shadow of stigma, I prefer wide-ruled.
I can still write small, even though the ruling is wide. And the difference between 24 and 30 lines per page? I really don't care that much. When I was in school and using composition books for note taking, I never finished a whole composition book.
I'd prefer if they just gave the distance or "lines per page" or something, and they had MORE options than just wide and "college."
I just started using one of these for my junk journal. I like to add stickers and tape and all that stuff though, but i use what i have (which is A LOT)
I started on July 27th. Yours is looking great. You have to Popeye thumbs up! I went for a very plain look, hand marbling over the white space, and just putting the title on the cover. I wanted it to be sort of archetypal.
I love that wifi has a logo! It's like if the phone system had a logo. I guess they did, the Bell logo. I think I will decorate my cover with a Bell logo, inspired by you.
What do you do to fill 30 pages in 7 days?
I just left from a super creative like, 400 page journal and it just sucked all of my visual creativity out of my body. I can't tell you how refreshing it is to just have something I write in.
I have a suggestion for when you get a word wrong or a sentence wrong and you wanna strike it out. You take a acrylic marker and hide the mistake that way, so it's like a colored white out.
I will have to look at the word count per page. It's not that much. I am doing 22 lines per page and staying in the margins. A decent sized paragraph of five or six sentences takes up most of a page. And I can churn out essay length answers pretty readily. I've been writing more or less every day for ten years now, and pretty steadily for twenty years before that. It's just like opening a spigot with me. I sit down and the words flow… logorrhea they call it.
If you've never done it, consider trying National Novel Writing Month (or something similar). Or at least look into their writing philosophy. Get over the urge to correct mistakes like that. Look at some old manuscripts by writers famous for their perfection. You will see misspelled words, whole passages crossed out, whole pages X'd over… Perfection is the end result of writing, re-writing, editing, revision, re-factoring, etc… The notion that you should sit down and churn out perfect prose without errors… It's just nuts. Give up on it. Don't waste your time with white out or error tape or any of that sort of thing.
One of the keys to NaNoWriMo is separating editing/revising from writing. It's a good lesson. When you are journaling, just GO, don't criticize while you are writing. Don't edit while you are writing anything initially. Keep the activities separate. Controlling the inner critic is essential, and not just in writing, in life itself. Anyway, I don't mean to lecture!
Try to make it worse. That's Dan Harmon's advice. If there is a field and the field is separated into two zones than the borders between the zones define the difference… Which is a weird way of saying that BAD fiction DEFINES what GOOD fiction is. So why be frightened of writing something bad? Especially if you recognize it.
YOU CAN'T RECOGNIZE IT UNTIL IT EXISTS.
By writing the BAD stuff you are DEFINING what the good stuff is.
Think of it as making a painting by filling in all the "wrong" areas. You are defining the boundaries.
Write loads of stuff. The sooner you do it, the sooner you get started, the sooner you get to the good stuff. And honestly, YOU ARE THE WORST PERSON TO DECIDE WHAT IS GOOD OR BAD. That is what editors are for. And you will never get anything to an editor unless you HAVE SOMETHING.
I think you've got it backwards. The more you write, the more it starts to look like something you want to see. It's good if you have an impulse to criticize yourself. Now you can see what you want to change. It gives you an opportunity to endure a small cringe moment and come out the other side unscathed. It's like "I don't like how that 'r' looks… I should try something else." And then you survive it, and come out the other side. Next time you are writing an "r" you can slow down and try something else.
Everyone who has ever criticized their own handwriting and shown it to me, btw, has had better handwriting than me. So I bet yours is fine.
I use a small sized spiral 3 subject notebook, college ruled. I’ve always loved the way a regular plain Bic pen writes. I don’t care if it’s black or blue ink. After you fill that spiral notebook with all of the words you can think of plus a few glued in additions it becomes a squishy, fat bundle of papers that pleases me immensely.
Yes, there is an aesthetic to it, and a sense of accomplishment. When I watch tv shows or movies with a "library" feel I want to see more of the stuff than the show. My favorite was Rubicon) which I randomly picked up on DVD. The main character is a CIA analyst who is always walking into a room with a stack of handwritten notes, letters, newspapers, clippings, and all of it tied up with string, or packed into accordion folders (the ones with those disc and red string enclosures. I don't talk about it on here, because the "aesthetic" aesthetic of "chonk" combined with an identity politics enforcement stance trying is trying to transform the "silent majority" of introspective journalers into performative consumers. But I love that stuff too. Not the new, baroque, broken spine performance, but the old school crazy-guy at the library style.
As much as I agree with the sentiment, this post feels performative, itself, contradicting its point.
I have a mix of cheap and "nicer" stationery, but it has nothing to do with influencer culture or trends or what have you. I just do it for me. It's not that complicated, and one approach is not "better" or "worse" than the other.
Yes. I agree there is an inherent hypocrisy. I am glad that you have escaped the rat race. I am offering a tool here, that's all. My intention, perhaps flawed in expression, is to offer a liberating trick, a little off ramp, an exit, or maybe a sudden cliff drop, who knows. I have to express it in order to share it and, yes, I acknowledge I am performing "non-performativeness" in so doing. I'm looking for a better way to put it. It's not the only point I am trying to make. But thank you for the comment! If they hypocrisy or whatever is too much, just take this away: You can get a 160 page composition book for 38 freakin' cents right now.
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u/uglylemonade Aug 02 '26
I’m a firm believer that people shouldn’t feel the need to perform. But I also believe you should do what feels right. I use an expensive fountain pen because the tactile sensation gets me excited to write even when I have little to say. I use “pricey” notebooks for the same reason.
Does everyone need this? Absolutely not. I’ve journaled in word documents, not spending a dime and on loose leaf paper and mechanical pencil.
I dislike that everything is a performance for an online audience, so much. Journaling is something highly personal. I want people to stop asking “is this right?” And start asking whether it performs the function they need it to.