One Side Or Both?

[sandy101]

Samuel Beckett used the right hand side of his journals for writing the text, and the left hand side for doodles, edits and scribbles for when he was stuck. I ususpec the sat and wrote for hours, and if nothing was coming, he doodled until something came.

 

An example is here: http://www.ricorso.net/rx/library/gallerys/authors/Beckett_S/Notebks/jpegs/Watt_NB3.jpg

 

I use both sides, unless the bleed through is really bad.

Edited October 23, 2019 by sandy101

[calhoun tubbs]

In a journal I use both sides. I like to write on loose sheets the majority of the time, and even when I write with pencil, I use only one side.

[Colourfingers]

I always use both sides of the page because paper is a finite resource like everything else on our descendants planet and I know that a tree had to die to give me that piece of paper. If only printers like the one on my bookcase had the same sensibilities.

[JakobS]

Both sides for me, less paper I need to keep track of be it loose or bound. Empty pages, make me want to fill them.....

[A Smug Dill]

I always use both sides of the page because paper is a finite resource like everything else on our descendants planet and I know that a tree had to die to give me that piece of paper. If only printers like the one on my bookcase had the same sensibilities.

 

 

Printers don't have descendants and aren't expecting to have any.

 

My fountain pens are very single-minded when it comes to their function of dispensing ink in a controlled manner. My handwriting skill is most often the cause of wasting paper, certainly when using notepad with pages that easily tear out; when I screw up in forming a word with a pen strokes, and I frequently do, more often than not I'd just tear out the page in frustration, crush it into a little ball and throw it out, then start the page all over again, so it would be exceedingly rare that my writing makes it to the other side on a piece of notepaper even if that was my intent.

[clazbill]

Both sides of the page unless the ink makes it difficult to read the flip side. I've seen my fair share of paper that can't hold up to certain inks in a broad (or larger) nib.

[vivdunstan]

I do a lot of creative writing, non fiction writing and game writing. And for all of these I find it helpful to write on just one side, and keep the other side for notes / edits / additions that I think of afterwards.

 

In practice the other side is frequently heavily annotated, and I need that space for how I work.

 

I usually write in an A5 Rhodia top stapled pad, and rip out pages as I’m done with them / have typed them up afterwards as needed. In practice the same Rhodia block pad will usually have lots of different pieces of writing in it, in all sorts of orders.

[Tom Kellie]

Notes - both sides

Personal letters - one side

 

 

+1

Tom K.

[WarrenB]

In my journal, both sides. When doing drawings, one side

Ditto. Drawings in soft pencil or something even smudgier get a berth all to themselves, especially if they'd just be transfered to the back of the facing leaf by having their own reverse side raked over. I'm aware of the principle of waste not - it took a conscious effort to go against my own drummed-in early-learning; but, to be honest, it doesn't keep me awake at night. Not when most people have a recycling bin these days.

 

Exceptions are made when I'm scribbling in ink, a relatively permanent medium. (As long as it's properly dried and in cases, not re-wet.) That mindset goes across to my fairly new routines of journalling and BuJo, helped by an introduction to the joys of Clairefontaine paper. Also helped by the staplebound exercise books that shunt my brain right back to primary school days.

[Cassotto]

It had never come into my mind that you could use only one side of the paper. No one insisted that I (or anyone else around me) do it that way. We simply did.

[Scylax]

On the rare occasions I journal, both sides. The same with my commonplace book, although I dont always use the pages in order. But for research notes one side. I learned the hard way during my uni studies that keeping track of written information during tutorials and essay-writing is the fastest way to lose or miss something important.

[millertime]

One side in letters and both sides in a journal.

[sangrisano]

The company I've worked for until October used to give employees notebooks where the cover had a "Use both sides" suggestion.

I have always used both sides, if the paper is too thin/light (such as my Favini notebooks, 55 grams per square meter) I use finer nibs to avoid bleedthrough.