Long term journal?

[WDanderson]

Hi Everyone,

 

I first got into fountain pens about 15 years ago with a simple $22 Lamy. For that first 5+ years I did a lot of experimenting with inks, even took Linda Kennedy's class on nib-tuning, but I wouldn't call myself anything similar to a fountain pen expert or even an enthusiast. I stick to mainly Cross, have many of the Peerless models and Townsends, a Pelikan M405 (love the gray stripes and the huge amount of ink it holds compared to my Cross converters.) I also have some Century 2's but their small barrels are beginning to be hand-crampers as I approach my mid 50s. And the classis century is completely out of the question and always has been.

 

In recent years I generally keep fountain pens at home and carry a custom Townsend rollerball in my pocket. This way I don't have to worry about the harrowing experience of handing my pen over to someone and watch them do something like write with the nib upside down...or worse! Once, I had someone twist the cap off my Townsend and take the nib with it!!!  Plus, it's just more practical to use a rollerball in my office on a wide array of everything from sticky notes to cheap copy paper and newspaper.

 

My boys are now 16, 14 and 4. I like to document things in hope that someday they can look back on my notes and maybe learn something from my personal screwups and not repeat them themselves. Like so many people, I've fallen into the use of my iPhone/iPad and various apps, MS Office, etc. I thought combining photos and quick typing (100+ wpm,) would be a great way to capture life and store in the cloud for some day decades from now.

 

That is, until I realized that when I sit and write, there's a certain place in my brain that lights up and records the world differently. It's a different manner of thinking, things slow down and the important stuff comes to mind and then onto the paper through my hand. Also, I am currently using a Peerless Medalist M Sailor nib that's been ground to a stub suitable for daily writing. The experience for me is sublime, and unlike rollerballs I can write for pages and pages with zero hand soreness or fatigue. Also, I think handwritten notes would be more valuable an experience for my sons and their children. I know I value my father's few notes...written in pencil, on cheap looseleaf paper! He's been gone for over two years now.

 

My question to the experts here, what sort of journal and ink should I choose to ensure that these pages are not blank 40 years from now? This is assuming my 3 knucklehead kids don't lose them or otherwise destroy the journals themselves. How should I store them? Right now I am using Faber Castell Midnight Blue...my favorite ink ever, it shades perfectly on Leuchtturm 1917 paper, although right now I am using a journal branded "Paperage" from Amazon which seems fine too. I hate "purply" blues, and to me this FC ink is the perfect Blue-Black. Parker Blue-Black is a real close second but it doesn't shade as well as FC and has a bit of a teal tint to it. 

 

What is everyone else's journal experience? Does the world kind of go on hold while you sit and write?

 

[Sailor Kenshin]

I write just about every day in plain old simple composition notebooks, alternating with Kokuyo Campus notebooks (the wider ruling.  Comp notebooks are big.  Campus, smaller and only about half the pages, and with both, I write only on one side.

 

You'll get replies about Tomoe River, so I wanted to get in on the ground floor with my bargain basement approach.

 

If you want ink to last, look into archival iron galls, but they can be tough on steel nibs.

[Z man]

Hear, hear, another vote for the lowly composition book. The decades-old ones are perfectly legible if you don't count handwriting. The oldest ones have non-iron-gall Quink or Montblanc ink, usually black or blue but not exclusively. Twenty years ago the array of inks expanded greatly without effects, so far.

 

My advice would be to keep doing what you're doing, and don't overthink it. If you're really worried about fading, use a pencil. Otherwise, things should be fine.

[Karmachanic]

I'm partial to Stalogy A5 notebooks.  Fountain pen friendly, 368 pages, 15mm thick. Faint 4mm dot grid.  6mm guide sheet suits my purpose.  I use the dot-grid for layout.  Your Peerless will not complain.

[dragondazd]

Sounds like you made good choices in ink and paper, no need to change. You might find a more permanent ink but it might not be that perfect feel you have now. Wouldn't hurt to sample.

 

If you want MANY pages in a given book, I use a Tomoe River notebook, and also like the stalogy.

 

I also have some leuchtturm master notebooks for a major project.

[amberleadavis]

After a whole lot of tests I can tell you that unless you use an ink known to fade (like Baystate Blue or Parker Blue ) your journals are probably going to be just fine.  Here is a thread about journals and fading.

 

 

[OCArt]

    I have very similar thoughts to yours @WDanderson I've been keeping two types of books. The first is a five year diary, I started with the Levenger five lines a day and now use the large A5 Hobonichi five year Diary. The later has Tomoe River paper that's a joy to write on and I just jot a few lines about our daily activities, weather, etc.  My family and I have had a lot of fun reading about what we did on this day for the last several years.

    I also write longer thoughts and reminisces in a second book with 400 pages of Tomoe River, there are several different brands but here is one example. 

[dftr]

The 5 year journal has a neat gimmick where you use a fraction of the page for each year so you get to review your thoughts. I would also have your kids pen an entry on a birthday or random date. Its amazing to look back and see what they wrote or drew.  
 

I also believe its better to have an a6 journal size that fits in your pocket and goes every where with you. Now 90% of what I write isnt that interesting but i want to do it to get the 10% that is and i try to expand upon that in a larger notebook t home. 

[miwishi63]

9 hours ago, WDanderson said:

That is, until I realized that when I sit and write, there's a certain place in my brain that lights up and records the world differently. It's a different manner of thinking, things slow down and the important stuff comes to mind and then onto the paper through my hand.

Like you, I've found that my thinking process changes when I put pen to paper and take the time to write things down. I've kept a journal on and off since 1981 but don't know if I would want anyone, including my children to read it. Some of what I record is mundane, but some of it comes from the dark places in my mind. I write these thoughts down as a way of processing them in a safe environment. OTOH, I have considered compiling an account of my experiences to leave for my children when I die as a way of helping them understand my life, especially what it was like before they were born.

[inkstainedruth]

I got into fountain pens initially when I started keeping a morning pages journal as part of The Artist's Way (a creativity course), and wanted to get myself into the habit (now, roughly a dozen years later, on the few days I DON'T have time to do it, I feel really out of sorts).  I started with with a spiralbound composition book but found that it took too long to do 3 pages, so I switched to smaller format.  I went from "fancy, but in retrospect lousy paper" to some nice hardbound ones (which are no longer made), and now like the 6" x 8" size Miquelrius 600 page ones (although those are ALSO now getting hard to find in the US).

As for pens and inks, it varies by day.  It is generally whatever happens to be inked up, and not something I've used the day before (early on, when I only had one pen, it was Parker Quink Permanent Blue in cartridges, although one year when I was on vacation I used a Noodler's Konrad filled with Noodler's Kung Te Cheng all week).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[OCArt]

The 600 page Miquelrius notebooks @inkstainedruth mentioned are available from Amazon although I bought some many years ago from Barnes and Noble. 

[inkstainedruth]

I had gotten a 400 page one a few years ago at Bob Slate Stationers, up in Harvard Square in Cambridge, MA a few years ago, after trying a page out of the graph paper ones B&N used to sell.  I ended up ordering about a dozen of the 600 page ones directly from Miquelrius USA.  When I got low on those, I contacted them again and they gave me a different site (which, unfortunately, I do NOT seem to have saved the URL for ).  This most recent time, someone on here (forget who) tipped me off to a stationery store on Amazon, in Fishkill, NY (dang!  I almost drove through there Saturday night!) and basically snagged as many as I could -- they were more expensive than the initial price I paid directly from Miquelrius (close to $20 US each, as opposed to under $14 each), and I'll admit that I cleaned them out of the blue cover and black cover ones (there were none of the green cover ones in stock, and only a couple of the red covers, IIRC) but since I wasn't completely out, I've got enough to last me at least 3 years....  

Unfortunately, even with that page capacity, I go through a several of them per year: writing 3 pages a day adds up, even at 600 pages, that's 200 days of entries per volume).  And I'm concerned that the 600 page volumes don't seem to be listed on their website at the moment....  Because I really like them.  They stack/pack well because the covers are flat, and the paper is pretty FP friendly -- even if I'm using some really wet ink in a gusher pen.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[WDanderson]

This is all good stuff, thanks everyone. This actually went in a different direction as good conversations do and caused me to think about my habit of only using one journal. I never stopped to consider expanding a journal entry into a separate journal, or having multiple journals as a workflow kind of thing. I'll reimagine some things now. It might work for me to carry around a "scrappy" one, and then finalize some things into a permanent one for posterity.