My (Not?) Weird Obsession with Writing in Pen

Let's talk about the tactile sensation of putting pen to paper, especially when that paper is bound in a notebook. And let's imagine that you've filled many of these pages with your heavy-handed scribble using multi-colored felt-tipped markers, fine-tipped drawing pens, and ballpoint pens. Think about running your hands over those bumpy, lumpy pages and the excitement you feel flipping through page after colorful page.

My journal. It has no name.

I have perhaps written more in the last few months than in the last ten years combined, and that includes going to school and workshopping other people's fiction, and writing essays, discussion posts, and blogs. My hand seemed to have forgotten how to correctly form letters and words and follow lines, so I eliminated the lines by opting for the bullet journal and decided correct letter formation belonged in the classroom. I teach Orton-Gillingham, and I start my letters at two o'clock, yo.

There's something necessary that nudges my mind when I write in a notebook as opposed to typing on a screen. Is it the physical motion? Is it that tactile sensation? I don't know that I could identify what that something is, let alone why it's important, but it brings me peace sometimes. The actual writing itself helps bring order to my thoughts, and identifying what I'm thinking or feeling and why helps still my mind. When I type the words that go into my blogs, I tap them out with my fingers and I see them on the screen, and I can easily rearrange the words and tame them when they get away from me. I don't get to touch them, though, and they're not real unless I turn on my computer. Those words exist in a world that may not be real because I can't touch it or smell it or crumple it up into a ball and throw it in the trash.

But notebooks, I have plenty, mostly spiral bound with the covers missing. Some of them have the odd flyer or envelope stapled to the pages or a photograph printed as a sticker you used to be able to get in one of those drugstore booths. As I mentioned earlier, the one I currently call home is a bullet journal, and I create the template every day that I write in it. It's messy and inconsistent and the handwriting is barely legible. Some days, I have so much to write that it overflows into yesterday, and  there are other days when I got nothing. And sometimes I write my pain away, to give it voice, to identify it, reframe it, and let it go if at all possible. Often, I simply recount my day or doodle or make lists because I've discovered I love lists.

Now, if I worried that I'd have nothing to write about, I could always dip into my Journal Jar for inspiration. What's a Journal Jar? Well, if you were lucky enough, you already have one of my handmade wonders in your possession and hopefully found it useful in some way. Maybe instead of journaling, you use it as a conversation starter or a sharing moment with a friend, child, or spouse. Maybe you use it as a focus for your thoughts for the day. For those of you who didn't receive a Journal Jar and who aren't familiar with them, I wrote (literally wrote with my hands and fingers) a bunch of writing prompts onto strips of paper, stuffed them into a jar, so I can pull one out when I want to write and need inspiration. If I don't like the prompt I pulled, I can just shove it back and select again. In this way, I don't waste pages like you might in a standard journal prompt book situation AND I know that all the prompts in that jar are already pre-approved as worth my time. You might decide that they're not worth YOUR time, but at least you can shove them back in and select again. Go on and choose your own adventure.

Journal Jar art by Lucy

What's the point of this blog? No point. Nothing but to share with you the joys of writing in a notebook with a good pen. Doesn't it bring you satisfaction when you see a notebook just brimming from top to bottom, back to front with words and doodles, the lines deep as trenches on the pages?

Or maybe I'm writing this to finally share with you my Journal Jars, which will soon be adapted into a Junior version for kids at the request of my pre-teen niece. Would you like a jar? Shameless promotion!

But seriously, you like one?