Scribbles Blog Hop, Noland edition

It's time to get Old School, ladies and gentlemen. Yes, today is a day to celebrate that hallowed institution of the writing trade, the writing journal.

As part of the Scribbles Blog Hop, writers who use pen and paper for some (or all) of their writing are posting pictures of their journals, along with some behind-the-scenes discussion about how and why they use them. I have a few different notebooks, including a mini-sized Moleskine which I carry around in a shirt pocket. This, however, is my primary notebook for writing fiction:

It's a Black n' Red wirebound notebook. I've used others, bound and unbound. I like this model because the covers are stiff and the wire rings allow it to lie open or be folded back flat. That makes it convenient to write on in almost any kind of chair, bench or barstool. It even works pretty well for writing standing up. The 8.5" x 11" ruled and perforated paper is 24 lb bond clean white, a good heavy paper that takes gel inks and fountain pen inks very well. It also holds pencil leads of 0.9, 0.7 or 0.5 mm without smudging.

Click to enlarge. Go ahead and read, I don't mind.

 I use this notebook for writing exercises, such as the all-dialogue piece up above...

This is a scene from Just Enough Power.

... and for working on pieces like my sci-fi/noir serial, "Just Enough Power". The scene in the picture is from Episode 16. Just for fun, try reading this rough draft, then see what it eventually became. I like to write directly into my computer, but I also like the tactile feel of pen and paper, especially when I don't know yet what I'm trying to say.

More scratching than a poison ivy outbreak!

Sometimes, I have to scratch out a lot of text before I find the phrasing that works. In the scene above, I was trying to describe the despair among the workers on a moon base when faced with an almost certain death. The funny thing about this story? Almost all of this stuff got rewritten, re-rewritten, then cut from the final draft. Sic transit gloria fiction. Sometimes it takes longer to construct and then remove the scaffolding than it does to do the actual painting of the ceiling.

For more handwritten fun, read my #FridayFlash this week, "Pleasurebot, Parts 1 & 2". My handwriting isn't the best, but I think you'll be able to follow along.

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My thanks to Danielle and Anne for organizing the Scribbles Blog Hop! To see the writing journal/diaries/notebooks/notepads/etc. of other writers, and to learn a little about their approach to writing, check out the websites for all the participants, listed below.

Danielle La Paglia: http://daniellelapaglia.wordpress.com/

Anne Michaud: http://annecmichaud.wordpress.com

Marianne Su: http://mariannesu.com/blog/

Victoria D Griesdoorn: http://www.vdgriesdoorn.com/

Ren Warom: http://renwaromsumwelt.wordpress.com/

J.A. Campbell: http://writerjacampbell.wordpress.com/

Tammy Crosby: http://tammywrites.wordpress.com/

Maria Kelly: http://mariakellyauthor.com

Chrissey Harrison: http://chrisseysgreatescape.wordpress.com

Natalie Westgate: http://nataliewestgate.com

Tony Noland: http://www.TonyNoland.com/

Larry Kollar: http://farmanor.blogspot.com/

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