This quote rang a bell with me:
But see, I don’t even like journals. For a few years, I would often get journals and blank notebooks from friend and family — cause what do you get a girl who writes a lot? Blank paper. But I would never actually ‘finish’ those journals. I have about 8 quarter or half-filled journals at the moment. I never knew what to write in them. I still don’t know what to write in them. [LINK]
I could almost have said that myself. I’ve been given several journals over the years– some of them were wonderful. I did know what to write in them and I used them up completely. But others were those overy “gifty” journals that you don’t know what to do with. You think they might serve some purpose, but it never quite works out because they just don’t have that THING, whatever it is that makes a notebook click for you. It’s very hard to know what anyone else’s THING is, therefore notebooks can be very tricky as gifts. It’s too bad, because in theory they should be great gifts– relatively inexpensive, practical, something that everyone uses at least once in a while… but boy, are they easy to get wrong.
Do you give notebooks as gifts? Have you received notebooks as gifts, and if so, were they ones that you actually liked and used?
If you’re given a notebook that doesn’t have that special “thing” that makes you want to write in it – just change it until it does. Cover it in a paper or fabric that appeals to you…paint it your favourite colour….stick ribbons all over it……whatever will turn it into YOUR notebook.
I’ve been given journals that really didn’t appeal (haven’t we all?), but once you’ve given them “the treatment”, they really are different animals.
The one with the horrible (spooky) pierrot people on the cover was painted white and covered in flowers. It is now a mine of information and musings on the white garden that I will have – one day………
The one with a ghastly photo of an inlaid table top has had those sticky things that airlines put on your passport and luggage tags stuck all over it. It’s my travel journal! It looks a bit how I feel when I get off an aeroplane, but I love it!
Use your creativity on the surfaces of unappealing notebooks as a way to invite your inner thoughts to join in………..
I gave my wife a lovely leather journal from Aspinal of London for her birthday. Since she’s fairly senior at her office, I figured she could use it for work . . . meeting notes, tasks, appointments, the usual stuff.
She said it was nice of me but too big for that and she wasn’t a notebook person anyway. :-(
when i was a kid, my mom always bought notebooks for me to give to friends as birthday gifts.
i love getting notebooks as gifts. i am pretty indiscriminate about notebooks; i can write in anything, as long as it is approximately a5 in size and bounded.
Oh wow, great post. This resonated a lot with me.
I LOVE notebooks. I LOVE journals. My friends know that and some have gifted me with both. But honestly, I haven’t used much of them.
It’s because of that “THING” as you said:
“…it never quite works out because they just don’t have that THING, whatever it is that makes a notebook click for you. ”
I have a personal relationship with my notebooks. It’s like I have a connection with some and none at all with others. That’s why no matter how gorgeous those gifts were, I just couldn’t use them. Not yet anyway.
But I still want to keep receiving them as presents. :P
I can’t think of a better gift, actually. Most journals aren’t that expensive, so they don’t set the giver back, and for me, they usually reflect something of the giver in the way they look. My favorite one is one my sister gave me as a birthday present a few years ago from the Air and Space Museum since she knows that is my favorite part of the Smithsonian. She wrote a little note in it and I have yet to use it but I will someday.
I’ve gotten gifts that were journals. I do not discrimate. To me, journals are made to be written in. And people think of them as treasures and never write in them. Basically depriving yourself and the journal. My boyfriend bought me one last year, 50.00 hand tooled design and handmade paper. And its like my favorite thing to write in Ever. I will be sad when I do finish it.
I always receive notebooks as gifts from my family (mostly because it’s their go to gift instead of asking me what I might want or need, not that I don’t appreciate it!) and I never use them because they’re always so decorative or the paper is really inappropriate for most pens and even pencil! I’m super super picky about my journals, esp about the kind of size/paper/cover I get because It’s got to hold up against A LOT of different things and if I find one i like I will buy a bunch and write in them for ages. (I think the one exception to this was a journal my mother gave me one time and it was perfect, I filled it up!)
I have four beautiful, blank journals, gifts that I will never use. Friends and family know that I write (on the computer), so they probably think I want to set down profound thoughts with pen and paper. If only. I always say, “It’s lovely, thank you!” When I’m gone, my children can take them to the thrift shop along with an assortment of expensive pens.