NotebookLove

In the course of my work, I spend a lot of time taking notes outdoors. I'm always jamming my journals and notebooks into backpacks and taking them in kayaks, canoes, small airplanes, open jeeps, and airboats. The Nomad Journal stands up to it all.

You can find them at Nomad Journals.

They are printed on recycled materials using soy-based inks. I use the blank journals, but they have specialty journals for many different pursuits, including:

Travel Journals with pre-printed pages to help you keep track of people you meet along the way, restaurants, recommendations, tickets, maps and almost anything else you can think of.

Bird Watching Journals are set up to track sightings, weather conditions, hiking directions, and everything the serious (and not so serious) birder needs to keep track of their experiences.

They also have specialized journals for Music/Festivals, Hiking/Backpacking, Paddling, and Fly Fishing.

The notebooks themselves are very durable and stand up to rugged use. They are top spiral-bound and the cardboard covers are very stiff and make writing on the go much easier than standard notebooks.

No more bending over to use my thigh as a backboard. No more illegible writing because my journal was too flimsy to write on without a hard surface.

The paper is smooth and of substantial weight. It takes well to every writing instrument I've tried on it, from mechanical pencils to rollerballs to fountain pens. The notebooks are 5"x7" alone. With a cover, the size goes to 6"x8" (still small enough to fit easily into a daypack and they won't add any noticeable weight to longer backpacking trips). Each notebook has 120 pages.

You can order the standard water-resistant cover (it zips closed) to hold your journals or upgrade slightly to leather. I use the standard cover (it feels like cordura nylon) because it stands up well to water and to being crammed in the bottom of my backpack and tossed into the floorboards of trucks.

This is one durable journal.

If you want to use them for your organization, the Nomad Journal covers (leather and standard) can be customized with logos.

If you're looking for a compact, durable journal, check out the Nomad.

(Do you own a Nomad? Or have a journal you like? Leave a comment or email me. I'd love to check it out.)

We call this the poem generator. Pick 10 words (or better yet, ask friends to send you 10 random words) and use them to create a poem or just as a writing prompt. Try to pick vivid unusual words and a good mix of verbs and nouns. Go easy on the adjectives.

What can you see out one pane of your window? Use the pane as both a limiting frame and an organizing principle.

Write in someone else's voice. Can you write as if you were a 10-year-old boy going off to camp for the first time or a girl who just got stood up for the prom? Or an old woman looking back on her life? The scenarios are limitless. This can be especially useful for novelists who are stuck. Writing in your notebook as if you were the character can sometimes unlock backstory and character traits that will make your scenes stronger and more clear.

Keep prompts on a couple of pages in the back of your notebook. Keep a list of lines from the books you're reading. I sometimes pull lines from headlines and advertisements. Even signs when I'm traveling. What would you do with this from a headstone on a grave at WWI battlefield monument in France? Be ashamed to die before you have accomplished some good for mankind.

Sit in Starbucks, a bar or other public place without your iPod earplugs in. Listen to the conversation around you. My personal favorite from last week: "And then I hit him with the frozen salmon."

I love WikiHow. Where else can you find out how to Make a Duct Tape Top Hat or How to Calculate Pi by Throwing Frozen Hotdogs?

I use it all of the time for writing prompts. The one I wrote this morning was prompted by Survive a Volcanic Eruption.

An excerpt from my journal: (unedited)

On Wiki "How to of the Day" (because you know I subscribe just to get the feed. The list is hilarious. Last week, there was an entry on How to Open Beer Bottles with a Dollar Bill). Today, the WikiHow was "How to Survive a Volcanic Eruption."

A few excerpts:

"Prepare for the worst. If you reside in the shadow of a volcano, you should always be ready for the worst."

And aren't those just words to live by? Don't we all live in the shadow of some volcano somewhere?

"Stock up on necessities." This made me realize I'm not sure what I consider necessities. Tequila. The kids. (Guess I should have put the kids in front of the tequila. Then again, maybe not.)

"Protect yourself from pyroclastics," which I first read as "psychoclastics," which sounds way more terrifying than a regular psychotic. I think avoiding psycholastics might be even more important than avoiding pyroclastics. Really. You're far more likely to run across a pyscho -- I seem to trip over them every ten minutes, but then I live in Florida.

"Avoid breathing poisonous gases," Amen. That could go so many ways.

Your assignment: Use something from WikiHow as a writing prompt and see where it takes you. (You get bonus points for giving us a good definition of "psychoclastics.")

I've had this journal for 11 years. It has been all over Europe, the U.S. and Central America and the leather is holding up remarkably well.

It's available from Levenger though you may have to search for it by name on the Web site because I don't think they feature it anymore in the catalogue.

You can order blank or lined journal refills and the paper has always been very satisfying to write on and takes pens well.

A few caveats:

I have seen a few complaints on the Web that the quality of paper in the refills has been falling in recent years. I tend to order refills in bulk so I haven't ordered in the last year. (I go through 4-5 refills a year).

I emailed Levenger a few weeks ago to ask about the source of their paper. I had to prompt them twice for a reply. Some of their paper is SFI-certified, which many environmental organizations do not feel is as strong as FSC certification. They apparently have plans to include pads with recycled content later this year.

That said, my Stanley Journal (I use the desk size) is still going strong after many years of hard use. If you tend to fill journals quickly, take a look at this one.

I write on the spines when I fill one and then file them by date.