by Ruth Harris
It is a truth universally acknowledged that no writer ever knows when or where his/her next great idea will strike.
Because of that inconvenient fact, notebooks are essential. Although the back of a grocery receipt or a dry cleaner’s ticket will do in an emergency, a notebook will help create order out of the chaos and provides an easily accessible, highly portable record.
Because I have learned to be prepared for the unexpected brainstorm or genius idea, I surround myself with notebooks. On my desk, in the kitchen, on the dining room table, on my night table, in my bag, in pockets, purses and the glove compartment. There is even a notebook in the bathroom for those nights I wake with a “brilliant” idea I absolutely have to write down. By flashlight. So as not to disturb my DH who already knows all too much about what it’s like to live with a writer. 😉
Whether made in the U.S., France, Germany, or Japan, a notebook is a writer’s don’t-leave-home-without-it essential. Here are some of my faves. Most cost about $10.
Notable notebooks:
“I’m not writing it down to remember it later. I’m writing it down to remember it now.” Made in the USA. Field Notes. Also Amazon.
German and superb quality, come in basic black + lipstick red, emerald, dark and light blue and beyond. Acid-free paper, numbered pages, blank toc, 5-star ratings. Find them at Amazon.
I’ve used Rhodia notebooks for years. Highest quality paper, makes writing a pleasure, come in a wide variety of sizes and configurations. Widely available, I get them at my local stationery store but available from Amazon.
Letts Noteletts Edge have soft, flexible covers, lay-flat binding, and ivory pages with grey rules. Here in dark green, also available in a range of candy colors including yellow, purple, and red.
Kokuyo makes beautifully designed notebooks in a wide range of colors and styles. I found them in a Japanese stationery store in NYC but Amazon has them as does Jetpens.
If I were French, I probably would have used these cheerful Clairfontaine notebooks in school. Most decent-quality stationery stores have them as does Amazon.
High-quality sketchbooks—Stillman & Birn—also count as essential because sometimes I have to draw a scene before I can write it. I bet I’m not the only one!
If nothing here is exactly what you’re looking for, Notebook Stories blog might help you find the perfect solution. Office Supply Geek is another reliable source that might suggest the perfect gift.
Digital notebooks
They aren’t exactly festive but they are necessities—they live in the cloud, synch to all your devices, and they’re free! Evernote and Microsoft’s One Note are indispensable. My new favorite is Google Keep, perfect for keeping to-do lists and the fleeing ideas you want to jot down quickly in a few words. If the writer in your life doesn’t already have these, a few minutes downloading them to his/her computer is a thoughtful—and useful—holiday offering.
For pens to go with notebooks:
Try JetPens and Amazon. From ball points to gel pens, from calligraphy pens to fountain pens, the vast range of colors and point styles from ultra fine to broad, is an obsessive’s paradise.My current faves include the Zebra Sarasa in Forest Green ($1.30 + a wide range of colors) and the UniBall Signo ($2.50 & a choice of 20 irresistible colors) with an ultra fine 0.38 point which makes a 3×5 card seem as big as a football stadium.
The Lamy Safari fountain pen and rollerball (both about $20) are classics and have been long-time personal favorites. They are plastic, therefore lightweight, and the contoured grip is super comfortable for long stretches of writing. They are refillable and come in a range of bright colors + black. I bought mine in yellow! 🙂
Writing software makes a thoughtful gift:
I’m assuming everyone has Word but there are other excellent and well-thought-out alternatives/add-ons.Atlantis (PC only, about $40) is try-before-you buy, fully-featured word processor. It has a helpful user forum, useful sample documents and templates, will edit existing MSWord docs and turn your documents into epubs. Add-on spellcheck comes in languages from Serbian, Estonian, Turkish and beyond.
Jutoh (Mac and PC, about $40) is fast and flexible and outputs a wide range of file formats. As far as I know, Jutoh is the only one that opens epub files. If the writer in your life has existing epubs and wants to revise, make corrections, or simply update back matter, Jutoh makes the job easy. Join ALLI and get 25% off Jutoh.
Scrivener (Mac and PC, about $45 but discount coupons available) is widely beloved, extremely flexible and customizable, and outputs uploadable files in a range of formats when the book is finished. Gwen Hernandez’Â Dummies Guide to Scrivener is a great go-along gift. And Scrivener has a Black Friday Sale this weekend only. Grab it today and it’s only $25!!
Ulysses (Mac only including iOS) is the new(ish) kid on the block. Elegant, minimal in appearance but fully featured, Ulysses lives in the cloud and is always available on your desktop, tablet, or phone. A try-before-you-buy demo.
Vellum (Mac only with a range of options ranging from $10 to $200) takes the pain out of HTML and CSS and makes formatting easy. Vellum creates beautiful ebooks and mobis, ARCs, box sets, and supports basic word processing.
Anne and I wish all our readers Happy Holidays, Happy Giving—and Happy Receiving! 😉
by Ruth Harris (@RuthHarrisBooks) December 2015
What about you, Scriveners? What’s on your list for Santa? What do you buy for the writers in your life? Do you have a favorite notebook or pen? Or do you jot down everything electronically?Â
As for ourselves, what we want most for the holidays is a new, more secure, self-hosted blog. We hope (fingers crossed) to see you on our own WordPress site next Sunday! I’ll be writing about some of the new scams I see targeting writers right now. I’ll tell you how to spot them and stay safe. Some of these scammers have even taken in the pros, including veteran agents…Anne
BOOK OF THE WEEK
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“A must-read for anyone who cares about animals and the environment, because what we do to them, we do to ourselves”…Â bestselling author Sibel Hodge
And if in doubt, just buy them an iPad and a iTunes gift card so they can download all the apps they need!
I also rely on Siri to help me remember things.
Hope you ladies both had a great Thanksgiving.
Alex, thanks for the good ideas. We should also add android devices. (I was keeping the budget down, though, so kept the suggestions to the less pricey side.)
Hmm. If the idea is to keep the costs down, how about arranging time for your writer friend to meet & hang with people you know with traits that fall "outside the bell curve" – the weirdest of the weird? Inspiration can be an invaluable gift.
CS—thanks for an "inspiring" idea!
Final Draft screenwriting software! Santa, just a reminder that 'Naughty is the New Nice" (my humour column moniker isn't Bad Girl for nothing!)
Melody—Great idea! Thanks! Very happy holidays you Bad Girl, you! 🙂
I love my roller ball pens, but the last batch I got keeps bleeding through the paper and I don't have the heart to tell my husband. When he brought them home out of the blue, he was like a starry-eyed student presenting the teacher with an apple. As far as notebooks…I need more, because I'm constantly scribbling on anything I can get my hands on. Back of envelopes, sideways on bills, receipts, napkins. Then trying to read what I wrote is near impossible. But you know how it is when an idea strikes. Great idea to keep notebooks all over the house. Seems funny, but that didn't dawn on me. Doh! I use composition notebooks and, my favorite, a leather-bound hardcover for the last drafts of my outlines. I also use index card books. Have you seen these? They're cool. Each index card is perforated, so you can keep them together as a notebook or tear them out to move them around. Scrivener is only $25? Wow!
Sue—I feel your pain of the heartbreak of the bleed-thru. Most distressing! The index/card notebook sounds like a must-have. If you’ve been wanting Scriv (which I love), now’s the time to grab a copy.
Paul—We deal well with heresy around here. 😉 Thanks for the ideas and the kind words!
So with Jutoh, I could make changes in my e-book and not have to upload a revised Word doc while crossing my fingers and hoping I didn't mess up any of the formatting? Wowsers! Although I wish it would open mobi files too. 🙂
Jennifer—Yes! Jutoh will open your epubs. You can then make your changes/revisions/edits. Once you are finished, just compile and Jutoh will output epubs, mobis and other formats. It's genius!
Oh how I love notebooks and pens, too. The hope and excitement of a new project is within…on the black and patient pages. On my Thanksgiving holiday flight, I was reminded why I buy Uni-ball Vision Elite pens. Two of my on-the-ground standby pens found their way into my Tumi computer bag where they threatened to leak. Thankfully, the leak was confined under the cap and only stained my fingers. The Uni-ball Vision Elite pens don't leak during or after a flight. Sometimes, the connection between the cap and the refill is stronger than the one between the refill and the shaft. So one finds the empty shaft in one hand and the refill attached to the cap in the other. Still, there is no leaking so the quirk of this model is preferable to the alternative. If you like doing cross-word puzzles during flights, this pen is a reliable choice.
Gigi—Yes, as you say, a new, pristine notebook promises an infinity of hope and excitement. Thanks for the great tip about the Uni-ball Vision Elite! Much appreciated!
I love the Evernote Moleskine notebooks. I use it for ideas, outlines, revisions, etc, then take pictures of each page and upload to my Evernote account. My handwritten notes are now eye level and can be placed next to my word processor. It works well for me. The Evernote smart Moleskine notebooks also comes with three months of premium subscription to Evernote.
Great article. I think I will print it out and leave it as a hint or add them to my Amazon wish list! Thank you!
Cori—Thanks for the kind words! Loved your review of Moleskine/Evernote & the way you use it. Lots of great ideas for writers there!
I adore this list! There are some truly scrumptious notebooks out there. I only just started using a Moleskine notebook this year, for bullet journalling, and I love the quality of it.
I recently wrote a holiday gift guide for writers, as well, with ideas for what they might like to receive as well as what they're in a unique position to give: would you mind if I linked to your post at the end?
Here's the link to mine, if you'd like to investigate first. 🙂 http://www.somethingdelicious.co/2015/11/holiday-gifts-for-writers.html
Victoria—Great minds! 😉 Anne and I would be delighted!
I know this might be heresy but I get all of my writing goods from the DollarTree store near by. Colored index cards, monthly planners, gel pens, notebooks like the old black and white Composition Books we grew up with. Highlighters come two or three to a pack as well as the gel pens. There's a terrific gel called R-2 Rollerball; you get two-fers in each pack and they don't bleed thru the paper. And they last! But I normally only use one side of a notebook. Also legal pads for writing scenes of dialogue that seem to flow on those long yellow pads. Also those small 5 X7 yellow pads for writing scene sketches, etc. I'm not cheap really. Maybe more for myself than for others but these items really work for me. Oh, also manila file folders come ten to a pack or so. Over and out. Paul
YES! Totally agree with the gel-pens! LOVE them.COLORED ones. AND I like to use them in my critique group, so they stand out. Plus, pink, purple, and turquoise critiques seem somehow more cheerful than dull red. 🙂 Happy Christmas!
Tam—You’re right. A turquoise-colored edit does tend to be more cheerful than what-*were*-you thinking red. 😉
Forgot to mention. Great post as always, Ruth. Happy Holidays your way as well to you and yours.
Sorry…had to intrude on your convo to say I LOVE those pens. I have pink, purple, turquoise, and orange. 🙂 When I edit, I use them and they make the process more bearable. Dare I say enjoyable. Well…
Thank you for this post, Ruth! My gosh, it's loaded with awesome links. I can't even! Fantastic compilation of…everything. Happy Holidays to both you and Anne. And I sincerely hope you get your wish of a WordPress blog. See you there!
Sarah—Thank *you*! Hope you get every notebook/pen/software you ever dreamed of! 🙂
I have a notebook and pen addiction–this is great! Santa is getting a list shortly. Thanks so much, Ruth. Happy Holidays to you and Anne. Here's hoping you get your WordPress blog soon! Looking forward to joining you there. 😀
Jan—Thanks! Hope Santa is ready and has his supersized sleigh for all your pens and notebooks!
Ah yes, good old pen and paper. Nothing makes one feel more like a real writer. I love flipping through old ones and rediscovering thoughts, ideas, great lines waiting for the right story and younger versions of myself. Thanks, Ruth! Happy Holidays to you!
Christine—Fascinating, isn't it, to see what you were thinking? Sometimes really great. Other times a huge wtf? lol Happy Holidays!
*sigh* Any writer worth their salt walks into a stationary aisle and starts salivating. =) I had to laugh when I scrolled through the first several suggestions.
Crystal—Yes! Stationery stores! 🙂
Notebooks are a must but anything in an emergency, reached in the trash can and pulled out a torn envelope to jot something down when my kitchen notebook was in the office!
Thanks for the list of opportunities!
Catherine—I know ~exactly~ what you mean. Desperate times call for desperate measures! 🙂
agreed
great ideas for gifts