Despite the increased digitization of everything, I still have a very intense attraction to notebooks. While I have many pretty, brightly coloured, designed notebooks, I sometimes am drawn more to actually writing in plain black ones (of which I have dozens). Of course, they all look the same on the inside, pretty much.

 

“I scratched these words into a black notebook…”
—last straw, jack’s mannequin 

 

 

 

I also have this tendency to abandon notebooks—from the ten-cent coil bound (no, I def didn’t pay $0.90!) to the Moleskines–much like my tendency to abandon projects partway through, notebooks often begin as projects. Even journals, occasionally these notebooks become abandoned with desire to start a new chapter—or because I find it more convenient to write and organize using Evernote (and its notebook/note system). I can also type faster than I can write—and I can certainly think faster than I can type at many times.

 

For 2015, I have started a new Evernote notebook; for the last few days I have been brainstorming a rejuvenation of this blog—mostly post ideas and themes to keep me on track and better motivated to blog. While my friend Scott has said that your blog is your blog and you can do what you want with it (which is, if you want to abandon it for weeks/months/years and return, hey, it’s your blog), one thing that I constantly reflected on in 2014 was that I wished I were blogging more. Once school finished, I felt like I had more time to blog, yet little to say. Once I left my job, I felt like I had even less to say—I began the Quantify This. blog, but even that in the aftershocks was difficult to stick to. So here I am again: with more of a plan, but hoping that I can maintain the low-pressure of blogging while producing more content.

I hope to tell some of the stories that I’ve yet to tell. Some of these stories will perhaps need to be harvested out of old notebooks, and others will just happen when they happen. I’m not going to force it out, but i’m going to try a bit harder on days where I just don’t feel like blogging but am scheduled to post (I’m aiming [flexibly] for Monday/Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday), because writing is kind of like working out that way: getting started can be the hardest part, and once you’re moving, it happens.

 

And, perhaps in the process I will launch a purple or black pen into one of these notebooks… A completely clean break…

 

 

 

…Or reopen this one that I left off at a place of unrest: 

 

 

(Yes, how appropriate.)

 

2015: let’s do this. A time to reconnect, on many levels… And writing more should help me figure out where I’m at on many levels as well…