There’s nothing quite like it. The click of a lid as it pops off, the scratch of the nib on the page, and the slow progress made through a notebook. Over the summer I’ve turned more and more toward the analogue than I have the digital and I’ve come to the realisation that what they say is true. It really is easier to think on paper than it is on screen.

I’ve always had a notebook with me since my later years at school, back then it was called a sketchbook, but it equated to the same thing. I used it to explore ideas and to work out problems, since then my use of it has evolved and it now includes a journal like element as well. In fact I’m slowly developing my own version of the bullet journal, but that’s for another post.

What I wanted to talk about today is how using my fountain pen and notebook make me feel. There’s a steadiness about it that I find difficult to put in to words. A feeling that I am creating something more lasting, even if most of what goes into my notebooks is fleeting, it feels like a body of work is building. Like I’m part of something bigger.

One of my favourite artists I Leonardo Da Vinci, not for his paintings, but for his notebooks. I first came across them in senior school and I’ve been fascinated by them ever since. How he used them to explore ideas, to think, to draw, to document, to do keep a record of everything he did astounds me. I think in some way that is what draws me to the idea of keeping a notebook. It’s why each day I turn to a fresh page, write the date, and begin using it throughout the day. Almost every day something gets written down, and on the rare days nothing gets written, that’s ok, tomorrow is another day and there will be something to go in it then.