My journey in search of the perfect pen/paper/ink combo

Three types of notebooks I use: a "project notebook" (large), journal (medium), and pocket notebook that I stitch myself from Tomoe River paper.

Someone on the Fountain Pen Network began a forum thread asking users about what features would comprise their perfect notebook. My response quickly became too long, so I turned it into a blog entry.

There is no notebook that is perfect for everyone.  Being a fountain pen user makes one impossibly picky -- my search for the perfect notebook would have been brief had I been satisfied with gel pens.  As a fountain pen user, however, you look for fountain-pen-friendly features: limited show-through; the absence of bleed-through,  feathering, and loss of shading; nibs that don't skip and inks that aren't dry; basically, an experience in which you can lay down smooth wet lines that are true to the color of your ink.

In addition to a fountain-pen-friendly writing experience, I also look for functional design in my books. The book has to properly fit the purpose for which it is designed: a diary into which I pour my deepest reflections; a pocket notebook into which I jot down quick thoughts and lists on the go; a notebook for my grad school course work, my regular paying work as a research assistant,  and notes from work meetings; and an agenda for my schedule and tasks.  These requirements mean attention to size, ruling, flexibility, and so forth.

If I were an efficient human being who did not have an unhealthy notebook fetish, I would own only two or three notebooks: a single circa notebook could meet all my academic and work needs, a diary, and a pocket notebook.  I currently use the first section of a letter-sized circa as my agenda, but if I didn't, I might also want a small portable agenda.

However, I am not an efficient human being with common sense.  I have a notebook fetish, and insist on using saddle-stitch and hard-bound notebooks simply because I find them charming, knowing full-well that all these things would be better contained in a circa along with my lecture notes.  But they're not. Because I like notebooks and I insist on actually using them for more than journaling.

So instead I use five distinct types of notebooks for five distinct purposes.

The features I prefer in the kinds of notebook I use are as follows. (Disclaimer: I sell Tomoe pocket notebooks and paper, so it may come as biased that I ended up using mostly this paper, but I basically invested in it because I grew to use it for most things, and not vice versa).



1. Journal/Commonplace notebook. A hardcover A5 notebook with unruled, cream-colored Tomoe River pages, so I can scrawl freely.  I don't necessarily write about my day or reflect on the "deepest thoughts" alluded to earlier. Sometimes I just write a quote that really spoke to me or an idea I had about something; some days are just filled with bullet points.  It is on my desk at all times in case such thoughts arise.  The speed and looseness with which I sometimes want to quickly note these thoughts means I don't wanted to be restricted by rulings or margins. In the past, I've used your run-of-the-mill diary from Barnes and Noble, then your ubiquitous Moleskine Classic Notebook, lined, then Picadilly and Leuchtturm variants. The desire for a uniform paper experience across notebook types eventually led me to settle on Tomoes.

2. Lecture/meeting book. A fold-over ring-bound Levenger circa notebook with white, letter-size paper and wide rulings, e.g. 7 mm dot grid or 7 mm ruled, because I often need to scrawl in lectures and need space, but still desire some level of organization.  I use pocket dividers to allow slipping in handouts and returned assignments in the appropriate section. Typically, the lined or dot paper is custom-printed.  In the past I have used  HP Premium Choice 32 lb Laserjet Paper, (beloved by many but too thick for me), then Double A Paper (almost perfect but not quite right and not always in stock and became more and more expensive over time).  Currently I use white letter-size Tomoe River paper, although less suited for disc-bound systems than regular paper, due to its thinness.

3. "Project" notebook.  A hard-cover book slightly larger than A4 to allow for ample annotation space, containing cream-colored 5 mm dot grid Tomoe River paper for versatility and to keep my naturally small writing neat.  I use project notebooks to work on something in great detail in a systematic way, i.e. notes on a book I'm studying in extreme detail.  This is one sort of book that I would replace with a Circa if I was more intelligent and practical, but the charm of large hard-covers is too irresistable for me.  I  first used a a squared Moleskine A4 folio for my project books, but it was not compatible with some new ink I came to prefer.  Then I switched to a Leuchtturm Master Dots for three semesters; it was perfect until they unexpectedly changed the paper inside.  The new paper had more bleed-through, spread, and loss of shading. Now I use notebooks made of Tomoe that I stitch myself.

4. Cahier/exercise book. A softcover stapled or stitched notebook for short projects or, well, exercises. Mostly, these notebooks contain the exercises from textbooks and problem sets.  I rarely ever look at these again, but  I quickly learned that being neat and organized as I worked through problem sets was a good idea, otherwise I could totally lose track of them or be unable to read what I had written, which was hell if I had to copy the finalluy-solved problem neatly and hand them in.  This, however, is another function that could easily be replaced with a section in a circa notebook if I had common sense, but I don't.  My path to the perfect cahier went from the Moleskine cahier to the Whitelines Saddle Stitch A4 Squared Notebook to the Leuchtturm A4 Jottbook to Kokuyo A4 Campus notebooks to custom Tomoes that I stitch or staple myself.

5. Paperback pocket notebooks.  Blank notebooks for random on-the-go scrawling and list-making - again now Tomoes that I make myself.  I honestly could not find a good fountain-pen friendly option for these until I made them myself.  Most of my pens bled through Field Notes , but the utility of such was format is undeniable, prompting me to make a more FP-friendly alternative.  I have filled up about four of these notebooks in 6 months.

When I started using fountain pens, I used Moleskine for everything.  I didn't know many book brands and this was basically the poshest brand I knew. I started out with Lamy Safari fountain pens and Noodler's Bulletproof Black ink .  This type of ink wrote in deep, clear black ink on just about every medium, so it hid the quality problems of Moleskines for a while. 

But this ink/pen combination often skipped or wrote too dry for me, so I spent one summer searching for a new combo of pen, ink, and paper. It soon became clear how difficult it was to find the perfect paper with no bleed through, feathering, spread, or loss of shading and a pen/paper/ink combo that resulted in bold saturated black lines.  At the end of the summer I settled on Levenger true writer, Noodler's Bad Black Moccasin , and mostly Leuchtturm notebooks. 

Then Leuchtturm paper quality changed inside in some formats, and the search began yet again.   Finally I have settled on TWSBI Diamond fountain pens outfitted with Levenger nibs, still using bad black Moccasin, and now almost everything is made of Tomoe paper. 

Had I been wiser about the way the market worked, I would have stocked up on Leuchtturms.  I liked their paper, page numbering, and table of contents. I did not forsee a paper change in my favorite format and the inconsistency across their formats.  So all I can tell you is, once you find the perfect book, stock up on it!  Even if it doesn't look like it's going out of stock anytime soon, you don't know when they'll move production to China or Taiwan and change the paper suddenly.