I have trouble handwriting a grocery list, much less anything longer. I've been writing directly on a keyboard since I was 16, which makes it upwards of 30 years now. I can't be creative writing by hand, because I practically have to think about making every letter, unless I'm making the messy, cryptic notes I take during interviews for articles. If I'm interviewing over the phone, I take the notes on the keyboard. I hated handwriting when I was a kid, and the last D I made was when they still graded handwriting. The day my parents gave me a typewriter was a great day.

When I get sludged up on the computer, I take a notebook and a pen or two to B&N cafe, open it up and put pen to paper and just write. It may be a snatch of dream I recall, the pattern in the carpet, descriptions of passersby, workers, shoppers, anything to get the pen moving across the paper. For as long as I can do it, physically. I may get up and walk around the store, have a cup of coffee, page through a magazine or two, and then go back and try it again.

Sometimes my desk and the computer loom, and are too importunate and demanding. A notebook, a pen, and a change of scene can help. Sometimes.

"Special notebooks" are rarely "journals" or "blank books." I bought several a few years ago by Pen-Tab, called "Pro". They're double-spiral bound come in half-size and standard notebook size, and they have paper that's wide-ruled, and heavy enough that fountain pen ink won't leak through.

Mostly what I use now are legal pads with a heavier-weight paper. I like pastels with shadow lines, but as long as the paper is heavyweight enough, I'm good.

I have a whole shelf of filled journals: blank books, spiral notebooks, and looseleaf paper I hand bound. It covers about ten years. The last notebook I never finished, and the last entry was in 2001. I've kept diaries and notebooks for periods all through my life. No doubt I'll take it up again sometime. I've kept them because it helps me to pull a volume at random, read through parts of it, and identify traits I've managed to either encourage, or fail to squash. Journaling was a tool for me, therapy, very useful. I just don't feel it's as useful at this point in my life.

Woot!

Remember that San Jose Merc News review from last Sunday?

I just made their Books We Like List! At the top!

Woo and verily, Hoo! Yay, Deb!

Still waiting for connie to resend her fiction, so I can read it....

That's great, Deb.

I'm happy for you, Deb.

Tres cool, deb.

Great news, Deb!

It's pretty!