My Moleskine Problem

This post from Cynthia, Coyote Underground: Pig Iron Blues impressed me so much I just had to blog about it. It's not just the beautiful prose it contains, and not just the stirring analogy of a writer's hopes and dreams being cast iron. Those are impressive enough, but it is the fact that Cynthia makes her own notebooks! She even gives you pictures of one, with a closeup of the gorgeous, handmade binding.

It wasn't until I met up with other writers that I realized I no longer had to hide my notebook obsession. What joy to discover that others shared the same desires, the same lustful strolls through the stationery sections, and then talked about it openly!

I'm so emboldened that I feel I can share another secret in the belief that you, my blogbuds, will be caring and supportive, that you wouldn't for a moment entertain any sort of laughing, snickering, or ridicule. It's ... my Moleskine Problem.

Cynthia says that making her own notebooks has cured her of her notebook obsession, with one exception, that being, of course, the Moleskine.

If I learned how to make my own notebooks, it might cure me of my notebook obsession, too, but it wouldn't solve my Moleskine Problem. Like Cynthia, I would still have to buy Moleskines. That probably goes without saying. However, my Moleskine Problem would then become my Notebook That I Made By Ownself Problem: I couldn't bear to write in it! I'd have to keep using sticky notes, like I do in my Moleskine. I can write in any other kind of notebook, but not my Moleskine, and certainly not a notebook of my own making.

Oh yes, I know of, and admire, people like Cynthia and Pooks, and countless other Advanced Beings who can write in their Moleskines and even (shudder) handmade notebooks. They even speak of the types of writing instruments and colors of ink they use. They just wriiiiiiiiiiiiite awaaaaaaaaay as if it was, somehow, an "okay" lifestyle.

I cannot bring myself to do it. I am just not there yet. The very thought of besplotching those pristine pages with ink, oh! The horror.



It is to weep.
Am I the only one?