Blue for Bluegrass

Starting a new Field Notes this weekend for my daily doings log. This will be an important one, since Wintergrass, the big indoor bluegrass/acoustic music festival in Bellevue, WA, is starting Thursday, and I imagine I'll have much to remember! I decided to keep with the "winter" theme, and grabbed one of the Cold Horizon notebooks. Seemed fitting. And I'll be bringing mechanical pencil, since it's easier on-the-go.

So excited!

Walk Report (AKA Yet Another Excuse to Scribble in Field Notes)

As part of my "walk more" resolution for the year, I thought I'd start keeping a notebook, because I'm a nerd and I like the idea of being able to look back on at least some of my data. Bonus: knowing I'll get to write something down with a nice pencil in a cool notebook is motivation to get my fanny out the door in the mornings.

Don't have a set format yet, but I'll get there.

NaNoWriMo 2013 by Pencil: SUCCESS

I scored this little fella late last night.

50k+ words completed in 26 days. One composition book filled, plus the first few pages of a second, in which I'll continue working on the story until the first draft tells me it's complete.

Just over half a Field Notes Expedition Edition filled with notes--I'll continue to use that. Yes, almost everything smears on that paper, which annoys me, but I do like how sturdy the thing is and how smooth it is to write in. I also like the fact that the front cover is BRIGHT HI-VISIBILITY ORANGE and thus easily locatable the dozen times a day I drop it or lose it amongst the things on my desk.

I can work at a slower pace now, but I'd like to finish this draft by Christmas if I can. (Self, please revisit this statement frequently.)

NaNoNoNoNoNoNo Not Ready!

So, let's see...locally, we have about 36 hours to go until the NaNoWriMo madness begins. Where do I stand?

• I did a lot of *claiming* to plan back in September.

• I did some actual *attempted* planning in October.

• I got as far as boldly labeling a pocket notebook "NaNoWriMo 2013" in anticipation of using it for ideas and notes.

• My current plot goes something like this: What if? Then something. And bam, SOMETHING!

In other words, I got nothin'. I am tempted to scrap my vague idea and rewrite an old idea instead.

But hey, NaNoWriMo is all about embracing your inner pantser, right? Right??

NaNoNotebook, plus the rest of my current pocket notebooks: the Field Notes is for NaNo, the Scout Book below it is a logbook of sorts with brief notes on each day, the Moleskine cahier below that is for to-dos, and my brain-dump notebook is on the bottom.

Field Notes, and Lots of Them!

This is what was in my birthday package! OK, so I went a little overboard. I think I'm set for awhile.

Got some Expedition Edition notebooks, some Drink Local notebooks, some America the Beautiful notebooks, and some pencils. These are my first Field Notes, so getting so many varieties was just plain illogical, but...I couldn't make up my mind, so. Here we are.

I haven't yet used them, but the Expedition Edition will probably be where I start. It's just so eye-catchingly BRIGHT on the front and subtle in the back. And the paper is...weird, but intriguing. Supposedly it's water and tear proof. It's very different from Rite in the Rain paper: thin and sort of silky to the touch. But then, I believe Rite in the Rain is specially treated paper, whereas this is not really paper at all. Fascinating. It's dot ruled, which I like a great deal.

I also really like the covers on the Drink Local notebooks. They have a soft grippiness that puts me in mind of Rhodia's "soft touch" covers. And they came with this nifty coaster.

The America the Beautiful notebook also had a special token: in this case, a decal with each of the notebooks represented. (They are very pretty notebooks.)

There are a lot of neat little details with these notebooks, one of the most fun being the specification list they each come with.

The pencil has its own list, too! I'll be giving one of these a good hard trial run in the next little bit here.