A Re-Commitment to Writing

We've all heard (or read) it before... After long periods of hiatus, blogwriters casually excuse themselves for not keeping up with their writing. Somewhere along the line, life gets in the way of this expression. Depending on how high up the priority list blog-writing is, the more dire the circumstances would be to pull the writer away from their blog. We all have our reasons excuses not to write, but life's events should offer all the more impetus to write.

If you're a follower of this blog, you would already know that I, too am guilty of letting a bit of dust get on the Goldspot Pens Blog lately. I won't offer any explanations, but I will say that this is still an important venue for us to connect with our customers and prospects. We simply tried the best we could to keep up with it, given the resources and manpower. In the end, it comes down to, "Should I answer that customer's important e-mail about their next-day engraving order or should I write a new review for the blog." Our customers depend on our customer service above all, so the blog is given a lower priority for when there is free time.

However, there is never any "free time." It is simply an illusion. An oasis in a sea of desert. And if there was any shimmer of hope in that grey lining, the Black Friday cloud comes rolling in and the craziness of the Holidays consumes every last tick & tok. As I've openly moaned to several friends and family in regards to possibly doing NaNoWriMo this year, "Who has the time?" Like I can suddenly afford to shirk my duties as Dad, attending social commitments, Birthdays and the like, all to write some junky first draft of a novel for my own self-indulgence?

No, ultimately I decided that it doesn't need to be that extreme for me to get back into writing. However, I did want to re-commit to regularly writing here on the blog, even if that means the sacrifice of an hour of sleep here or there. I would encourage all of you writers that may be facing the same issue to let go of the excuses and just write for the sake of it. Make the sacrifice to keep up with it. I'm right there with you.

Pen Spotlight - Nice and Crap Notebooks

Yes, this is a "pen spotlight" post, but I just happened to find a few blogs that were talking about notebooks in the last few weeks that I found interesting to share with our pen crowd. Most notably, Notebook Stories sparked a discussion about the importance of having a crap notebook. Especially check out the comments below the post. Seems that most people have both nice & crap notebooks, each with their own intended uses.

I nearly squee'd when I saw that Moleskine was coming out with new covers for the iPhone and iPad that have notebooks attached to them. These hybrid tools are fantastic for those who straddle the line of tech and old-fashioned pen & paper tasking. They are taking pre-orders on Amazon, but one would assume that the covers will hit the US market shortly before the Holiday Season in the next month or so.

For our long-term Filofax fans out there who stumble across their beat up, old leather cover organizer, there is still hope yet to restore it! Philofaxy has a great how-to article on restoring a leather Filofax cover. Pictures included.

Rhodia recently sponsored an event called Two Night Stand, which according to Rhodia Drive :

[Two Night Stand] was planned as a weekend-long collaborative event where 20 creatives (designers, bloggers, photographers, coders, illustrators, video artists, etc.) would converge to tackle a mystery project together.  The entire creative process was to be cataloged online via the website and through social media.
You can see it here at http://www.thetwonightstand.com/feed

Creative collaboration, especially when done under a time constraint, is always a fun time, provided there is enough caffeine (or beer, in this case) to go around. The Rhodia pads they used were probably a great asset as they needed to sketch, design and draw out their concept from start to completion. One other writing escapade that will commence shortly is NaNoWriMo, which is a yearly event that takes place the entire month of November. The goal is to write an entire draft of a novel during the span of the month. Having tried and failed last year, I can tell you that it is no small feat.

NaNoWriMo - A Perfect Excuse to Write

Ever say to yourself, "one day, I would love to write a novel?" Sunday is your day to start. November 1st begins National Novel Writing Month. For the entire duration of November, your objective is to crank out at least 50,000 words (about 175 pages total) of fiction. The "upcoming month of literary abandon," to put it in the words of the folks over at NaNoWriMo.org, will be your chance to join the motivated masses that share the same goal. They have been organizing the event since 1999, which started as a noveling binge between 21 friends in the San Francisco Bay area. In 2008, the number of participants blew up to over 119,000, with more than 21,000 crossing the 50k word mark. So, you have what it takes to commit to writing 1,667 words per day for an entire month? Sign up for a FREE account at NaNoWriMo.org where you will be able to update and track your progress as the month goes by. I won't go into the details of how the tracking works, but you may find the nitty-gritty details here. I realize that since this is a blog about fine-writing, there will be a few Luddites out there who would opt to do this on pen and paper. There is a less-technologically advanced way of verifying your word count. According to NaNoWriMo's frequently asked questions page :

What you do is write your 50,000 words, then have someone you trust verify that it is, indeed, 50,000 words. Then using something like the Lorem Ipsum generator, submit a file of the exact number of words of your handwritten manuscript to our word count validator.

For people who prefer doing a little bit of both, load up a trusty fountain pen and write several pages and then transpose them into your word processor of choice. Not only will you get the satisfaction of putting pen to paper to write your novel, but you will also sharpen those typing skills. If you don't have the portability of a laptop at your disposal, this would be a good solution when you are away from the desk. Besides the online social aspect of writing with others around the globe, there also local "regions" that you can join which can hold local "write-ins" where you can meet and write with other WriMo's. If you would like to join and have a bit of friendly camaraderie, Tom @goldspotpens will be participating in the NaNoWriMo. Note: he will not be writing about fountain pens, although they may make a cameo appearance. If you would like to be his writing buddy, visit his profile here. Happy Halloween!