Marrying Fountain Pens and Paper with the Cloud

This is a guest post by Brian S. Friedlander, Ph.D. You can find him on twitter @assistivetek and his blog assistivetek.blogpsot.com

As much as I enjoy my digital tools there is just something about using pen and paper that still feels just right! For the past couple of months, I have gotten back to using fountain pens in my work flow and have really enjoyed using a variety of fountain pens and ink colors that abound. The big question for me was just how could I integrate it with my workflow? You see for me to keep organized I generally keep everything in my iPhone and have been using Evernote for the past eight years. While this problem may seem insurmountable I did find a workflow that allows me to use my fountain pens and continue to use my Evernote account.

One of my favorite note taking tools is Evernote which I have been using for some time now. Evernote is a great way to capture ideas, notes, images, audio and store it on the web for easy access. Not too long ago, Evernote in collaboration with Moleskine came out with journals that allowed me to quickly move my handwritten notes to the cloud with full searching capabilities. The system is very easy to use and gave me the ability to continue to take notes using a fountain pen and paper. After writing my notes or tasks I can use Smart Stickers that come with the Evernote writing journals to quickly file my notes into the right notebook using the camera on my iPhone. The Smart Stickers are quite ingenious. Using the camera on my iPhone I can associate a sticker with a particular notebook. For example, if you associate the sticker that has a House icon on it with your Work notebook, then when you take a picture of that page that has the house sticker affixed, it automatically will file the note in your Work notebook. The Evernote system works great and one of the big advantages of this system is that you can easily search all your handwritten notes. Evernote will OCR all of your handwritten notes and make searching them very easy. Using the Evernote journal from Moleskine has allowed me to use my fountain pens and marry my need to keep my notes and to-do in the cloud.

While searching the web one day, I came across a relatively new solution that bridges the analog to digital world for note taking called Whitelines Link. Whitelines Link produces several different notepads with a grey background with whitelines, with a unique looking code on the four corners of each page. On the bottom of each page is a set of three icons in a box, which probably needs no introduction and includes one for Email, Evernote, and Dropbox. More about this a little later. The notebooks were designed this way so that when you write or draw on the page your words or drawings pop on the page. I have been using the Whitelines Link A5 Squared notebook for the last two months and have really enjoyed the experience. The Whitelines Link notebook is spiral bound so the pages lay flat and the paper quality is great for use with a pencil, gel pen or even a fountain pen. Once I have finished my page of notes - there is where the fun begins! First I decide what I want to do with my notes- am I going to send them to someone via email, or save them to my Evernote or Dropbox account? By ticking off one of the icons on the bottom of the page I can easily and automatically route the note without having to think about it. As a heavy user of Evernote this works great. When I'm done with my note, I simply tick off the Evernote icon and when I open the Whitelines Link app on my iPhone and take a picture of the note, the app using the codes on the corner of the page can senses where the note is and automatically routes it to my Evernote account for safe keeping. The Whitelines Link app is available on the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store and is free. I should mention that when you use the Whitelines Link app to capture your notes, the grey background and white lines disappear and all you are left with are your notes on a white background which really highlights your ideas! The ways to use Whitelines Link is only limited by your creativity. Whitelines Link notebooks are available on Amazon and are licensed to be used with Leuchtturm Whitelines Link Black Pocket Dots notebooks which are readily available in the United States. This is a great product and one that I know you will enjoy using.

If you enjoy using fountain pens to jot down ideas, journal, or for writing your to-do lists then you may want to consider bringing the analog to digital gap by using the Moleskine Evernote, Whitelines Link, or the Leuchtturm Whitelines Link Black Pocket Dots notebooks. All of the notebook solutions add a considerable value proposition and one that allowed me to continue to use fountain pens that are then married to my cloud based services!

#WriteitWednesday Dear Diary

This week, lets open up a bit. We're betting that quite a few of our followers keep a journal, or a log of events and goings on that you keep track of regularly. This week, our #WriteitWednesday challenge is to share your journal writing with the world. Take a pic of one of the pages, preferably with your pen of choice and post it on twitter or instagram with the appropriate hashtag. Be as personal and intimate as you want to. Dance like no one's watching.

Visconti Van Gogh Portrait Blu with a Rhodiarama Notebook

Share the pic of your entry on Instagram or Twitter with the hashtag #writeitwednesday and mention @goldspotpens to make sure we see it! You may also opt to e-mail us the picture at social@goldspot.com.

Deadline for entries will be Friday at 10:00am Eastern US Time. We will randomly select a winner on Friday at 12 Noon.

This Week's Prize

This week, our giveaway isn't a pen, its a journal. More specifically, the "Wreck This Journal" book by Keri Smith. We're giving away a free copy to someone who loves journaling and will find Keri's prompts fun and challenging.

About #WriteitWednesday

Each Wednesday, we run a new social giveaway challenge with a different giveaway prize every week. Anyone around the world with an Instagram, Twitter, Facebook or E-mail account can enter. Once the entries have been collected and the deadline has passed, we randomly select one of the entries as the winner of the giveaway and send the prize accordingly.

No purchase is necessary to enter the #writeitwednesday giveaway. Those who enter the contest via social media may have their images shared by Goldspot on this blog or on Goldspot's Social media accounts. The winner will have 1 week to contact us by e-mail to claim their prize. If the prize is unclaimed, it will be used in a future giveaway.

Alternative to Mother's Day Cards - A Card Journal

First and foremost, a Happiest of Mother's Days to all the Moms out there! Take a break, relax and spoil yourselves a little bit this weekend. You've earned it!

I'll start this post off by saying that I've never liked greeting cards. Sure, it's nice to get a card, but it's even nicer when someone handwrites an original message from the heart. It's too easy to go out, pick a card and then sign your name(s) on the inside. That, in my opinion, just doesn't seem sincere enough. Plus, there is the issue with collecting cards throughout the years. They come in all different sizes, some have glitter, some are electronic with batteries that could corrode, making preservation difficult.

We would like to present a simple idea that could make your trips to the Hallmark section of the store a bygone activity.

The Card Journal

Eccolo Eiffel Tower Journal with Nemosine Singularity Fountain Pen

This Mother's Day, whether you're celebrating the first one with baby on the way, or with your dear Grandma, you can start their own Card Journal. The journal acts as a catalog of all the holidays of which a card would have normally been given. Instead, a new page or pages are dedicated for the person giving the card to write a special note, draw a picture or paste in some crafty love. You can give the Card Journal to your special person on Mother's Day, or any other card-giving Holiday, presented with their gift (you did remember the gift, right?).

How to Start a Card Journal

You would want the designated card journal to speak uniquely to the personality of the intended recipient. The journal should be durable to last for decades. Ideally, it should have acid-free paper and a sturdy cover that is perfect bound or hard bound. We would recommend a Rhodia Webnotebook, Clairefontaine notebook, a Filofax or an Eccolo Journal. Keep in mind how you wish to write/draw/decorate in the journal, as you would need to make sure the paper could hold up to the medium(s) you wish to use. Rhodia, Clairefontaine and Eccolo Journals are suitable to handle most pens, including fountain pen ink. For watercolor or other mixed media needs, we would suggest thicker watercolor paper or using bristol board to fashion your own DIY notebook.

Starting at page 1, you would craft your message, making sure to date it appropriately. If you have young children, you can write on one page and the kids can fill in the opposite page with their scribblings, drawings, stickers, etc. This would look beautiful after some years when you start to see the kids' handwriting develop over time and be able to look back at the scribbles when the journal was first started.

You can also give the journal to other family members and friends that would want to contribute. It can be as fun and memorable as a yearbook if you get a number of different people involved!

After Mother's Day is over, Mom can keep the journal until you kindly ask for it back before the next card-giving Holiday. It sure beats having to run out to the drugstore, only to pace the greeting card aisle and purchase an overpriced card. Starting a Card Journal for that special person in your life can be a cherished tradition that is handed down from generation to generation.

Anyone else already keep a Card Journal or something similar to it? We would love to hear your thoughts on this by leaving a comment below.

Finally, A Finished Moleskine

The crowd was wildly untamed that late March afternoon. Preparations were made earlier that day for a celebration that would be remembered through the ages. Balloons were netted, confetti corked, the champagne put on ice. The police could hardly hold the barricades up as the climax of the event was about to take place.

I was about to write my final words in this God-forsaken Moleskine journal.

It was an event that was over two years in the making. You could blame a lack of daily writing for the sluggish pace. When I bought the Moleskine back in January of 2010, I didn't know any better, I swear. I was convinced, as many of the uninitiated are, that if Picasso, Chopin and other famous artistic minds had used this journal, then I should have one as well.

I was very wrong.

As a nearly-exclusive fountain pen user, I found out pretty quickly that the "1-ply" paper quality that Moleskine affords (don't you have another square to spare?) just doesn't cut it for most pen & ink combinations. Part of the fun in owning fountain pens is to write with the entire gamut of the visible spectrum, and the journal I chose to write in is color-blind. It would only "accept" lighter, less saturated colors. All other inks had a fair amount of bleed-through to the other side of the page. I'm not a wasteful person, so only using one side of the page was not an agreeable solution.

Making sure that there was always a pen loaded with Moleskine-friendly ink around, I drudged on through the journal. It wasn't until after doing some homework on the internet that I found many like-minded FP users to be complaining of the same issues with the paper. The ultimate solution - we started carrying Rhodia!

After my pen tasted the promise land of 90 gsm, French-milled, ivory silkiness that is the Webbie, the Moleskine's days became numbered. There was much unrest about how long it would take to finish the last 30 or 40 pages that remain in that wretched Mole, but it had to be done. There were principles to uphold.

Sensing the imminent transition, the citizens ordered the new Rhodia Webnotebook into the presence of the writer to push him to write more and faster. The new journal, wrapped in its thin layer of clear plastic and packaging, taunted him, made his hand quiver in regret as the last few pages were being written. The crowd became cross, frustrated and impatient.

5 sheets to go. 7 pages left. 2 pages. 1 more entry.

As the last word was laid to rest, the crowd erupted into relief and jubilation. The writer collapsed in tears and raised his arms to embrace the sky. It was done. That chapter is over.

Here are the pages that were used to catalog the ink & pen combinations that were used over the 2+ years. They are in order from the very last page of the journal going inward (in reverse).





 

Take my life lesson seriously folks - if you are an avid fountain pen user, you would be doing yourself a disservice by using a Moleskine journal. Go Rhodia and never look back.