I've been collecting notebooks for the last decade. I know, I'm a bit old school in this current digital age but there's something immensely comforting to me to write down my thoughts on pen and paper. I wrote the book that becamemy first published fiction novel on a notebook during swimming lessons for my twins.
Of course, the book went through changes once I typed it all up on a computer but, to this day, when I'm stuck on a scene, I revert to an actual blank page, not a virtual one. And I always carry a notebook with me. Yes, I also have a smartphone but typing on that is inconvenient. Pen and paper are not.
As a result, I buy a lot of notebooks or blank journals. More, I confess, than I can possibly use in my lifetime. But there's something about possessing a book of empty pages that speaks to the writer inside me. It says "maybe someday, I will be filled with a story." It's a promise to the future.
It's a cheap hobby. I often find great bargains on notebooks when Barnes & Noble has their winter clearance sale or at Michaels craft shops in their dollar bin. (The Michaels dollar bin is also great for notepads.) And sometimes stores like T.J Maxx and Marshalls will have notebooks slipped in with their discount stationary.
There's no particular rhyme or reason to what notebooks I pick. Usually, they will have a artwork I love on the cover or they'll feel awesome in my hand or the cover has a motif that I love, like my bargain find at B&N which is a green notebook with a cover that contains a copy of the beginning of The Great Gatsby in F. Scott Fitzgerald's handwriting. (Shown above.)
But every now and then, I will find a notebook that fills several of those requirements. The Hobbit-themed notebook is one of those. The minute I opened the box of samples from Moleskine, I knew I'd love my Hobbit book of blank pages. On the cover is the Lonely Mountain, artwork from J.R.R. Tolkien's original edition. And the cover was in beautiful brown leather, so it felt perfect in my hand.
But it was the enclosed map of Middle Earth, with Thor's map on one side, and Wilderland map that contains the Forest of Mirkwood on the other side, that sealed the deal.
This is definitely a notebook I'd pay full price for, especially since it's only listed at $16.95.
It will be my favorite for a long time. It seems almost blasphemy to write my own words inside something so Tolkienesque.
I'll just have to use living up to Tolkien's standards as my writing motivation.
