Too pretty to fill in...!

Hello reader! Many of us writerly folk keep an array of notebooks, of course. And while most of my notes have been haphazardly penned in several different books, which are your bog standard fare, some of these notebooks are pretty...special.

And to be honest, I canna bring myself to actually write in them. They are built for that purpose but I just don't want to spoil their unspoiled perfection. Crisp and untouched.

Still in their original packaging!

If I did indeed jot something, I feel it can't be any old drudge conjured from my mind spill (so I wouldn't be 'jotting' at all, that's just vulgar. I would need to sculpt). It would need to be precious prose or contemplations, the kind of repository that is worthy of such wonderfully crafted pages - the word-crafting would need to suit its home. So of course, with that impossible aim, one isn't going to write anything in them at all, is one?

Does anyone else have the same affliction? I mean with the first book (see below), I had the joy of making it at Annexe Mag's 'Interrobang' Festival, courtesy of 'We Make Books.' So again, how arbitrarily can I write in it? Particularly because there aren't actually that many pages, so you would indeed have to be selective, otherwise its contents would consist of you wondering about commutes to work, food and general non de-script/generic musings. Which is what this blog does - or Twitter serves as. So again, nothing that would illuminate the future humankind. Is that the point? Do we always write with a mind to adding to history so that people can know what it was like? Huh, if they did look back, goodness, wouldn't it be mundane.

Made at Interrobang! 2012

The extent of what I'm prepared to write in it!

Then there's this second book - I bought it in Pike Place in Seattle. Gorgeous day, buy a handmade, soft leather bound book with cotton paper - what more can you want? This is the kind of book you would dig out of some excavation site and be enamoured with the contents of a weird and wonderful existence, dusting the cover and pages down and pouring over the meticulous compilations. It just smells so great as well...I would have to write in it with a fountain pen or something and using such a pen would discount any random ramblings. It would have to be thought out - no one likes crossings-out from a fountain  pen. But then it is organic, so imperfection is a given.... The real truth is that I should pay heed to the name of the makers, 'No Boundaries' and what's wisely written below on the lovely bookmark: