I'm more than a little obsessed with paper and journals and notebooks. For the last 7 years, I have written in a notebook nearly every day. I take a break once in a while. In 2007, when we went to Washington D.C., I didn't write for 4 days. That's the longest. And occasionally I won't pick up my pen on Sundays. And last Christmas, I didn't write, but the Christmas before that, I did.
I write all kinds of things. Complaints. What the sun is doing. What the sky is doing. The leaf shadow on the floor. What we did the day before. Something that is haunting me. I have written short stories and am revising two novels while probing ideas for more.
My obsession doesn't stop with spiral notebooks. I am a list maker. And a note keeper. When I start a new project, I always make notes for it. And whenever I make notes, I have to make drawings.
Sometimes I start thinking I need to keep a regular illustrated journal. I do that for a while before it ebbs. Sometimes I dabble in watercolors. My mom is an artist and gave me lessons - just the basics. She taught me to love a quirky imperfect line. And to love sketches and sketchbooks. Whenever I see a little line drawing with watercolors splashed on it, my heart melts. Same with hand drawn diagrams. Or labels on sketches. Or lists. I'm crazy about that. I love handwriting on pictures.
Once I kept a J. Peterman catalogue I got in the mail and used it as a journal. I made notes and lists and drawings in the margins. I smeared it with paint. It was a record of my days.
I obsess for a while and can think of nothing else other than what I should draw or what I should keep in my little book. But it always ebbs again.
The one thing that never changes is that every morning I write in my notebook. I love the pen in my hand. The weight of it. How it whispers across the page. How I fill empty lines with all the things I didn't know until I wrote them down.