I have a problem that has made me nervous for months now: I hate it when ink in my journal goes to places where it wasn’t intended to. Fountain pen ink usually takes a couple of seconds to dry and is kind of picky when it comes to the state of the paper it is used on. Want to flip a page right after writing something? You will end up with some of that ink on the opposite page. Have sweaty palms? Better not touch that paper unless you want the ink to look slightly less dark on it!
These and other little issues have started to accumulate in my head up to the point where I actively avoid writing in my journal when I’ve just applied some hand lotion (and with just I mean within the last hour) and run around with blotting paper just to keep the paper clean! If I continue like that it’s just a matter of time until I start to wear white gloves! This also means that I’ve now ended up with far too many places where I’ve added some notes just to later move them over to the journal. A piece of paper here, some Draft note there, it all piles up and I just forget to transfer some of them eventually.
Enough is enough! The journal is there to help me, not for me to put it on an altar and worship it.
Don’t get me wrong! I will still try to keep the journal itself clean but I will no longer do that at a level that is preventing me from actually using it. No more blotting paper, no more taking notes somewhere else just because I needed some hand lotion. A journal is a tool and I should really start treating it as one!
And yes: Some of these issues are directly related to me using fountain pens to take notes. But the choice is easy there for me: I’ll take a slightly stained journal over using ballpoint or gel-pens any day and you cannot take them away from me! 😬
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