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Reviews for Writers: Shiny Golden Spiral Journals

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Welcome to my Reviews for Writers series where I post reviews for materials aimed at writers, specifically those who write by hand.

There are a bunch of journals and pens and desk tools out there, and I want to give my thoughts on them specifically from an author’s perspective. I’ve gotten to where I write my first drafts almost exclusively by hand and I used to think that made me a unicorn in the writing arena because of it. Now, I realize how common it is, and I want to help my fellow authors find tools to make the job easier.

DWIYITTN Spiral Journal 4-Pack

My first thoughts? How shiny and golden these journals are! They lay flat with the spiral binding and even have an elastic closure. I was a little sad to see that the backs of these journal have no decor, just a solid color. But the front is quite beautiful. I could easily see these being an inspiration for journaling or for jotting down ideas about a fantastic world. They aren’t quite pocket sized, but they would fit nicely into a large purse, a bookbag, or a cross-body satchel. The front cover folds nicely behind it for taking notes while out at a library or while listening to a talk.

Next up, the pen test. These pages are a little thinner than I expected, but they still handled basic writing utensils nicely.

  • Fountain pen ink can smear, so make sure you let it sit for a few seconds. It doesn’t take long to dry, but could be problematic for lefties.
  • While a basic gel pen like the Pilot G2 has no problem drying and has only some bleed through the page, the Pentel Medium Roller Ball had lots of bleed through.
  • The Sharpie bled through the page and also could be seen on the next page.

Although the paper is a little more thin than I like, this is a wonderful notebook for jotting down notes, getting some rough ideas onto paper, or for casual journaling. I could see the golden cover design inspire younger authors too.

See my video below for my full breakdown and thoughts.

Disclaimer: I obtained these items through the Amazon Vine program. Other than receiving the items for free, I was not compensated in any way by Amazon or the manufacturer. All opinions here are my own.

Reviews for Writers: Beautiful Hardcover Notebooks

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Welcome to the first post in my new series: Reviews for Writers! Throughout this series, I’ll be posting my reviews for materials aimed at writers, specifically those who write by hand.

There are a bunch of journals and pens and desk tools out there, and I want to give my thoughts on them specifically from an author’s perspective. I don’t see enough of that out there.

Labkiss Hardcover Notebook

My first thoughts on the Labkiss Hardcover Notebook are how nice they feel! These hardback journals are smooth and remind me of some of my favorite journals to use growing up. They have a sturdy bookmark in them and a binding elastic that feels pretty solid too.

Most important (to me) are the pen tests. For those of us who write by hand, the feathering, bleed through, and drying time are some of the most important aspects of a potential writing journal. Here are my takeaways:

  • Fountain pen ink went down wonderfully and has hardly any shadowing on the opposite page
  • Highlighters might bleed through if you double your lines
  • Sharpie markers will bleed through to the opposite side of the page, but not onto the opposite page, which is really great for a Sharpie

See my video for my full breakdown and thoughts.

If you haven’t already, subscribe to my Youtube channel. I’ve been getting back into posting videos again. I post post a new video every week.

Disclaimer: I obtained these items through the Amazon Vine program. Other than receiving the items for free, I was not compensated in any way by Amazon or the manufacturer. All opinions here are my own.

Bullet Journaling as an Author: A Sticker A Day

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Since my first blog post about using trackers in my bullet journal was so popular, I thought it couldn’t hurt to do more in this vein. Clearly there are a number of authors out there looking for ways to keep on track when working on their novels. Heck, I was that way too not very long ago.

While trackers are wonderful for long-term planning and smashing out goals, what motivates you on the short term? I know during the work week, I don’t go flipping to my progress chart very often. I’m too busy fixing the nuts and bolts of work and life every day. So I wanted to find a way to give myself a little bit of a boost for squeezing in maybe just ten minutes of writing over my lunch, or maybe dedicating a whole hour one evening to tackling that scene, or giving myself the space to work on edits. Do you know what I found was super inspiring? Stickers.

Yes, I know, it’s very grade school. I remember helping my mom set up sticker boards for her classroom for a number of years, and seeing it slowly fill up as kids did awesome things. A sticker at the end of the day was a way to easily see how great you did, and made it easy to look back over the week to see how you did.

Guess what? It works for us adults too!

You can buy little flower sticker sheets at Amazon or Etsy. They’re adorable, and just the little burst of inspiration I needed to keep going some days. If I had a rough week, just seeing a bundle of stickers spread out over the pages made me proud. That was work on something I enjoyed. That was proof of what I accomplished, even if my word count had barely nudged, I did something worth celebrating.

Lately I’ll admit I haven’t written on my WIP as much as I would like, and seeing my pages lack those stickers makes me sad. Even their absence is motivating. But I’m getting that inspiration rolling again.

Of course, this little trick could work for anything that you want to work on a little bit each day. When my life gets really crazy busy though, I find that my writing time suffers. It’s hard to pull the words out and it’s hard to delve into my fantasy world, the characters, or the plot when life is pulling my attention in a dozen different directions.

Having an easy way to glimpse my progress helps immensely. Remember, all it takes is a sticker a day.

Bullet Journaling as an Author

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I’ve only been using my bullet journal since February, but now it’s become a staple in my writing career. It’s helped me remember important things to do, kept me on track with my goals, given me a creative outlet, and even made me healthier. Let me explain.

I scoffed at the idea of keeping a bullet journal at first. I thought I didn’t have the time to keep one and I certainly wasn’t as talented as some of the Youtubers I watched. Slowly though I got on the band wagon and began my own. It was an ugly start. I didn’t know how to organize it and I was using markers that were too fat for the pages, but that was okay. Soon I looked forward to my bullet journal time.

Then a few months later I was diving back into my unfinished YA Horror novel, The Seeking. By that point, I was starting to catch on to how useful this little journal was and figured it could help me in my writing. As you can see, my little word count tracker motivated me so much that I had to put in half steps just to have an excuse to fill it in.

Later on, I was dealing with the release of The She-Wolf of Kanta and had to figure out what to do with the Facebook event I would be leading. You know what was by my side the entire time? My bullet journal of course, with a list of times and events to keep me on schedule.

Now months later, I’m doing the first pass of edits for Stolen. You know by this point that I had to put a tracker in.

My poor bullet journal has been through a lot this year. It’s already almost full and it’s only July. I’m going to have to pick up another one soon to replace it. Do you know what I’m looking forward to though? On New Year’s Day of 2019 I’ll have so many trackers that I’ve completed in my journal. It’ll be concrete proof of all the work I’ve done this year. I’ll be able to flip through years from now and reflect on my first year as an author working on books instead of short stories, finally seeing major traction doing what I’ve loved for so many years. ❤️

Then I’ll setup my new bullet journal and start all over again!

If you’re an author or working to become an author, I would highly recommend starting a bullet journal. It was amazing how much more relaxed I felt getting all the things I was trying to remember out of my head and onto the page.

If you keep a bullet journal, what do you love about it the most?

If not, what holds you back from doing it?