12 Comments
Dec 5, 2022Liked by Alicia Kennedy

Loved this! Notebooks and planners are indeed magical, but I've also fallen HARD for the charms of Google Calendar: the colors! :) I don't carry a notebook with me, but I've used the Writual Planner (https://writualplanner.com/products/2023-writual-tarot-journal-paperback) for going on three years now, and I love it: space for astrological info, as well as Tarot cards.

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Dec 5, 2022Liked by Alicia Kennedy

Deborah A. Cecere

Lovely essay, Alicia. Thank you for sharing your reflections and stimulating mine. Here's to the many notebooks I bought that were so magical I could never bring myself to fill them with the mundane!

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Dec 5, 2022Liked by Alicia Kennedy

The majority of my life from age 12 on is documented in small black Moleskin notebooks, 1-2 per year, which are covered in collages of stickers and magazine cutouts preserved by clear packing tape wrapped around the hardcover. I am a completist and once I establish a standard format I hate deviating, but I switched to Leuchtturm1917s in my late 20s since the dot grid format suits my hybrid writing/sketching/keepsaking style better.

I’m much more promiscuous when it comes to planners, and am currently planning to try the Saint Belford in 2023. I am buying a Hobonichi Techo Weekly as a backup though, and odds are seem good I’ll end up switching to that before January is over. Japanese planners have been among the best I’ve tried if anyone is still in the market.

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Dec 5, 2022Liked by Alicia Kennedy

This was quite lovely. Your words turned every notebook into a very tangible (palpable?) thing. Amazing writing (for me, who never really had/felt this kind of close relationship with a notebook - maybe a bit w/my research and lecture notebooks? lol)

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Oct 25, 2023Liked by Alicia Kennedy

Did you get the books that I sent?

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Aug 3, 2023Liked by Alicia Kennedy

I've made the book. I'm waiting for some special fabric for the cover that I think will make you smile.

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I love this, and from the comments I am not alone. I still linger at the blank journal display at our local indie bookstore, imagining myself in another, more magical life, while my actual journalling lately features me using up the half-empty notebooks my son did not use while he was in school.

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Dec 5, 2022Liked by Alicia Kennedy

I love notebooks and now I love journaling and full then up quickly.

I miss the little stationers that were around when I was a child in England. A new pen or felt tip pens and paper gave me a great feeling of potential. What magic would I create this time?

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Dec 5, 2022·edited Dec 7, 2022Liked by Alicia Kennedy

I like notebooks, too. I hand-make them and give them to my students (I teach in a continuation high school in Santa Clarita, CA). https://photos.app.goo.gl/hHkdhLhUXhe9sxhc6 They're really more like sketchbooks because the pages have no lines. I make them with 80lb drawing paper and cover them with fabric. The covers themselves are made from gesso and canvas covered cardboard made for painting. The books are hand-stitched. It is a relaxing way to spend time, and keeps me from going crazy sometimes!

Send me an address and I'll send you one.

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