Messy notes are the medium
Scratched out words. Lines of text overlapping one another. Page grid optional. Squiggles that barely resemble letter shapes.
Messy notes are where I do my best thinking. Jottings and scratchings and cross outs are how I get from rough ideas to clever. Messy notes are the medium. They’re my work-in-progress.
Instagram and blogs are generous with images of orderly, beautiful notebook pages. I have my fair share — especially my journal and lesson plan spreads.
Tastily organized
But orderly writing is mostly linear (my journaling) or the end product of other, quite messy, deep thinking. Often just a few pages away in the same notebook.
I’m reflecting on those messy pages this week. Because I made a healthy amount. Redesigning my virtual classroom is fun.
Definitely going with teal
The key, for me, is making my jottings and scratchings searchable.
One method is separating a page into regions. Think beyond four corners. I jot where there’s space on the page. Generally, top-most lines house new tasks that arise while I work.
Four. Four “regions”
Another strategy is leaving visual markers. Circles draw my eye back to information I want to remember in the short term. Boxes highlight tasks that I’m giving priority to.
A third tactic is changing ink colors. Each color gets its own line of thought. Together, colors delineate themes within my ongoing work. Different colors render my notes searchable by theme, even weeks later. A key on the bottom of the page helps me recreate the order of my thinking days or weeks afterward.
Chaos, meet colorful squiggles
I do still fear messing up my notebooks, even with my organization. But, I was terribly productive this week. The mess, friends, is the point. Messy jottings are thinking-in-process. These pages are how I got so much done this week.
As my grandfather used to say: you make a mess to clean a mess. Onward.
This week’s Inked Tines update includes my most recent currently inked writing tools.
Toolset
Pens. The Franklin-Christoph 31 inked with J. Herbin’s Orange Indien is easily this week’s standout pen and ink combination. The M SIG nib stepped up during awkward lap-writing throughout the week’s multiple all-faculty meetings. Quick drying combo. Shows some haloing on Tomoe River. Meeting notes, journaling, scratch notes, lesson plan outlines. 3/5 full.
And with a Kaweco converter. What a twist
TWSBI 580-AL (EF) — Feed. Middling wetness. Quick drying combo. True European EF line. Excellent daily driver pairing. Task management, scratch notes, meeting notes, lesson plan outlines.
TWSBI 580-AL (M Predator Hybrid) — 1/5. Backup pocket carry. The EF side presents a wet XXF line. Score. Works reliably in a pocket notebook — even at odd angles. So long as I keep a light touch. Scratch notes, pocket notes, lesson plan outlines, meeting notes.
Franklin-Christoph 46 (F CI) — 2/5. The crisp F italic nib made journaling Monday night fun. Still too crisp for scratch notes. Slower writing, like lesson plan outlines, were better suited for this pair. Journaling, scratch notes, lesson plan outlines, meeting notes.
Faber-Castell Ondoro (M) — 1/2. Smooth, middling wetness. Shades well on CAL paper. Underwhelming shading on Tomoe River. Wrote right away, every time. Wide enough line and dark enough color to accent well against Matter. Scratch notes, meeting notes, lesson plan outlines.
Kaweco Sport (M) — 1/2. Summer storm of loose ink in the cap. Every use led to ink on my hands. Dried out between uses. Inconvenient pairing. Pocket carry until Wednesday. Scratch notes, pocket notes, meeting notes.
KACO Edge (F) — 1/5. Grew wetter as the converter level dropped. Wet. Ocean is dark and sheens prominently. F line works well for every writing task: meeting notes, lesson plan outlines, scratch notes, and journaling.
Notebooks. Work bujo. Musubi Cosmo Air Light 83 (A5). Thirteen new pages brings the bullet journal to page 26. I sure do enjoy pre-printed page numbers. A-yup.
Eight house meeting notes. The TWSBI 580 inked with Matter was my primary writer. I alternated the Franklin-Christoph 31 and Kaweco Sport for accents.
Colorful
Three are a hot mess of scratch notes. Orientation planning, class website building. Every one of this week’s currently inked touched paper.
An additional two are my monthly September spread. A quick calendar to show days off from school. And then a sizable brainstorm of tasks for the month.
Tiny calendar is tiny
Journal. Taroko Breeze (A5). Not much journal to be had this week. Four pages: one entry was three pages, the second was one page. The journal sits at page 60.
I returned to my man Jim Harrison this week as the crush of tasks from the new school year washed over me. Harrison’s poem ‘Xmas Cheeseburgers’ jumped out.
“The world that used to nurse us / now keeps shouting inane instructions. / That’s why I ran to the woods.”
Into the woods. (Sorry.)
Written dry. All seven pens made it out of last week inked. A three-and-a-half day work week will do that.
Newly inked. I behaved this week. So far.
I get my flu shot this weekend. Inking a new pen may help shepherd away any symptoms. You know: “science.”
The collection
Incoming / new orders. No new arrivals this week. Content with my current collection. Especially given last month’s big purchase: the Visconti Homo Sapiens Blizzard.
Although, the ongoing Sailor sale in the US poses an inviting challenge.
Outgoing / trades or sales. Pictures are edited and descriptions are written for my outgoing six.
Enticing, eh?
I’m offering a small giveaway to my local pen group before posting for sale or trade. Then away we go.
Currently reading and listening
Fiction. My partner and I made time to continue our read-through of Rothfuss’ A Wise Man’s Fear. Two more chapters down. Kvothe’s musical performances speak to my partner, who is also a performer.
I also continued Wells’ Artificial Condition. Five chapters and 102 pages in. Fun to see Murderbot (erm: Eden) think through human psychology and sociology as an outsider.
And I’m loving the new gender non-binary character, Rami. Complete with new pronouns and everything: te/ter.
Nonfiction. Curriculum prep led me to revisit Dunbar-Ortiz’s An Indigenous People’s History of the United States. In particular, I reviewed my annotations on the US’s early termination schools. Annotations are everything.
My students are going to study talk around these schools. I’m helping them to unpack who counts as “us” and who does not when folks discussed these termination schools — and their intended purpose.
I also revisited my annotations in Tatum’s Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? as part of my school’s DEI programming. Hearing my colleagues dig into Tatum’s argument was heartening. Go team.
Music. My D&D crew hosted a virtual café night last Thursday. We experimented with Spotify’s new Sessions feature. We were able to listen to the same playlist simultaneously.
Chillhop’s compilation of all their seasonal essentials mixes soundtracked our café night. Excellent music for writing to.
