Apica Premium CD B5 Notebook
I'm very picky when it comes to notebooks. Once I renewed my acquaintance with fountain pens (and their liquid ink), I became pickier still. I want what I want. To date, no notebook has met all my criteria, but the Apica Premium CD B5 Notebook (lined) comes close. Very close. As the name states, it's B5 sized: 182×257 mm (7.17×10.12 inches). This is Japanese B5, not ISO B5, so the dimensions are a little off from that standard. Regardless, for me this is perfect. I find A4 (letter) to be a bit too big and A5 (half-letter) to be a little too small. So this notebook is right in my personal sweet spot. The paper is 86.5 gsm, which is a very nice weight for fountain pen use (i.e. no bleed-thru and negligible show-thru). It's a neutral off-white that is easy on the eyes and doesn't alter ink tint like the cream-to-yellow papers other brands are fond of. While not quite [...]
Back Under One Roof
A while back I split my creative site into separate art and writing sites. You may have noticed that I've merged them back together. It's nice to have everything back under one roof. At the time, it seemed like splitting the site was a good idea. Each would be able to cater to their specific audiences. Unfortunately, I tend to devote chunks of time to either one or the other: this is an art year; this is a novel-writing year; and so forth. As a result, one site or the other would be sorely neglected for unacceptably long stretches. Then, as a result of doing Lapsed Vigilance, I got back into doing some calligraphy -- but where the heck is that supposed to go? Writing? Art? Basically, things came to a head and begged for me to put everything back to one-stop surfing. So I built a new site and moved everything over. Once I'm confident everything's working, I'll start [...]
