Bought another Lemome notebook (for when I fill my current one) as I am so taken by how nice they are.

@colinwalker do you bullet journal with it?

@JeffPerry Ha! Nothing so organised. I just makes notes on anything that comes into my head and needs a home.

@colinwalker Oh, pretty! I ordered a new Scribbles That Matter notebook today for my next bullet journal, though I'm nowhere near filling up my current one. 😬

@Aleen I only started my current one on the 1st but they were on offer so it would be rude not to 😆 And I’ve still got a Moleskine in reserve.

@colinwalker I see. I just started a new BuJo and I’m looking for new BuJo friends. @aleen you have any recommendations?

@JeffPerry Check out @belle who I found on MB. I bujo and journal in my Hobo Techo, nothing so fancy as to really be shareable though :)

@tonybloggs thanks! I’ll check her out. I think you’re too hard on yourself. Share your BuJo here and maybe you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the response.

@tonybloggs Thanks! @JeffPerry I don't write much about BuJo these days (though some older posts talked about it a bit). I love the idea of it but have struggled to make it stick. I write about planners and notebooks in general, though. And happy to chat about BuJo anytime!

@belle I would love to know why you can’t seem to make it stick. I had the same issue but I found removing all my task management apps and relying on just Reminders to save things to add later in my BuJo works. So far no issues with it.

@JeffPerry For a long time it was due to lack of future planning. Not because I needed reminders or anything, I just liked being able to see a week & month at a time & to easily jot down future events. I used a pre-printed planner for that reason.

@JeffPerry I'm not using a pre-printed planner (at least, not for planning) right now, so the BuJo is a better fit, but for some reason I like the idea of it best inside a hardcover notebook like Moleskine or Leuchtturm1917, but can't find one with great paper.

@JeffPerry Seems arbitrary, but something about a hardcover book seems to make more sense in terms of having everything in a single book. But I use fountain pens a lot, and the best paper types only seem to come in softcover notebooks.

@belle oh! I just found one I liked a lot. The Tekukor is great with no bleeding or ghosting.

@JeffPerry Ah, interesting. Haven't been able to find much info about them. Are they Amazon-exclusive? I really like Midori's MD paper, but can't find any hardcover versions. Notebook peace is so elusive!

@JeffPerry Just bought a couple of these to try which are really great, only the covers are more flimsy than I expected. The paper's amazing though 😊 www.travelers-company.com/products/...

@belle Have you tried a Baron Fig? I love their hard cover journals.

@belle I found the notebook I sent through a blog post I came across a while back. I’m not sure if you can get it elsewhere. Those notebooks look awesome!

@kevinmccoy Not personally, but I've read quite a few reviews that said the paper isn't great for fountain pens so I've avoided them so far.

@JeffPerry Ah sure. I'll have to do some hunting. Shipping to Australia can take ages and be expensive from Amazon. Thanks for the suggestion!

@belle I've been really happy with Leuchtrum notebooks. They work great with my fountain pens. Lots of colors, formats, page types.

@sketchbookb Hmm I've heard really mixed reports about using them with fountain pens. I used to use them exclusively before I got into fountain pens, though. I'll dig out an old one and do some tests 👌

@belle I really like Scribbles That Matter. Mine's been great with fountain pens and there's no ghosting between pages. They're only available on Amazon, though, and I didn't see them on amazon.com.au☹️

@Aleen Oh that's a shame! They only just opened up local distribution here so in time I think more stuff will be available to us locally. I don't mind ghosting since I use Tomoe River a lot which is super thin, but bleeding seems much harder to avoid. What fountain pens do you use?

@belle my favorites are TWSBIs--Ecos and 580ALs. I've also been using a Sailor Pro Gear Slim a lot lately. How about you?

@Aleen Ah nice. I used to have a couple of Ecos. I love the clear ones! My favourites are the Pilot Custom Heritage and Pilot Vanishing Point.

@Aleen what pens are those?

@Verso Which pens are which?

@Aleen TWSBIs--Ecos and 580ALs and Sailor Pro Gear Slim. I figured they were pens, anyway. (:

@Verso yup! Fountain pens with different price points and features. I think I need to write a blog post :)

@Aleen @verso I was just thinking of going the TWSBI Eco route. I lost my Lamy Safari, got a new one...and lost it within a week. Thinking it's time for a change. 🙃

@jw I bet you'd like the TWSBI. The Diamond 580 has been a favorite of mine, and relatively inexpensive.

@jw Doooo ittttttt. :)

@Aleen @jack @jw I have a Lamy Safari I barely use. I'm not interested in filling with ink so what's a good cartridge pen for left handed Kelly?

@Verso you can get Lamy cartridges (Goulet Pens has them, as does Amazon)! I don't like Safaris; would recommend the Pilot Metropolitan.

@verso Dry time is your biggest enemy--look at finer nibs rather than broad ones (finer line = less ink to dry). Could search for faster-drying inks, but you're limited if you want to stick with cartridges.

@Aleen @verso Pilot Kakuno and Pilot Prepared are other good cheap options with finer nibs (I think they take Pilot cartridges but you'd need to check).

@Aleen @verso Also, people kept telling me to learn to fill ink and not be scared of it because it's better than cartridges. I ignored them for years but when I gave in I realised they're right. It's easier and less scary than you'd think and you get lots more ink options.

@belle thanks! I can't find a Pilot Prepared though. Did autocorrupt get you or am I looking for the wrong thing?

@Aleen I think I'm good with a fine nib but I don't know enough about fountain pens to know if being a lefty matters or not.

@Verso I mean, Myke Hurley is a lefty and has a podcast about pens :D

I wonder if they have an episode about it. I'll ask.

@Verso Oh damn, sorry! It was autocorrect! I meant Pilot Prera.

@Verso i'm not sure, but depending on the color, i'd buy that safari off ya

@jw I wanted so much to love it but we never hit it off. It's a limited color. Green Apple I think?

@verso Pen Addict #62 to the rescue!

@belle thanks! The Kakuna seems like a good price to get acquainted with fountain pens. What do you think of the recommendations in the JetPens Guide? www.jetpens.com/blog/guid...

@Verso Yep it's nice and cheap to start out with, but good enough that I use it as well as $1-200 pens. A lot of it comes down to personal preference. What didn't you like about the Lamy? (I also don't like the Safari but could be different reasons.)

@Verso I found the TWSBI 580 way too heavy but the TWSBI Eco is a nice starter pen. Pilot is a Japanese brand which means a Pilot fine will be smaller than a fine in a European brand like Lamy, which might help with being left-handed. Paper and ink choice affects drying time, too.

@Verso @Aleen Ana Reinert wrote a Fountain Pen Guide For The Left-Handed Writer post a while back that’s worth a look.

@Verso I haven't tried any of the super cheap ones because I don't like how cheap they look, personally. I know lots of people who live cartridges also really like the Kaweco range, but they're generally short pens and I think European nib sizes, if those matter.

@belle it wasn't ever ink drying (I got a finer nib). It was sort of scratchy on my paper and uneven on upstrokes. I liked the feel as a pen just fine but my page always looked like Charlie Brown wrote it. (:

@douglane @aleen thanks!!

@Verso Aha. I've had a similar issue with Lamy Safaris! You can sometimes improve that with lots of scribbling on a brown paper bag, which can smooth the nib a bit. If it's not writing well in a particular direction it probably needs a new nib or to have the nib tuned.

@Verso That can happen more or less with any pen, but I had two Safari nibs with similar issues. If you're lucky enough to have a pen shop nearby, testing the pen you're going to buy in-person is a good way to avoid that.

@Verso I'm into it, depending on price / nib.

@belle my advise would be to buy a new nib and see if that helps. I’ve got about 10 different Lamy Safaris/Al-Star/etc and a few of them were scratchy. Bought new nib (one of the reasons for having the cheap Safaris is that it’s so easy the swap nibs) and now they all work fine.

@jemostrom Oh sorry, I wasn't clear. I did swap the nibs and they improved but I sold them all because I hated how they wrote. They made all my inks look pale and washed out.

@Verso @Aleen @jw I'm left-handed and for me it's more about paper and ink than the pen. You won't regret getting a filler and it really expands your ink choices. A fine nib and some Noodler's Q'Ternity works well for me on all but the wettest papers.

@Verso @Aleen Also, @patrickrhone wrote a helpful article: Fountain Pen Guide for the Left-Handed Writer.

@Verso Whoops, the article was by Ana Reinert not Patrick, sorry.

@jemostrom I've heard great things about the 2000! I know lots of people love Safaris, even those who've noticed the pale ink issue. It just didn't work for me. Shame, because I love the pen body, just not the nib performance.

@belle luckily enough we have a huge range of pens so almost everyone can find something they like 😜

@jack that's some good lookin' ink. I did go ahead and order a clear TWSBI Eco, with some pinkish ink (cuz I'm sassy like that).

@jw nice! That’ll look great in the clear Echo.

@jack here's hoping!