I think the Rolling Stones may have said it best - "You don't always get what you want." Nowhere is this more true than in the penny-pinching world of freelance writing. The ideal may be great, but it's just not always realistic. So, with all the regularity of ... uh, something irregular... here's a look at the Ideal and the Real.
This week: Notebooks
Ideal -
Delicious
Moleskine goodness.
$9.95 for 192 pages,
3 ½” x 5 ½”, single subject
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You know you've drooled over them before. The moleskine is no mere notebook - it's a gift from the stationary store of the gods. Fetishized by scribblers the world over, the moleskine may be the most hyped notebook ever.
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With a psuedo-historic pedigree that includes literary greats like Ernest Hemingway and Bruce Chatwin (not to mention the other legends, like Van Gogh, Matisse, and others), it's only natural that writers love them. They're sleek, stylish and all sorts of other snappy sounding s-words. Some might even say snuggly.
Real -
Spiral Bound
Mead junkiness.
$4.07 for 180 pages,
8” x 10 ½”, 5-subject
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When you get right down to it, the basic Mead notebook gives you a similar number of sheets, twice the page area, and just as much usability as the Moleskine.
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Sure, it lacks the grandiose backstory. It has no such pretensions - it's the book used by middle school students. There's nothing grandiose about middle-school.
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That said, it gets the job done. Writing is mostly just the application of pen to paper, and the humble spiral bound delivers where it needs to; namely, it provides paper.
The Bottom Line
Yeah, we'd all like the cool stuff, but it's just not always affordable. Thankfully, there are other options that are much more friendly to the wallet. My vote? Go with Mead, or a similar product.
