The Joy Of Starting A New Notebook

Remember the days when a new session started in schools and it was the time to start using new school supplies, especially the fresh, crisp, brand-new notebooks?

I hated school—a lot! But my hatred for school never affected my love for notebooks and stationery.

Buying school supplies was my only and the most favourite part of school life.

Now that I am a writer, I can write my heart out, love and hoard writing supplies and not be buried under the burden of school. Also, not have to wait for new sessions or old notebooks to fill to the end to start using new ones.

For my blog posts, I maintain a blog notebook/journal. Yes, I love writing my blog posts by hand with pen on paper before shifting them to the screen.

This was my first blog post in my new blog journal. It took me more than two years to fill my old blog journal which was a five-subject, 400-page, B5-size notebook from Youva. Oh, I love that brand.

My new notebook (which I have now filled almost halfway through) is a 5-subject, 400-page, A4 size, spiral-bound notebook from Velvet. I haven't heard of this brand but I got it from a local stationery store.

I am not a fan of A4 size notebooks because they are too huge to work in unless you're a college student and need to make a huge amount of notes. I love big, fat notebooks but I don't like the discomfort of managing them.

Anyway, I was migrating blog ideas/headlines from my previous blog journal to the present one and stumbled upon this headline:

"The Joy Of Starting A New Notebook"

with a side note: first post in my new blog journal. Remember!)

I dropped the headline migration task and flipped to start drafting this blog post first.

I cannot miss this being the first post in this notebook, so, everything else later, this one first.

Every time I start a new notebook or journal, I start its first page with ॥जय माता दी॥ on top, the date and time of starting the journal, the topic, for example, Blog Journal, and my name.

It's my happy little ritual with every new notebook ever since I became a writer.

It's always a bit hard since don't we all want to put our best handwriting on the first page of the new notebook and are afraid that we'd ruin it?

One of my favourite not-so-small joys is filling old notebooks and starting new ones.

Honestly, new notebooks are attractive but filled, inked notebooks are enchanting! They have magic in them. The magic of ink and words.

The joy of starting new notebooks, for me, also means the joy of flipping through the ink-loaded pages of older, filled-to-the-end notebooks.

The notebooks are heavier when inked than when they are new. The weight of words, the weight of your thoughts, the information it carries, it all adds up.

And now, a news notebook is ready to do the same for you.

It opens its pages to you, so you can bare your soul through ink on it.

It promises to be your companion, to hold bits and pieces of information important to you, to provide you with a safe, non-judgmental space to journal your thoughts and feelings, to open up opportunities and possibilities for you, to carry your plans and goals, and whatnot.

The joy of starting a new notebook is more than just decorating the first page in your best handwriting.