 I write the first drafts of my novels by hand. I’m just as particular about the paper as I am about the ink. I use only a Clairefontaine notebook—wire-bound, graph ruled. The pastel-tinted paper is thick, with a silky writing surface, and putting the words down is a meditation and a pleasure for whole minutes at a time.
I still love going to a stationery shop and opening a new notebook to run my hand over its silky surface. Clairefontaine paper is particularly soft.
I love CF Basics for their high-quality paper and low profile – I’ve never been a fan of using “blank books” and other fancy journal-type items that ooze pretension and suggest that I might also own a half-dozen glitter pens in assorted neon colors. The CF Basics are—as the name suggests—the acid-free, wet-ink friendly version of marble composition books. They have 96 sheets, so there’s plenty of space to work but it won’t take an age to fill the thing up.
The Clairefontaine’s have good everyday paper, thicker and less absorbent than the finer paper in many other notebooks. The heftier thread bound notebooks are useful for those who do extensive note taking and journaling. With different cover styles, it can be easier to keep track of notebooks for different uses (e.g. work-related versus personal) than an all black look. Clairefontaine notebooks are a good middle ground notebook between the $1.49 drug store scribbler or steno pad and the higher end diaries. They have some heft and class to them, but you can feel okay jotting down something as mundane as your grocery list in them as well.
Clairefontaine papers have always been sheer pleasure to write on. It is heavy stuff, durable, blissfully smooth and easy to write on. Ink never bleeds and pencil marks stay where they are put. There’s just nothing quite like them.
I carry a notebook wherever I go and jot down whatever I feel inspired by. I like the small French Clairefontaine notebooks. The paper is just right, not too newspaperish, nor too glossy which I detest writing on. Not too precious to be questioning what type of marks to put in it. Nor too flimsy to fall apart. In these I’ve added a number of questions, half thoughts, drawings, ideas for art series, readings that inspire my musings, parts of theories, book and paper ideas, words I like, definitions I need to search for; miscellaneous musings of all sorts. The world is my learning space!
My customers often choose Clairefontaine over pricey leather travel diaries. They love the flatness and the easy portability, and are particularly appealing to those who dislike pretentiousness.
Clairefontaine is smooooooooth, our best selling paper not only to fountain pen users, but to others who use this paper because of some of the sensible formats it is available in. They’ve been making this paper since 1858 is it is the paper of choice in France. I call it “spoiler” paper, because once you start using it, you’re spoiled to use anything else.
CLAIREFONTAINE, WHO ARE YOU? I LIKE THE PAPER YOU MAKE!
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