Endless Storyboard
Regular readers will know that I'm more of a fan of big notebooks and sometimes struggle with pocket-size. But every now and then, I find one I really, really want to use as more than just a "scratch pad" for rough notes.
One such candidate would be the pocket notebooks by Endless, which have the delightful 68 gsm Tomoe River paper in them. But it's not just the paper (though, in fairness, that's quite a big part!), it's also the attention to detail, with a sewn spine (so complete flattability of the notebook with no wrestling required), the sturdy card cover in a matte black, and the line spacing of 7mm (which is my ideal spacing).
It's far too nice to be a scratch pad, where hasty scribbles or the ephemera of the day get noted and subsequently trashed, but it's also too small for me to use as a "writing notebook" to plan books etc. So, what do I use if for?
I use it as an "inspirational jottings" book or "capture" book. I have a notebook with me at all times, in case inspiration strikes, or I overhear a snippet of interesting conversation, or I see something I want to jot a note about. I tend to have three, to be honest - "The Mothership" which is the notebook everything gets transcribed into and which lives next to my desk, a "handbag satellite" which goes out and about with me, and a "bedside satellite" which, as its name suggests, lives at the side of my bed. And yes, if I was more organised, this could all be combined into one notebook and I wouldn't have to transcribe anything, but that appears to be beyond me. I detailed how I use these different notebooks in this post.
The "handbag satellite" is usually a larger notebook than the "bedside satellite", but there are days when my bag is too full or heavy and I want a smaller, lighter notebook with me. And yes, I could go upstairs and get the one from the side of my bed, but then I might forget to take it back and that way disaster lies... You could bet your bottom dollar that the one night I didn't have a notebook by my bed would be the night I had an amazing idea which I'd forgotten by the morning. So, I grab the Storyboard from my desk and swap it out with the bigger notebook from my bag. Worst case scenario, I forget to swap the Storyboard and the bigger notebook back, but I would still have a notebook in my bag, so all would be well. It would be a rare day that so much inspiration would strike, I would run out of notebook.
Now, many of you might be thinking, "Um, couldn't you use any old pocket notebook? Why specifically do you like the Endless for this?" And they would be good questions. I could grab any pocket notebook for this, but there's something especially lovely about the Endless. It's very sleek and slim, but still has the same number of pages as other pocket notebooks. It also looks really cool, with the matte black and minimal branding, and the cover is tough enough to withstand knocking about in my bag.
All in all, it pretty much my ideal lined pocket notebook.
