Decent stationery is the little consolation one gets in a solitary, underpaid and under-published life of a writer – hey, at least I scribble on this nice paper, and hell aren’t the covers aesthetically pleasing.
For example, here is my new love, fieldnotes books. They are just under $10 for 3 books, 48 pages each (i’m into the short model now, none of my project lasts that long these days, and who needs a tail of memories to follow them from one endeavor to another?). I can live with that price. Except the company is USA-based and international shipping costs $11.
If I could stash on them for a year to come and ship the whole thing at once… yeah, that would work. But did I mention underpaid? There’s very few writers who can spend like J.K. Rowling (and I’m pretty positive she buys a new laptop every time she starts a new shopping list…).
Yes, there’s absolutely nothing for you to take away from reading this post, except maybe some understanding to that crazed person, who will get offended if presented with a notebook with a smiling cartoony tiger on the front cover and red-line marked margins inside (ewwww!). Trust me, for them it’s not ‘just stationery’. It reminds them of how far they have to go, to get anywhere near where they want to be.