I bought some fancy pencils while in Portland and maybe I’m a convert. I’ve tried multiple fountain pen styles over the years, but I think ultimately it doesn’t work well for me. I’m not comfortable with the writing style and my horrible penmanship means many mistakes or permanent illegible words. I’ve been writing postcards to swing state voters for the last few months with ballpoint pens and over a 150 postcards in there’s still a lot of inconsistencies in my lettering and whiteout. Ballpoint is much easier for me to write with, but I still don’t like the permanent aspect.

I’ve come to realize that permanence is a big hindrance to me getting things done. I spend a lot of time talking myself out of starting something I don’t think I can do well. In stationary, that’s been many empty or unfinished journals and planners. Elsewhere it’s stopped me from learning new songs, taking photos, writing blog posts, and more. Basically every active related to making or doing it pops up. And I know this isn’t a unique experience; the internet is full of advice for this situation. Knowing it’s common doesn’t help solve it though.

I do think maintaining a planner is a thing I can and want to do though. I want to know what things I have to look forward to, I want to remember more than the bad things that happened to me, and I want a good reason to browse fancy stationary stores. So I’m starting again, but this time with a Blackwing Natural pencil I bought and an unstructured Midori Codex journal, some stickers, and a stencil.

Writing my first entry was full of mistakes, but I was able to easily erase and start over. The writing process felt natural and my results are easier to read than anything I can do with pen. So maybe this will be the right track this time. I’ll try to allow myself a little more room for failure and just plug away at it.