sorry about the crackling audio in the last 10 minutes of the video- no idea how it happened, or when 🫠 if you have any additional journalling questions or questions i didn't answer, please feel free to comment them below! i'll try and work through as many as i can over the weekend 🙇🏻♀🖤
another thought for the person who asked about not wanting to write about the negative stuff- Write it. Write it all. then.. talk to yourself like a friend about it. You would never tell a friend that it’s not okay to feel that way, but we tell ourselves that. Just tell yourself it’s okay that im upset and mad, but what can i do to not be as mad? Can i go play a game? can i talk to someone? can i go get a snack that i love? What would you tell a friend to do in that situation? Tell that and write it to yourself! It’s not silly or bad to write the negative, we’re human, we’re going to have negative feelings and we need to get them out❤ It’s where we are in the moment but those thoughts won’t be all you ever write. If you need to, track three things that you smiled or laughed at during the day. what was cute that day and made your heart feel full for a second? keep track of the small things you love from the day, it’ll help feel like the negative doesn’t fully take over
If anyone's looking for dot stickers and you want specific sizes (in mm), the best bet is to go to package/warehouse/logistics organization sellers. The dots are often used for inventory and labelling. They would often sell larger ones like in 2.5 to 3cm, but usually are able to offer from as small as 4 or 6mm. Usually come in utilitarian colors (so straight up red, blue, yellow, black etc and not any fancy hues and values) but those work great and are easier to tell apart anyway!
They are quite cheap as well, got mine in a set of diff colors. the color choices are pretty basic, but kinda prefer the primary colors anyways so it works. ❤
I strongly suggest the Pentel Energel clicky style pens for pens that don’t smudge. I’ve used the 0.38, 0.5, and 0.7 in black ink all through grad school and they dry pretty immediately, to the point where I could highlight over them without issue. I totally get the whole record everything so you don’t lose time thing. If I don’t write things down, I can lose months at a time and when you come out of that, it can be pretty scary.
I have old Filofax inserts that I have kept from 2013 and 2014 where I was predominantly using a 0.38mm frixion pen, and the writing is still on those pages 10 years later with no fading. I also live in Australia where we have lots of heat and there have been no issues. Thought that might help with the disappearing ink worries 😀
My all time favourite pen is the Stabilo Pointball. It's a 0,5 mm ballpoint pen. You can buy refills, and it has archival quality ink. I have been using it since 10 years, can recommend.
Zebra Sarasa click pens (I am partial to the vintage colors) and Muji gel pens. Almost instantly dry. Comes in many colors if that's important to you. Writes smoothly. And quite cheap. There is literally no downside.
The filofax is looking really beautiful! I'm sure I've said something to this effect before, but being able to watch your evolution and experiments in your books has been really inspiring and somehow knocked something loose in my brain that has allowed me to experiment more freely and find my own style and systems. Thank you for sharing your art and your process :)
Hi Megan~ I can’t wait to rewatch this with my notebook and pens so that I can transcribe the parts that resonated with me. From one gloomy kid to another, thank you for sharing your art and journals (and how you use them and why they are so essential). I hope you’re steadily recovering from being sick. 🙂 Happy New Year! 🎍
i'm glad you managed to find those stalogy dots in the 5mm!! but the pen situation is something that can be explored, esp if you haven't had The Problem with erasable pens yet. you live in a cooler country temperature wise, so it's not the biggest worry.
the horror of finding out/finally understanding that "erasable" just means "temperature-sensitive" and that heat can make all your writing disappear is truly unmatched
Keep the HON! I'm a week into mine and loving it so far. The larger cousin size leaves plenty of space, and I'm really digging the more durable cover. I kinda wish I had a black gingham to side-by-side compare, but I wouldn't do anything with it. Nice to find a fellow Atlantic reader in the wild.
gel pens smudge like crazy for me so felt-tip sharpie pens have been my saving grace!! the thin ones in black tubes, not gray tubes. the nibs last decently long, but i buy them in large packs so i dont run out.
Your answers to the questions were very interesting - thanks for the honest, personal answers. I wish you felt better, in general. I love your talking videos; you’re never boring. Cute cameo by Wednesday!
thank you so much for sharing about how you journalled when you were younger and that process of burning it. we have did and realised yesterday that for the past... no idea how long it's been -_- we've been in a pretty intense dissociative state of toxic positivity and spiritual bypassing.
I am also a big fan of cathartic ceremonial burning! I find it very cleansing, highly recommend. (Use basic fire safety, &c &c). And i am also thinking about the archival nature of my writing materials (mostly colorful, sometimes glittery fountain pen ink). I don't know if i want Future Historians/Heirs to read my journal, but I would be sad to open a book in 5 years and see my words too faded to read (or the paper falling apart from photos that are also fading).
okay but did you try listening to the sherlock and co podcast omg it’s my new favorite, and he’s got asd canonically in that one and you see it clearly in some of the episodes
I highly recommend uniball one! I have been using hobonichi weeks for years and the smudges are always the biggest trouble until this year I bought uniball one. The ink drys quickly even on tomo river papers!
Hi Megan, happy new year 💟 in case you're still thinking about testing out new pens: I use a Pentel Calme 0.5 multi pen in my Hobonichis (I like it because it also has a mechanical pencil, which I use for sketches and also annotating books I'm reading), and I can't recommend it highly enough--very precise, never smudges, and very smooth with or without the pencil board under the page. the refills are quite affordable, too. also, the knock mechanism is very quiet and smooth, and feels really nice to fidget with. really the paragon of pens if you ask me. I love hearing how you describe and conceptualize your journals. your channel has meant a lot to me this past year. thank you for sharing your art and thoughts with all of us. I hope 2024 has lots of little joys and peace in store for you. 💫
carbon ink is a great alternative to the erasable pens for me. i have some cheap platinum fountain pen and the matching carbon ink. quick drying so no smudging even as a lefty. the ink isnt bleeding through any of my papers. the grayish ink from erasable/ ballpoint pens always bothered me in my journals but the contrast with real ink is much better.
i love the frixion pens but as a leftie they do actually transfer to my hand a bit sometimes and if i turn a page and too sun (like after just a few seconds) they sometimes transfer to the opposite side…
I don't know if it's worth tracking down because it may not be to your taste, but I have the Hobonichi A6 zig zag, and it fits two Avecs really nicely!
Hello Megan, I enjoyed this video. Your methods are inspiring, hearing the way you deal with your thoughts other brain patterns is actually comforting. Also, about smudging pens, have you thought about using fountain pen blotting paper? You could easily attach a piece to your Filofax. Cheers from France.
The signo doesn’t work for me, I really don’t understand the hype after going through 5 different refills. I used it on a Leuchtturm, Stalogy, and a Midori (papers that handle fountain pen perfectly and dry quickly) and the back of my first page (which I always leave blank) has transfer from the page I wrote on with the signo. Is almost like a photocopy of how clear the whole thing transferred, you can read every word even. 😢 And what is more weird is that I wrote the back page a week later, so it should have been more than dry by then. I, unfortunately, got a pen that came with 5 refills so I was stuck using it. And yes, I also tried it on the old Hobonichi paper and it was not good. But to be fair, it didn’t hold any gel pen up to my standards at all. Did better on the new paper, but still transferred to the previous page even when I waited more than 24hrs to test on the back of the page. My go to pen is the Pentel Energel 0.5 Needle Tip. That one dries so fast, it was suggested to me by my left-handed friend. I have been using it for years on my books, and even the new Hobonichi paper holds it nicely. On the Leuchtturm, Stalogy, and Midori it dries super fast, no transfer at all, no smudges, by the time I am done with the sentence I am writing is fully dry and I can write immediately on the back and no transfer whatsoever. It didn’t work so well on the old Hobonichi paper, sadly, but did much better on the new, so I do feel comfortable writing with it on it. IMO the Zebra Sarasa pens work much better than the Signo, tested them on the same papers and it was fine, at least it didn’t transfer to the previous page. The only weird thing I noticed was that they have a chemically smell, specially the black. 😅 What I love about this pens is the colour variety, I have all the basic ones, plus a few special editions. I just really like them. I have not tried the Dry or Mark On, but I am absolutely sure they work fine, just because I am very happy with how the regular work, I cannot imagine they didn’t make it better on those versions.
@@AMiniki oh see interesting the energel doesnt work at all for me it never dries on my Hon, why are everyones experiences so different?!? Hahaha, yeah i definitely neednto try sarasa
Does anyone here know of any other YT channels about journaling but focusing on self-care (preferable also disability and/or chronic illness)? Most channels I find are about ProductivityTM and Reaching Your PotentialTM and I feel really bad about myself when I watch them bc as a chronically ill disabled person, I struggle to just like exist most of the time lmao.
I want to love personal rings. But I need to know what personal ring users do when they want to print information from the Internet to put in their rings. I mean physically punch holes in the printout, then place it in the ring…
When I was in rings, I would do that (print, punch, add) or cut and tape/glue it to an existing page. If you had something with a back pocket, like Moterm or Gillio, you could store pages there, too!
Really enjoyed listening to this on my drive. Very calming and relatable ❤ if you wanna try pens in the future for longevity (although probably some dry time) I’d reccomend the platinum preppy (cheap intro to fountain pens, comes in extra fine if you’re used to smaller nib sizes) and you can fill it with either carbon black by platinum or deatrementis document ink. These are archival inks and water resistant
