Pens, Notebooks and Journals! Oh My!

One of my dreams for a long time was to have a hobby room of my own. I wanted a quiet place to sequester myself and write undisturbed to my heart’s content. Or a place where I could let my creative artist out without fear of distractions. My dream room had pens, notebooks, journals, art supplies and room to enjoy them all.

This last month I’ve been turning my library into that hobby room of my dreams. My library contained many books, most of which I was not likely to read a second or a third time. At one time, I thought it would be my refuge in my old age. However, time has shown that I would rather spend my time writing, painting, drawing or coloring than sitting and reading.

My Books Had To Go

So, my brother agreed to take the books off my hands. He already buys and sells online, so he could try to find buyers for what I had. The sad thing is that books are not big sellers anymore. Most people either read on e-readers, or they just don’t read anything. I looked at the boxes and totes of my treasures and thought about the money I had put into them. Since I bought mostly $5-$8 paperbacks brand new, I estimated my investment to be about $3000.

Books are not a good financial investment, but they are great for people who enjoy them and love to revisit old stories and treasured characters. I have some characters who feel like old friends, but I can’t justify keeping the books and taking up space I need just to hold onto a fictional friend.

Enter The Notebooks

As the books were removed, space opened up for sorting and organizing. All over the house I had pens, notebooks and journals scattered. I am prone to writing out anything I’m thinking or feeling in whatever notebook is closest to me. And if that one gets misplaced, my next note goes into a different notebook, whichever the nearest one might be.

Therefore, I had notebooks full of ideas, notes, poems, stories and journal entries all over the house. After I dropped my books off at my brother’s house, I began to collect all of the notebooks throughout the house. I gathered up the binders full of papers in which I also had put organized notes into.

All of these things were carried into my new hobby room. The hardest part was to move them and sort them without taking the time to stop and read them again. Sure, at some point I will, but when one is cleaning is not the time.

Poems, Stories and Journal Entries

As I took quick glimpses into each notebook to see if it was dedicated to any one topic in particular, I found poems I had forgotten I wrote. There was one small segment of my life I had completely forgotten about, a glitch with a friend long gone from my life. There were fictional stories of love and desire, and there were journals and diary entries of heartbreak and despair.

Along with the notebooks, I also gathered up the collections of pens in the house. As I may have mentioned before, I find a lot of joy in pens and I own more than a few. I filled two large shoe boxes with pens from all over the house. There were many more around the house, not added to these boxes, but these were the most of them.

Pens Should Never Go Dry

Not all of these pens worked anymore. I spent a couple of hours sorting through them, putting those that did write in one box, and the others in the other box. As each pen fell into the “non-writing” box, I felt sad. Some of the pens held special memories for me. For one reason or another, I could remember certain events just by seeing the pen.

I haven’t thrown them away yet, and still hold out hope that I will be able to revive some of them with a little effort. These boxes went next to the stacks of notebooks. One large tall shelf in a bookcase contains the notebooks and pens.

Home Within My Home

It feels like home in this hobby room. I am surrounded by the trivial things in life that bring me some of my greatest joy. Give me a stack of notebooks and a box of pens and unlimited time with no pressure and I’m probably one of the happiest people on earth.

What do I write? I write poetry. Sappy love poetry, or poems of love unrequited. Nature poetry. Poems of heartbreak and pain. I write stories of clandestine lovers meeting in the middle of the woods, or of a day in the life of a character I make up. Sometimes, I write journal entries of my thoughts, emotions, sorrows and joys.

This hobby room contains my treasures. Notebooks contain my heart, raw and unleashed. They contain my unfiltered thoughts about life and love, about people and things and places. Pens are just unwritten words waiting to be birthed onto paper.

To Read And Then To Write

When my hobby room is finished, organized and sorted as I want it to be, I will take a couple of days and do nothing but sit and read my own words about my life. Since I’ve been writing since I was a young girl, there are many years worth of memories to be relived. Some will be happy, and some not so much.

And when I am done reading, I will make new words on paper to express my joy in having this place of joy and solitude. For this is the reason I have the room. And it is good.