Having Everything Right

Having Everything Right was once the name of a book by Portland author Kim Stafford (son of the legendary poet William Stafford) and I'm probably the only human on earth who remembers that name.  I just remember odd things like that.  And I like that title because it work well as a phrase that describes the state of, well, having everything right.

Wow, the power of the internet never ceases to amaze me.  I'm not the only one who remembers that book.  You can read a bit more about it here.  Its also still available on Amazon.  Cool.  I think the reason I remember it is that the subtitle is "Essays About Place," and I'm all about place in writing.  After all, I did my critical thesis for my MFA on "Landscape as Character in the work of Willa Cather and Flannery O'Connor."  I know, I know, its impressive, isn't it?  Not really, because in truth doing the research for that essay was the first time I ever read Flannery O'Connor and I was embarrassingly old for such a lack.

At any rate, believe it or not this post was not intended to be about landscape as character or the Staffords or even poetry.  It is supposed to be about the state of having everything right and how that applies to writing notebooks.    In my post on writing notebooks I failed to mention how important it is to choose just the right one. 

It has to be one that is comfortable for you, and fits your standards.  My standards may be different than yours but they are:

• It must be small enough to lug around
• It must have a spiral binding (though all standards are meant to be broken, like rules, and my most recent writing notebook is not a spiral)
• It must open easily and lie flat so you can write well in it or paste stuff in it or whatever
• It must be pleasing visually to you, and
• It must have nice paper that allows a pen to move across easily

Most of all, you have to really like it, maybe even fall in love with it.  And by the way, pens are important, too.  I'm not one of those people who can just buy Bic pens at the store by the dross.  No, I always have to have special pens.  I generally fall in love with pens right before they are discontinued because I return to the store and I can't find them again.

I can spend hours looking at the pen aisle in Fred Meyer, and hours looking at the journal selection.  Besides browsing in bookstores, hanging out in office supply stores is the best shopping activity I can think of.  Other women hate going shopping with me. They head for Nordstrom and I just want to go to Staples.