The Leather Journal
Self-Publishing, the Other Way Around
It started as my oddest writing project: Writing by hand some of my favorite journal entries as short memoir pieces.
The idea came after Christmas when Miranda gifted me a nice leather journal cover with a book of blank pages. A thoughtful gift, though I almost never write with pen and paper. Before personal computers and word processing software, everyone drafted with pen and paper or manual typewriters (I had Mom's 1954 Underwood portable) and then corrected the typed pages with pen or pencil and retyped them as many times as necessary, until the piece was done, or the deadline arrived.
For decades I have preferred writing on screens—PC or laptop computer, iPad, even my iPhone: Seamless drafting and editing without shifting tools or medium. The work can be pronounced Done whenever, or never, it's all the same—it’s just bits and bytes that may or may not ever find their way again to a screen and eyeballs.
Why not do it the other way around?
Most obviously, because writing things out longhand is difficult and slow. Also, I really don’t like doing it. (It’s exactly why typewriters, and then word processing equipment and software, found an eager market.) Oh, and also because my handwriting forever sucked and never got better. However hard I worked at it, it just sucked more.
Both of my parents had admirable handwriting. My mother's script was particularly beautiful. (She said it needed to be because she was an elementary schoolteacher and she had to set a good example. And because her mother, Grandma Gladys, was also a schoolteacher and she set a standard for her two daughters, I suspect.)
I was hopeful, when we advanced in third grade from printing to learning cursive, that writing would get easier—we were assured it would. (I did achieve proficiency at signing my name, and that still comes in handy sometimes.) Still, my cursive writing also sucked. It sucked more than my printing did. It was bad enough that my seventh-grade social studies teacher wrote some advice for me when she graded my first written assignment: Steven, Print. And please consider a typing class.
I did both, without regret. I got along best using a pen by further restricting myself to all caps.
In high school I got involved editing The Robin’s Tale, our newspaper. I learned copy editing and proofreading (which cannot be done using only upper-case letters). I took a shop class because it had a drafting unit—as in for drafting blueprints—and we learned to precisely draw each individual character, both upper- and lower-case. I can still print that way, but drawing every character is achingly slow. (I also took all three high school typing courses—the only guy in the classroom every time—and I became a fast typist. I supported my college social life and stocked the beer cooler by proofreading and typing other students’ papers.)
Still, after my son’s fiancé Miranda gave me that nice leather journal for Christmas, I was determined to put it to use somehow. But I just couldn’t see carrying it around in case I had an idea to jot down. (I’d given up carrying a paper notebook as soon as one of my bosses at 3M approved my requisition request for a Palm Pilot.) So, I pushed forward with my idea of self-publishing short memoir pieces for a very specific audience by carefully writing them with a pen into the leather journal, after I had finished editing them. My idea was to just leave the leather book sitting on my coffee table in the living room for the kids to page through when visiting, to see what was new (though mostly old), and, I hoped, enjoy.
For a while I obsessed over how exactly to write in the pages. Print normally? But I like to use italic and bold face now and then for emphasis and sometimes even different font sizes. (This can all be accomplished by hand, I knew, but it’s a little tricky when one normally prints with the caps lock on.) I seriously considered trying again to learn to write cursively. I spent an hour on the phone with my old friend Wayne who collects fountain pens and does repair and restoration work on the side. I even boxed up Mom’s fountain pens and shipped them to Wayne for evaluation and possible restoration. Meanwhile, I started out with the leather journal by writing the way it was least difficult for me: printing with the caps lock on.
I usually see my kids not in my townhome gathered around the coffee table, but when we go out together for dinner or shows, or when I go to visit or babysit. So, I started bringing the folio along with me and handing it off to them, and then they’d return it to me days later, when I would be ready to transcribe my next entry, I imagined.
Before any rhythm was established trading the leather journal back and forth, Dane asked, “Do you have a Substack?” And Wayne hasn’t sent Mom’s fountain pens back to me. And it’s months since I’ve printed in the leather journal. (It takes so long, and my hand gets sore.) And I am very busy, for a retired guy, and the clock is ticking.
