Patti O'Shea's Blog, page 10

Knitting Resumed

I know I haven't posted anything about knitting in a long time, but my therapist wanted me to do something relaxing. She suggested coloring books, but I've tried that before and it's too boring. It was boring this time, too, and now I have more colored pencils and coloring books. :-/

She suggested a few other things before we agreed I would start knitting again.

I had some shawls that I'd started and not completed, but I couldn't find the patterns for them. I needed those patterns because I mark my progress as I knit on the paper. Without it? I'd have to count rows and try to figure out where I was at. I'd probably be wrong, too.

Those paper patterns (with everything marked off) are somewhere in my house. I just can't find them. I will eventually.

In the meantime, I started another shawl.

This designer works with both knitting and crochet and I'd made the crochet version of this shawl previously and it's literally the only shawl I've made that I've actually worn. I'm not a shawl person, but this one is warm and because there's holes for my arms, it was usable.

The knit version would have to be equally as awesome, right?

Yeah.

First, I don't like working with bulky yarn. It's hard on my hands and the knitting is much slower for me than with thinner yarn.

Second, the designer said this was a beginner pattern, but neglected to mention that I had to turn the project to do the stitches for the arm holes. I know how to do a cable cast on. I didn't know how to do it in the middle of a row. A friend finally recommended a YouTube video for me that straightened me out.

Third, the crochet version of the shawl is a little short and I wanted the shawl to reach my butt, so I knit the middle (gray) section twice. In bulky yarn which means this shawl is heavy.

And four, after I was finished, I discovered that the arm holes are a little small if I wanted more than my wrists peeking out. Maybe that's what the designer was aiming for, but when I'm writing my stories, I need my forearms out, too, for the keyboard.

Oh! Number five. When I tried the shawl on, I discovered that this yarn is very scratchy and not pleasant to wear. I don't know if washing it will help or not.

Ta da. My shawl.

Luckily, it was a quick knit because I doubt I'll ever use this one. I'll just keep wearing the crochet version because that one is softer, and I do have enough room to stick my arms out to write.

The Search for the Ultimate Fine Tip Pen: Part Two

My search didn't stop with the .5mm pen. I also wanted a pen nib that was smaller than that. Ultra fine or whatever label they put on that. I tried a bunch and I'm not sure I love any of them.

I started with the Pentel Clena .38mm. Since I love the Pentel EnerGel so much, I was hoping for lightning to strike twice. It didn't. The pen is okay but felt scratchy writing. That's one of the problems with the fine tip and ultra fine tip pens. I could use it, but it wasn't an enjoyable writing experience.

Next up, the Pilot Juice Up in .3mm. Very meh on this one. Writing was very scratchy, the colors were difficult to see because of how thin the line of ink was, and I just didn't enjoy using this at all. I do have an order of the Juice Up in .4mm on its way. I'm hoping that's better.

The Uni-ball Signo 207 in .38mm weren't bad. I could use this pen. It was among the best of the ultra fine tips I tested. I'd recommend it with the caution that you try it out for yourself first before committing to it with a 12-pen box.

The pen I liked the best in this category is a little expensive. More than $4 for one pen. Gah! But it's the one I liked best. Korea Life&Pieces 0.38 mm wrote smoothly and was pleasant to use. This is my favorite choice in the ultra fine category. I got an olive green ink pen to use in my Hobonichi Cousin since the cover I bought for it is green. If this pen wrote as well as it did in olive, I'm curious to try their black ink pen.

This cover is a bit more green in person than it is in this picture, but finding a sage green pen seemed like an impossible task, so I went with olive. I could also go with gold because of the lettering, but I find gold a little hard to read on white paper. (Although the gold Uni-ball Signo in .7mm writes nicely in my black out journal.)
I'm going to try out the black ink in the Korea Life&Pieces 0.38 mm before I give a recommendation, but if you're okay with the price point, this was a very good ultra fine point pen. ETA: Pilot Juice Up 4mm is the winner, hands down. I love this pen and I reach for it even before my usual 7mm Energel. Highly recommended in black ink. I haven't tried any other colors. This is the ultimate fine point. Five stars and two thumbs up.

Happy Thanksgiving!

For my American friends, Happy Thanksgiving!!!

The Search for the Ultimate Fine Tip Pen: Part One

Pictured in the image (from left to right) are the Paper Mate Ink Joy, the Pentel EnerGel, Uni-ball Vision Elite, and Zebra Sarasa Clip.

I'm obsessed by pens and always have been. There was always a quest for the perfect pen until I found the Pentel EnerGel. Their .7mm metal tip is literally pen nirvana for me. The silver pen is a metal barrel because I love EnerGel so much that I was willing to invest in a quality version.

However, that's the .7mm. I'm less excited about the smaller nibbed EnerGels because they are needle tip and scratchy when I write.

I have a collection of smaller grid notebooks now that need smaller tipped pens. I have begun the quest to find my perfect .5mm and something smaller, maybe .38mm or so.

The Ink Joy in black is perfection in .7mm. I don't care for their purple or other ink colors, but I do love the black. I tried their .5mm nib and it's okay. I don't mind it. I can write with it and not become frustrated. But I'm not in love with it.

The Zebra Sarasa is nice. It's another .5mm nib. It's a little scratchier than I'd like, but I maybe could live with it. The problem is that clip comes up over the start of the clicky thing that lowers the nib for writing. My thumb keeps getting caught on it and I have to maneuver around it to use it.

I do like the Uni-ball Vision Elite in .5mm. It's not scratchy and I love the fine point on this one. It would be my ultimate choice except that it's a little slow to dry and I've smudged pages even after waiting what should be a sufficient time for it to be dry.

Of my choices (so far), I think I'll stick with the Uni-ball Vision Elite and the Paper Mate Ink Joy. I might do more experimenting for the .5mm pen later, but these are good.

Waiting for 2025

One of the planners I'm considering for the official desktop planner is a Hobonichi Cousin. I have it already and it's sitting in its cover directly to my right.

I want to use it now.

Every day, I hate my usual planner more and more. There simply isn't enough space on any day of the week without writing two items on one line, and the weekends are worse because they share a page. I'm chafing against the restriction.

The Cousin isn't even my first choice for my new official planner. That hasn't arrived yet, although it should be coming soon.

I keep telling myself that I'd have to duplicate information anyway because the official desktop planner gets archived. It's my record of my year, the mundane and the exciting. I'm not going to rewrite 11 months of information from my current daily planner into a new one, so even if I could pick up a 2024 Cousin for a few bucks, I'm not doing it.

My first choice for new official planner: Not here yet. My second choice is here, but it's not as if I'm going to set it up until I know whether or not option one will work. Third choice is the Cousin. There would be a lot of set up for it, too, that's why I'm hoping option one works out. It will require a lot less work.

My Cousin in its cover, ready to go should the first two options fail me.

There would have been a fourth option, one that would have probably been at the top of the list, but it got disqualified because it's two volumes. I want everything in one book. This isn't a planner I carry with me. It stays at home on my desk.

My 2025 Everyday Carry is a Sterling Ink Weeks Size Compact. The compact means there's only 119 blank pages at the back of it instead of 367. This planner is light and easy to tote around, but it's not the official planner. Not the one that gets archived for memory keeping.

I'm really, truly trying to stop talking about planners, but it's hard when I hate my current planner so, so much and have been dying to jettison it since September. I'll try to do better.

Writing Notebooks

I've been over on YouTube watching videos by other authors on how they notebook their stories and I've reached a conclusion. Notebooking is a very personal experience.

I watched some authors that left me exhausted with the things they did in their notebooks. I'd be like too tired to write anything if I copied what they did. But it works for them and that's what matters.

There were authors who used multiple notebooks. I have two notebooks for the Paladin League, soon to be three, but that's because I filled them, not because I need more than one at a time. The only exception to this is that I love my 9x12 artist sketchpad.

This is something I usually pull out before I actually start writing a story. I like the extra room I have, and I like the fact that there are no lines which means I can write anywhere. It's funny because once I have the big picture on the book, I don't use this notepad again unless there's another larger issue I need to resolve.

I'm thinking it's all a mind thing. My brain sees the bigger writing space, the lack of lines, and says, okay, we're thinking big picture. As opposed to my normal, smaller lined notebook where I brainstorm character information or what happens in the next scene.

Maybe it was the writers who are out there filming videos, but all of them did more work decorating their writing notebooks than I'll ever do. For me, it's about thinking, not about making it pretty. I've shared pictures here in the past. I sketch things out, I write messy, I write sideways if I need to, I'll add Post-it notes with other information that I jotted down. The only thing that matters to me is getting my brain to work.

My method would probably drive other authors crazy, but it works for me. That's what matters.

Just like with writing, do what works for you and leave the rest.

Podcasts Versus YouTube

Back in May, I blogged about subscribing to YouTube on an impulse and how it was working for me. Let me update you on where I am now.

I am watching so many YouTube podcasts, that my podcast player is getting backed up with shows and episodes that aren't available on YouTube. This came as a surprise to me because before I subscribed, I was complaining about all the podcasts that were YouTube first.

As it turns out, paying for an ad-free experience on YouTube made all the difference for me. Instead of being full of frustration and annoyances, it ended up being more convenient because now the audio-only versions of my favorite podcasts are loaded (loaded!) with ads.

Some of these podcasts also have their own ads where they read ad copy. Apparently, YouTube can't cut those out even for subscribers? Which is still annoying, but I try not to watch those podcasts live and then I tap to fast forward through the host hawking whoever is sponsoring them.

At the moment, I have hundreds of audio podcast episodes sitting on my phone, waiting for me to listen to them. I turned off auto downloads for the shows that are on YouTube, but there are still shows that do not have YouTube as an outlet. I also have one podcast I pay to subscribe to and only the free version (with sponsors) is available on YouTube, so that's audio, too. I'm 99 episodes behind on that one.

Just in case this needs to be said, this post is not sponsored. It's just me rambling about a service that I pay for and have appreciated. And how it's upended my usual behavior since I started using it.

Stationery Store Haul

I thought I'd share my haul of office supplies that I received recently. I ordered them maybe a month earlier than when they arrived. Maybe a little longer than that, but they shipped directly from China.

I'm not sure how I found this seller on Etsy. Maybe they were a suggestion on my home page when I logged in? But I was looking for a few things and this place had them at a reasonable cost. There were a couple of little glitches, but overall, it was a good shop with good-quality merchandise.

One of the things I really wanted were transparent dots to use with my planners. I thought I found a roll of them on Amazon, but when they arrived and I tried them out, I discovered they were not transparent. I can still use them, just not for what I was planning to use them for.

I ordered transparent dots from this Chinese store, ten rolls in assorted colors, and they were legitimately transparent. Yea!

This is the roll with various pinks. The two lighter ones were more grayish on the paper than pink, so I used the middle one and the one next to it. I haven't used the darkest pink yet but might in the future.

Here is a picture of a random page from my Everyday Carry (EDC) planner. I wanted the weekends to stand out for quick scheduling purposes. It ended up not being my best idea ever because putting any sticker in the same spot in a planner makes it bulky in that spot and difficult to write. Luckily, this was a weekly layout, so only 52 weekends. It's still bulky, but I can still write without it being an issue.

I learned my lesson, though. Going forward, I will use these dots in random spots throughout my planners and not in a dedicated location. That actually was the original plan. Just using them to highlight important things, so this shouldn't be a problem.

One of the glitches: A few of the rolls are duplicate colors. I thought I was getting 10 different colors on the roll. Not a big deal.

Dots 10/10. Exactly what I wanted and good quality.

I also found thin highlight strips with Post-it Note type adhesive, which allows me to move it around as I want. My plans were less specific here, but if I need to highlight something important, they're available.

Strip highlighters 8/10 because they are hard to get off the card. Not the seller's fault.

Another thing I really, really wanted was clips to hold my journal open. The more vellum and stickers I've put in here, the harder it is to keep it open when I'm writing in it. It's probably mostly the vellum's fault, but it's still annoying. The clips I ordered were $14.99 each on Amazon. For real. The exact same clips were available from this Chinese seller for around $9. Much more reasonable.

You can literally find these same two clips on Amazon. This is where one of the glitches happened, though. I wanted the cat clip, but the second clip I ordered had a planet on it. Instead, I got flowers. I would have preferred the planet that I originally chose, but this is fine.

10/10 The clips are heavy and great quality. Exactly what I wanted.

I also spotted some coffee clips in their store. These were an impulse purchase and are more useful as bookmarks since the clip doesn't have the strength of the cat and flower clips. I wouldn't trust this to hold open the planner for writing, but they're cute as page markers.

I wouldn't put them on a planner I intended to take out of my house because they might fall off, but for marking a page on a desktop planner, they'd work well, although they are bulky.
7/10 on the coffee clips. I like them, but they have limited usefulness.
There were a few more items I ordered: A pen with correction tape and a magnetic page clip (it's a knock off of the Oliclip. I'd recommend just waiting for the Oliclip to go on sale.) And this seller through in a pen and some page flags as gifts.


The tape correction pen is just as wide as the regular version and has the same issues the regular correction tape has, so it's the form rather than the function.
The Oliclip knock off didn't have the quality of the original clip and the magnet wasn't as strong. I'd rather pay extra and get the actual Oliclip. I bought collection of small ones and have some larger ones wishlisted for their next sale.
The shipping took a while, but I didn't need any of these things immediately. Buying from this shop was a surprisingly good experience.

On to Number Three

Back in September (or maybe the very end of August), I finished my second Paladin League notebook. Picture is on the left. You can see the little round markers sticking out of the top. Each color belongs to a different character/book. There's also one color that is for the series as a whole.

The markers semi-transparent round stickers that I picked up for my planner, but never found a way to use there. They do work great, though, in my writing notebook.

I like writing my notes out on paper instead of digitally. There's something about putting pen to paper that makes me think better. And when I brainstorm with my writing buddy, those notes go in here as well.

Sometimes the early notes I add about a future book/hero/heroine end up being completely wrong, but that's okay. Now I know what doesn't fit.

The interesting thing? I rarely go back and look at the early notes, not even when I'm writing that character's story. Maybe just the act of writing them down gets my memory to work better? The character to provide more accurate information? I'm not sure what it is, but I seldom feel the need to go back and reference older notes. This also includes overall series notes, which I probably do need to go back and review.

I do, however, flip through the pages about the current book to reference information. I also will cross out stuff that no longer is accurate. These notes aren't about looking pretty. They're about getting thoughts/ideas/possibilities down before they disappear into the ether of my brain.

There is one other "notebook" I use on occasion. I put notebook in quotes because it's an artist's sketchpad that is quite large. That is where I make notes after I finish a book and before I start the next one. What do I need to accomplish in the book for the Paladin League series? What threads do I need to remember? I might not weave those threads in this particular book, but I want to remember they're there.

The big size of the notebook is for big thoughts. :-) Heh! It's actually kind of a mind map. Because it's a sketchbook, there aren't any lines, and I write wherever I want. I'll circle things and draw lines between items. Something about the freedom is helpful when I'm looking at the big picture on the series.

Now I'm in Notebook Three. I had the cover of that notebook printed with The Paladin League on it just like this green notebook. I like doing that because I can tell at a glance which series it's for. I recently did a search of my office and found one series that had four partial notebooks, some with only a page or two of notes! I definitely need to get more named notebooks.

Just When I Thought This Planner Couldn't Get Any More Messed Up

I swore to myself that I was not going to do another planner post. At least not for a little while. But...
But the first planner from my preorders arrived and I am not happy.
The planner that arrived is the one that's been my everyday planner since 2016. I've complained about it before, tried to move off of it and into another daily planner before, but have always ended up back in it because it has little icons printed on each page to track water, vitamins, meditation, exercise, etc. I love those features!
But among my many issues with this planner, Saturday and Sunday share a page and those are my two busiest days of the week. I actually have to jam two items per line to get it to work for me.
And last year a new hell came into play. They used to print the same day on the same side of the page all the way through. As an example, the Saturday/Sunday combo page was always on the lefthand side. Last year, they didn't do that, and my days were flying around to any side. Did not like. But it was only a couple of months.
And then there was this year's planner. Five months have Saturday/Sunday on the left, and seven months have it on the right.
There have been a number of changes throughout the years that I haven't liked. For example, they keep adding sections below the To Do list side of the page and taking away real estate from my list. They've added all kinds of things that I do not use and do not want like what I'm reading. If I want to list what I'm reading in my planner, I have stickers for that. I need my To Do List section more than I need to record the book I'm reading.
I'd already made plans to try to get myself into a different daily planner for 2025 and now I'm going to try harder. I really do not want to buy this planner again.
I tried stickers in another daily a few years ago when I tried to change, and the bulkiness was an issue. This time around I'm going to try stamps. We'll see how it goes. I might have to abandon the icons and keep track of water some other way. I have ideas.