Moleskine - a few of my favourite things

I was thinking today about the essential tools of the trade of a writer. These are some of mine. Moleskine notebooks - I absolutely love them. The label on the front bills them as 'Legendary notebooks' and so they are. They are apparently based on a kind of plain black notebook once manufactured in France and used by artists, writers and thinkers on their travels. Oscar Wilde and Bruce Chatwin are famous possessors of the precursors to the Moleskine we know today. When the small French paper producers started going out of business in the 1980s, these essential tools looked to be lost to the world. Until that is, a company in Milan decided to revive them. Anyone who has seen the gorgeous paper and stationery available in shops in Venice will not be surprised that it was an Italian company which revived the tradition. Today, they come in all sorts of colours and sizes and there are online communities which worship these super little books. The Moleskines are a model of simplicity in design. Useful vessels for jottings down reminiscences and sketches they are also ideal for saving small souvenirs such as train tickets and receipts from memorable lunches. Moleskines can be all things to all men. Tiny scrapbooks, places to jot poems, they are slender and light. For me, they are somewhere to collect story ideas and newspaper cuttings. I ALWAYS keep a Moleskine in my handbag. At present I am using a red one for my notes on the cosy crime book I am writing and a pink one for the historical romance I am part way through. Many of the notes for my latest book, The Sanctuary available here from Astraea Press were jotted down in a Moleskine. Team them with a bunch of coloured pens and I am in stationery heaven. Long live the Moleskine!