Tag Archives: malden

Vroman’s Bookstore: A Filofax Extravaganza

February 14, 2014 Wendy Van Camp 12 Comments

Vroman’s Bookstore is a Pasadena institution, a literary landmark, and a wonderful old-fashioned bookstore tucked away behind a huge Office Depot. Once you find your parking, you descend a staircase decorated with colorful tiles past buskers who play their instruments. This day, a spry elderly man in jeans and a coat that was in fashion two decades ago played classical music on his oboe, much to the delight of a little girl and her parents that stood enraptured before him. He had a twinkle in his eye as he finished his tune, an expression that turned into a delighted smile when the little girl asked for another song. That smile had more to do with their shared love of music than any dollars that landed in his open instrument case. At the ground floor, a trio of young music students were practicing their violins. They were not busking, but instead taking advantage of the excellent acoustics of the outdoor courtyard. The discordant sound of their practice was a distinct counterpoint to the lovely strains of the oboe on the steps above them.

When you first enter via the double doors of the bookstore, your first impression is one of surprise. Vroman’s Bookstore seems far larger on the inside than what you might guess from the unbroken stucco walls on the outside. The sensation I felt reminded me of how Dr. Who’s companions might feel when they enter the TARDIS for the first time. There are two floors in the bookstore and several departments on each level. On the first floor, there is an area where stationary, fountain pens, ink and other writer’s delights are temptingly displayed. A full case of Filofax binders for sale, along with all the fountain pen friendly paper you might wish for. There is a full gift shop upstairs featuring stickers, scrap booking supplies and artisan styled bags. The rest of the store was filled with paper bound books on stately wooden shelving. However, I was not there to shop, much as I was tempted to do so, I had come to be a guest speaker at the Filofax Extravaganza put together by my friend, Jennifer Reyes. The event was held on January 11, 2014.

In the center of the second floor of the bookstore, there is a large open area that serves as an amphitheater and community center. Many rows of chairs were set up facing a lectern and a table filled with Filofax binders. At the rear of the area was food, bottles of water, and a raffle sponsored by the Filofax Corporation. Several pocket sized Filofax binders were the prizes of the raffle, along with agenda stamps and a few scrap booking items donated by Jennifer.

After checking in with Jennifer in the back, I found my way to a seat to wait for the event to begin. A few people introduced themselves, recognizing me from my blog, No Wasted Ink. As I shook their hands and took the offered business cards, I was rather astounded. It was the first time that I have been recognized as a writer in public and to hear so many positive comments about my blog was heartwarming.

The presentation was moderated by Jennifer Reyes. She spoke about Filofax the company and the history of the binders through the past several decades. Filofax was very popular in the 1980s. I remember that most of my friends had them in college and I was urged to “fit in” by purchasing one myself. This was before electronic PDAs and then later phone apps became popular as agendas. In the last few years, Filofax has been gaining popularity once again as many people are turning off their phones and returning back to paper when it comes to scheduling their lives. She also gave an extensive demo on how she uses washi tape, stamps, and other scrap booking techniques to decorate her Filofax planners.

The first guest speaker was Rebecca Moore Bover. She spoke about her role as an admin for a Filofax group on Facebook called FiloRAKs. As an admin, she has far more duties than simply adding and booting people from the group, she also needs to schedule events. Her Filofax is instrumental in helping her track all of the extra duties she does for the group. Being an admin to a Facebook group is hard work and is often unrewarded. I hope Rebecca knows that her volunteer work is much appreciated.

Next was Karen Massie, a collector of rare and limited edition Filofax binders. She brought her snake Filofax and an A5 purple Malden that she has filled with her personal, teaching and doctoral studies paperwork. Karen’s collection is truly a marvel to see. Many of the rare Filofaxes are more luxurious in person than how they appear on catalog screens via your home computer. Many of the nuances of the leather are simply not captured and it takes seeing the Filofax in your hands before you can appreciate its finer points. Some of Karen’s binders are worth hundreds of dollars. She has much to be proud of in her extensive collection and I hope she can be persuaded to bring them to future Filofax events in the area.

I was the third speaker on deck. Before driving to Vroman’s, I had stuffed my Crimson Personal Malden into a bag and I always carry my Brown Slimline Holborn with me as a wallet. This gave me a few items to display as I spoke. The Malden is what I use to track all the posts and marketing I do on my writing blog, No Wasted Ink. I explained my tracking system and how I interface what I have written in my Filofax with the various online systems I use. The main online systems are: Hootsuite, Twitter, Facebook and Google+. I also pulled out my wallet and explained why I like using the slimline Filofax as apposed to using a pocket size.

The final guest speaker was Karine Tovmassian. Karine is spreading the word about how analogue planners such as a Filofax can be superior and more accessable for planning purposes, yet can also interface with the digital parts of our lives. Her company ThinkerExtraordinaire, is helping people all over the nation learn to use their time and energy more efficiently.

After the event, I felt the need for a hot cup of coffee and took the elevator downstairs where a small, somewhat posh coffeehouse is located just off the main street and tucked into a corner of the bookstore. The pastries looked divine and the coffee was smooth. I was lucky enough to find a chair by the window and was able to relax and people watch. There was a foursome playing a game of cards with what appeared to be an aged and weather antique deck along with the usual assortment of laptop and iPad users scattered about.

Visiting Vroman’s Bookstore is a unique experience, even without the Filofax Extravaganza to attend. If you are in the Los Angeles area, it is a literary landmark worth paying a visit. The bookstore is mere blocks away from the freeway and there is plenty of parking in the back. You owe it to yourself to take in the atmosphere of this book lover’s destination.

Commentary

Tea Rose Garden: A Filofax Adventure

August 16, 2013 Wendy Van Camp 2 Comments

As a writer, I use agendas and composition books to organize and brainstorm my novels and short stories. The act of putting a pen to paper helps my creativity. When an English friend showed off her Filofax agenda and explained how she used it to organize her novel, a larger Filofax to keep her notes, timeline and other details organized and a smaller pocket sized one to hold all the index cards that she used to outline her novel, I became intrigued. One look at the luxury leather, the metal snaps and all the little stationary accessories that could be used with it, I fell in love. My first Filofax was a Crimson Personal Malden. The leather was soft, the agenda opened flat and I found that I could keep my novel’s notes at my fingertips.

I discovered a community of Filofax users and collectors at a blog called Philofaxy. There I discovered a myriad of tips on how to become better organized by using the planners. Filofax owners used their scrapbooking skills to create dividers, decorate their diary pages and attached charms to the rings of their binders. Each luxury binder became a unique expression of the owner’s artistic vision.

Filofax is a United Kingdom based company and most of the owners of the agendas live in Europe. When the members of Philofaxy met in order to show off their personalized binders to each other, these gatherings were held in London. Filofax agendas are difficult to find in the United States, only a few specialty shops carry them, and a meet up would be the only way that I could see one in person before I purchased one from an online catalog. Since the meet ups were only in London, an opportunity to hold a Filofax that I was interested in before purchasing it was nil. The United States Filofax owners decided to change that. One of our Philofaxy members decided to see if there would be any interest in setting up the first Filofax meet up in the Los Angeles area. A dozen ladies RSVPed on Facebook, a few committing to travel in from other Western States, and the plans were confirmed.

When the appointed Saturday arrived, I set off in my car to Old Town Pasadena. The freeways in California were busy even on the weekend. My google map app sent me in the wrong direction once I made the city streets. It was good that I had tucked a few paper maps of the area into my glovebox. I ended up parking at a nearby metro station and then walking. I passed by many small boutiques, including stationary and art supply shops. It was amazing to see so many of these types stores all in a single city block. At last, I found myself in front of small shop with large windows and a cloth awning over the doorway.

The front of The Tea Rose Garden was an indoor atrium with stone tiles on the floor, rustic iron furniture painted in distressed cream, and hanging plants. In old-fashioned cupboards, an abundance of bone china plates and teacups were on display. In the rear, behind the restaurant area, was a functional florist shop where several short women were busy creating arrangements with roses, daisies and carnations. Our Filofax group gathered around several tables in the front beside the large windows. The women were of a variety of ages, from a young child all the way to seniors, each one present due to their love of Filofax and stationary. All the ladies had brought their collection of Filofax agendas. I had considered myself an addict with four of them, but there were ladies with far more in their bags.

Our coordinator, Jennifer Reyes, gave a short lecture about Filofax agendas and held up the various binders that we had brought with us, discussing the different colors that each range came in and the variations of the different sizes. This helped to break the ice and soon we were freely passing around the Filofaxes that we had brought. We examined the various agendas with their myriad of pockets, felt the leather with our hands and were able to compare the construction between the models of the ranges.

I was astounded by the creativity that these ladies showed via the paper arts. Some had taken photos, glued them onto cardstock to make dividers, others had used a criscut to create paper shapes to jazz up and personalize their dividers and pages. Washi tape was placed in their agendas and various stamps were used to not only help organize their Filofaxes, but to decorate too. Their skill made my simple attempts at patterned dividers seem quite humble.

One lady passed around a Filofax with a Coleto multi-pen inside the rings where it nested until needed. I happened to have brought my own Coleto, that I use during editing, and put it into my Personal Malden as an experiment. The clip on the Coleto seemed to mold around the rings and it gripped them securely. It was as if the space were designed to fit the pen. I can take the Coleto with me when I wish to color code in my agenda instead of in a separate pen holder, which makes the Filofax more user friendly.

Soon the English tea was served by the wait staff. We had a choice of iced tea or a private blend of hot Earl Grey Tea served along with platefuls of tiny crustless sandwiches, fresh fruit and scones with Derbyshire cream. We Americans thought that having a English tea was appropriate for a Filofax meet up since most of the gatherings were held in London. This idea was spoken of with mild amusement by our modern day members across the pond. However, we all enjoyed our lunch at the Tea Rose Garden and the Filofax fellowship that we participated in.

Filofaxes and Friends at the Tea Rose Garden

Commentary, Tools

Creating the Outline of a Novel: From Notebook to Scrivener

August 17, 2012 Wendy Van Camp 3 Comments

A novel always starts out in the back of my mind as a nebulous zygote. A character or a single scene is the seed from which a beautiful child (novel) will be born. It grows there in my mind without my noticing it until one day it solidifies. I say to myself, “Ah ha! There is a story there to write.” It is time for the birthing process to begin. For some people, this means “pantsing” a rough draft without any thought beyond the original seed. For me, I prefer the outline process to give myself a solid foundation with which to build on.

I like to begin the outline process with pen and paper or in Word on my desktop. The pen and composition books are easier to take with me and give an extra layer of creative play that I’ve come to value. There is something about the feel of paper and a pen in your hand that is comforting. It slows down the process enough to allow you to think the details through. I always use a pen, not a pencil. I do not want to be able to easily erase what I’ve written. This is not a time for editing, but for allowing unhindered expression to come forward. I can not do this on a computer due to my fast typing speed. Lately, I’ve been favoring the notebook method over using Word on the computer to outline.

When starting a notebook, I will put the name of the novel at the top, the year I started working on it, and what volume this notebook is. Sometimes there is only one volume, sometimes there are more. For my first novel, I barely had any notes at all. Most of my ideas were in my head alone. Now I find that there is more value in putting the ideas down on paper as best I can. A novel can stretch out over a few years time in the the writing of it. That is a long time to remember tiny details.

My novel’s beginnings are a scrawl of different things. Mind maps where a central character or scene is at the center and I ask myself “what if” questions and then write down ideas as they come no matter how strange around the central idea. Most of these “what if” scenarios are cast off as illogical or too far fetched. Ideas that I like, I highlight, but otherwise simply leave them in the notebook. I sometimes will write down narratives of scenes that have come to me. I don’t go into details, that will come later with the writing of the novel itself, but I try and capture the essence of what is percolating in my subconscious.

I start doing “interviews” of the main characters as they come to me. It is a method that I learned in a creative writing class last year. I make a note of the character’s physical features and find an actor that he can be loosely based on. I begin to formulate the personalties and emotional and intellectual goals and ideals of each character. I write down phrases that would be common to them alone, gestures and other habits that help make the character his own person.

Since I write science fiction and fantasy novels, I find it helpful to rough out a map of the land I’m writing about. Nothing of great detail, enough so that I know where everything is located and can have a good idea as to how long travel time is between the different locations in the story. If I decide that a map will be useful to the readers later, I either will create a better one myself or hire an artist to draw one for the book.

At this point, I open up a file in Scrivener and start to set up the project. In the research area, I create files for the character sketches, the location descriptions and decide on keywords to represent each character, location and special object. This helps me to track information during the revision phase of writing. I also like to print out this information to fit into my writing filofax journal so that I can take my research information with me when I write outside my home. I consider the Scrivener files to be the master copies and my filofax the copy. When I update the information, I update Scrivener first and then print out a new page for the filofax. I like to use the filofax since I don’t have to worry about electricity or waiting for the information to load up in a computer. What I need is all there organized in my writing journal without distraction of the Internet.

Once the research information is in Scrivener, I start an “outline” file in the research area. I write a short paragraph of each scene of the novel from beginning to end based on the highlighted areas of my mind maps from the notebooks and the short scenes that I’ve already written down on paper. The master outline is one file in the research area of Scrivener and a copy is printed for my filofax writing journal. At this point I’ve closed my paper composition notebooks and am working completely in Scrivener.

The final step, before I begin drafting, is to take each outline paragraph and create a separate file for it in the drafting area. I will give the scene a title, write a short synopsis of it in the scrivener card and then paste the entire description paragraph into the document notes section of the inspector. I also label and put in the status of the newly created file.

Every writer uses a different method to create their novels, this is the way I cobble together mine. I consider Scrivener and my filofax writing journal to be the key elements of the system. Scrivener organizes my research and novel information and the filofax is its backup shadow that comes with me everywhere. Together, they form the backbone of my creative process and help to make writing my novels easier.

Commentary, Tools

Blog Organization with Scrivener

August 3, 2012 Wendy Van Camp 6 Comments

Scrivener is my writing program of choice. I started using it during the 2010 NaNoWriMo and I credit it with part of the reason that I made my writing goal that year. The company that developed the program offers it at 50% discount to all NaNoWriMo winners and I used my coupon to purchase it. I use the program to organize, research and write my novels, compile short stories and to organize my blogs.

For instance, No Wasted Ink has a Scrivener project (file) where I write all the posts for No Wasted Ink. When I write I leave both the binder and the inspector open to view and I have a word count feature set on the bottom of the page. I aim to make most of my posts a certain length and the word count feature helps with this goal. Sometimes I write the draft on my Neo or in my NEC MobilePro 900 and then transfer the text into a scrivener file, but I find Scrivener comfortable to draft short term projects in.

The Binder

The Binder holds my pending articles at the top in no particular order. I work on the book reviews, commentary or memoirs as the mood strikes me. Even if all I have is a vague idea for a blog post, I will title it and leave the file there to remind me of the idea. Sometimes I will leave a short document note in the inspector with details of the idea if the title is not enough to spark my writing. Once the post is completed, I move it into one of the item folders in the draft section depending on the type of article. For instance, all my book reviews will be in a certain folder once completed. This allows me to find them when needed.

The Inspector and Meta-Data

Once a post is begun I mark its status in the inspector on the right hand side of the screen. I will give it a label as to what type of post it is and I will check the status as to where in the process it is. The labels are customizable as to color and name in Scrivener. My labels read: book review, commentary, memoir. Below that is the status of the item. My status can be set first draft, done, and posted.

Scheduling

The only part of Blog planning that I do not do in Scrivener is the scheduling. For that I use a Filofax Crimson Malden leather binder in personal size with a Week on Two Pages insert. As I schedule the blog posts in WordPress, I write the dates into the filofax. I note if I’ve done the twitter marketing tweets for each post and the title of the post. I like keeping this information in the filofax since it has less chance of disappearing due to server crash and I like the feel of paper. I suppose that an electronic organizer such as google calendar would work as well, but I prefer the filofax notebook.

Conclusion

The advantages of using Scrivener to organize a blog is that all the posts stay in one place, yet are separate. The inspector tracks the post as it goes through the various stages of completion. I have a permanent storage of the post in case of blog failure or if I want to publish it elsewhere. It is easy to go back and double check what I have written in the past and what I have planned for the future. I found that I had trouble being this organized when I was using Word. I still own Word and use it, but most of my writing takes place in Scrivener.

Commentary, Tools

Filofax Writing Journal

February 10, 2012 Wendy Van Camp 6 Comments

Finding alternate sites to write in is proving to help me to increase my writing productivity. While I have a studio set up in my home that is set aside for me to write and make jewelry in, there are times when the familiar surroundings lull me into the doldrums where little creativity happens. To counter this, I like to find locations outside my home to write in. Sometimes this place is simply my backyard patio, but other times I drive over to the local coffeehouse, treat myself to a fancy coffee and use one of their tables. Power outlets are often hard to come by when I’m out in the world, so I’ve designed a system that is as electric independent as possible. This includes my digital typewriter, the Alphasmart Neo, a paper bound thesaurus and a new Filofax journal to hold all my research notes, character sketches, outlines and word count charts. Everything fits into a large tote bag, so when the writing bug strikes me, I just pick up the bag and go.

My writing journal is a Filofax Crimson Malden that my husband gifted to me for Christmas. The smooth leather, multiple pockets and sturdy rings will make for a rugged, yet elegant writing journal. Moving into the journal with my notes has been an adventure. The most difficult part was learning how to format the printing of my notes out of Scrivener in a meaningful way and of organizing them so that I can find what I need quickly as I write.

The front part of my Filofax is quite ordinary. It holds a plastic pouch for odds and ends and a plastic divider with an inspirational poem. Behind that are various charts that came with the new Filofax, weights and measures, time zones and other general information that is good to have at your fingertips. The next section is a Month on two pages (MoTP) calendar that I use to track my writing output. Word count, what I was writing, how long I was writing and where I was writing are all tallied each day. This is a simple section that takes less than 10 seconds to notate at the end of the day.

Next is a Week on Two Pages (WoTP) section where I keep the present month and the next month in the binder. There I jot down a writing todo list for each day and check if I finish the project or not. I also write down what posts are scheduled to appear on my writing website.

The heart of my writing journal is the research notes section for my novels. Each novel gets a similar section in the writing journal. At the front of each section is an index of characters. Simply all the main characters in the novel. Each character’s full name, titles and other quick reference items are noted on one line per character. Behind the index is my novel outline. Each chapter has a paragraph devoted to what happens in it. A loose road map of what I need to write there.. Finally, behind that is a alphabetical divider system where I place all the character sketches, scene descriptions and maps and other related materials in alphabetical order. If I can’t remember a character’s name, I find it on the index. From there, I can find more related information on the character by flipping to its place in the alphabet.

The research section of my notes is all printed from files I keep in my writing program, Scrivener. I’ve used Nellie’s Guide to Printing on Personal Sized Paper from Philofaxy to print on personal sized filofax paper to facilitate my notes. I end up with clean, professional looking, double side printed notes that are easy to read.

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Author Interviews * Book Reviews * Essays * Writer's Links * Scifaiku