This week is the second anniversary of the mnmlscholar. This blog is a pathway for sharing how I use my analog and digital tools to find joy in my writing and teaching. My way of choosing joy. It’s a labor of love — and necessity for my workflow. | Continue reading
Five links. Ten sentences or fewer. On my philosophical wanderings through how our histories shape what we value now. We are where we’ve been. Biography is the journey to what we value now. And we have no choice but to bring our histories with us. Worn on our sleeves, in our head … | Continue reading
This weekly palette’s sheening inks make for easy scanning while working the room during lectures. Thank you, Sabimidori and Aurora Borealis. Copper Noir lends a complimentary orange for highlighting key points and noting housekeeping items to review with my students. Inks with p … | Continue reading
I review my pen collection every year or two. The goal is to ensure that all of the pens in my case remain interesting enough to me that they make me want to write. We have reached the end of my collection reflection. The fourth and final 13-pen tray. Populated with one-offs from … | Continue reading
singing the glories of no-nonsense stationery basics. Simplicity is its own flashy when inks, papers and pens simply work well together. There’s happiness to be had in a simple gray or sepia or blue or teal. Or black notebook-lette. | Continue reading
Four of this week’s nibs rock their writing with crisp, edgy tippings. A 1.1 mm stub nib and an architect grind require proper writing angles for enjoyable ink flow. Both Montblanc’s EF nib and Dan Smith’s lovely CI grind also have narrow preferred writing angles. Lubricated inks … | Continue reading
Majohn (aka. MoonMan) evokes strong reactions from those who are familiar with their products. Reactions to their products’ resemblances to the pen designs of other established companies. I received my new Majohn A1 this week. Majohn’s clipless model. And I like it. A lot. | Continue reading
Five links. Ten sentences or fewer. On how dang useful fear is in the creation process. Creating, for me, is a frightful-scary game of chasing projects that scare me to take on. | Continue reading
I enter the week with my lesson plans already done — with last week’s currently inked. A full 20% of my anticipated writing is taken care of prior to any tweaks to last week’s rotation. So I only need enough inked pens to carry me through meetings, marking, and journaling. Five i … | Continue reading
Taking inventory of my pen collection helps me to ensure that the pens in my case all draw me into my writing. A process that I started back in July and continued a month later. The process involves balancing each pen atop my guiding principals. This week, I sift through the thir … | Continue reading
Five links. Ten sentences or fewer. On remembering that there is only one rule in journaling. That rule: do you. Successful writing is starting to write again. | Continue reading
Three bold nibs and three (extra) fines. A collaboration of opposites. A healthy balance of wide and thin lines provides a nib options for both small and large writing; for rapid and slow writing. Both of which are expected during my first full week of teaching. This week also in … | Continue reading
I’m on a journey. A journey through the most-used page layouts in my teaching bullet journal. A journey most-nerdy. This week involves a page layout designed for thinking through curriculum, and how best to help new minds connect with my curriculum. Process work where the page it … | Continue reading
Five links. Ten sentences or fewer. On customizing, personalizing, and outright hacking my way toward the perfect writing experience. An experience that likely only exists just beyond reach. Were I to buy just one more pen or ink. Or notebook. | Continue reading
Two of last week’s pen-and-ink pairings did not work well for the kinds of writing I do during the school year. So, I’m playing it safe this week. With inks and pens I’ve come to trust to write unfailingly well. | Continue reading
My partner and I received an order from Yoseka Stationery last weekend. An inky, penguin-infused order. And I’m too excited not to share. Even mid-bullet journal series. So, allow me to share what has me so excited of late. | Continue reading
Five links. Ten sentences or fewer. On connecting through stationery. Building bridges between people. It’s been my experience that stationery brings people together. Across hobbies, interests, and — excitingly — even across time. | Continue reading
A sparkling, shiny new sextet for the week. My students return to campus this week. A fresh set greets them. Four new pen-and-ink combinations enter rotation this week. The KACO, Narwhal, Kaweco and Pilot all sport round, unground nibs. The first days of a school year a whirlwind … | Continue reading
I live in my teaching bullet journal during the school year. The notebook houses everything from curriculum revision to my day-to-day task lists to a host of meeting notes. Brainstorms on lesson sequencing, calendars pacing assignments to fit students’ needs, and periodic analyti … | Continue reading
Five links. Ten sentences or fewer. On taking notes. On thinking via notes. Notes that help me read actively in dialogue with an author’s own thinking. And how the ways I take notes, and the tools I take notes with, influence my thinking. | Continue reading
Reflecting on how to start this guest blog post, I kept coming back to this one song lyric: “It’s the little things we do together ...” from Stephen Sondheim’s musical, Company. Sondheim’s show is devoted to the inner workings of married couples, their relationships with one anot … | Continue reading
I built out my own index this week. And I revisited past indexes to revise according to what worked and what hasn’t in prior years. This week I share my current approach to making an index that works for me. A “what I’m doing” tour, not a “what you should do.” | Continue reading
Five links. Ten sentences or fewer. On the power of asking how might something work instead of will something work. Use case and the rolling reflection on how to make the tools I have work for me. | Continue reading
This week is my teaching bullet journal setup week. My pen-to-paper time will be dominated by setting up headings, laying out columns and sections, and migrating reference information into my new teaching notebook: a 400 page dot grid Odyssey. All three genres of information need … | Continue reading