Dialogue Journal and Rolling Writer

It is coming up on my favorite time of year, school supply season! I have already started browsing the displays cropping up at the mass market stores, but I also love college bookstores. I decided to beat the rush of students and visited a nearby college bookstore yesterday. I came came across this Dialogue Notebook by PaperLuxe and the Pentel Rolling Writer pen. This book has a soft flexible purple cover with attached elastic band. I couldn't get the book to open flat, but I think it will be more likely once it broken in. The pages are lined on the front and blank on the back. This was actually the selling point for me and I how I use journals. I like to make collages in them and a blank page would be great for that. Or I could use this book as a DIY planner and a mix of lined and blank pages would be perfect.

My main complaint is the layout of the lined pages, that the spacing on the lines is wide like a Rhodia, I prefer a ruling similar to a Moleskine. There is also a lot of wasted space at the top and bottom of the page and there is a logo, which I typically do not like. (You may need to click on the picture to see the lines they are kind of faint.)

The paper performs as expected. I did a quick test with several pens.



All showed through on the back but they didn't bleed through to the next page. I would recommend this book as more of an art journal rather than a writing journal, but you would have to be aware of the medium being used to avoid bleed through.

I also want to talk about the Pentel Rolling Writer (the first example in my pen test above). The package lists this pen as a .8 however, it is liquid ink pen that is very bold. I have come across this pen a few times, usually in offices where I have worked and immediately appropriated them as my own. I rarely see these in stores and when I do, I buy one.

I even have several dried up ones in my pen box. I love the pen but if I could nitpick one thing, it is that the width of the line varies greatly as you can see from the pen test above. The package says it is because of the writing pressure that is applied. I feel like it more about the angle of how the pen is held. That being said, I still enjoy this pen and like to use it for journaling.

Does anyone else use this pen? I rarely see them in circulation so I am not sure how popular they are.