The Notebooks of Michael Pokocky

I have been writing in journals since 1987 and before that in spiral notebooks.

I have been writing since I was 11 and am 53 now, so since I write everyday anywhere on everything that is a lot of writing.

Having kept this up without even having to try because I cannot see myself doing anything else for all these years I often wonder how many others out there are like me?

One of the most interesting things to come out of all this passion is 11 novels and thousands of poems.  What is interesting about this fact is that when the novels were written they seemed to write themselves.  I think personally it is the pen to paper connection that has been the conduit for my imagination at speeds so fast that sometimes I have to do sketches to capture the essence of an idea as it comes.  I am not an artist but a writer.  So the sketches [one I have attached] speaks for itself.

View the First Annual Moleskinerie Exhibit.Discover and join our Moleskine communities on LiveJournal, MySpace,  Moleskinerie FLICKR, FACEBOOK and Meal Moles. Get out - have a life and write about it. We'll see you on Monday.

I have also enclosed some photos and detailed shots of my current collection of 69 journals.
You will see  used an artist sketchbook for quite some time until I discovered the Moleskine.  Now that is all I use with a gel non-smear pen.

Michael Pokocky

I am most likely at Cafe rue de Morin where I write much...

Comments

[Kev Moore]

Michael, Very evocative photos of your writing passion. I, too, have taken to drafting my song lyrics in moleskins, and the singular pleasure of drawing the pen across its pristine pages seems to fire my creative enthusiasm!

[Chris Meisenzahl]

Great post, and pics!

[Miki]

Dear Michael,

Your Moleskine story is simply amazing and very well put into words and pictures, so well that one doesn't even need to open the books to understandbthe passion you reveal inside.
What you write about the inspiring effect of the paper on your writing is also true for drawing... on this paper the pencils seem to draw by themselves!
I have used a Moleskine book to sketch birds and make notes about them, at a time when I loved to watch them. I have been searching for a long time for the right book to sketch people when I sit in the cafes, perhaps the Moleskine books are simply the right ones! I will take one along on my next cafe visit in Mojacar (Spain, Provincia de Almeria).

[Jay Deragon]

Love the images! Based on what I 've seen of your writing, your style and professionalism I'd say "Well Done Thy Good and Faithful Servant, you taken the gifts granted to you and used them to produce other gifts for others to absorb, use and learn. Keep going for your work is yet complete but your journey produces much.......

[Susan Cornelis]

Way to go Michael! You're a perfect advertisement for the wonderful Moleskins!

[Bonny Racca]

You are a kindred spirit - of sorts. I too, love using Moleskines for drawing, trip memories and journaling. A lot of my ideas for posting on my Blog were first noted in some form in one of my Molies. I have many different types but my two favourite ones are the blank/sketchbook Moleskine and the Watercolour Moleskine.

Your story and your photos are testament to a true Creative Spirit. I'm glad you posted it to share with us.

[Madame Monetm]

I really enjoyed seeing your notebooks, Michael! I used to be quite a writer with a pen, but any more, feel so stymied by the lack of speed with a pen (compared to touch typing). But I'd much rather be in a cafe than sitting at a computer!

Madame Monet

[Val Webb]

Outstanding, Michael! I love the Moleskine site, and I was truly thrilled to see you featured there. (Very impressive collection of Moleskines, I might add...)

[Cristina Andersson]

Michael,

These images are a perfect match with the images I have of you. A wise man,in a cafe, writing to his diary, drinking coffee, drawing pictures.

One more day, One more day...

[Thomas Power]

Michael you are the perfect example of a Moleskine user, consumer and awareness distributor.

I love Moleskine and have used them daily myself since 4/3/2002.

Keep spreading the word because everyone needs a Moleskine to record their life.

Thomas Power
Chairman
http://www.ecademy.com
+447976438285

[Thomas Power]

No-one could be better to promote Moleskine.

You are No1, great story.

[Peter Luiks]

Dear Michael, I am sitting this morning in the Baja, Mexico, in a hotel in Cabo San Lucas, overlooking over the soft morning sun touching the waters of the Baja and Pacific merging. Moleskine is a THE site for you!! If anyone has a great daily different story at hand, it is you!
What you will write here about your life - I'm sure - will be an inspiration to many others and distribute the power to them go on in life, no matter how difficult this can be at times! MFY - Moleskine Made for You!!
Your eternal Friend/Brother,
Peter

[Jonathan Logan]

Hi Michael!

I always knew you were a writer and had extensively written on a daily basis - but this is really cool! I know that you love your Moleskine - in fact I told my writer friend here in Portland, Oregon about your recommendation and he is using MOleskines too now.

Keep writing and keep inspiring all of us! I hope we can read more of your writing very soon!

Namaste!

Jonathan Logan

[Ronald Wopereis]

Michael taught me how to write. He said : hold the pen onto the paper, and feel the slide of the pen on the paper as you write the letters without taking the pen away from the paper. So that's when i understood what writing is. I don't know what Moleskine is, it looks like a small agenda with only blank pages. Still i am a visual person so the drawings eat up all of my attention and to me the photos express much more than could be said in any words. Warmest regards, Ron

[Frank Jensen]

Dear Michael

This morning a friend gave me a quote that may seem a bit out of place here. I will get back to that. The quote is supposedly from Churchill. I haven't checked that, though. The quote is:

"If you are going through Hell, keep walking".

Now, why would I mention such an out-of-place quote? Once in my life I wrote in a "log book", as I called it, but stopped. Now life has decided to shake things up a little and my wife has decided to leave me. This is very new and still hurts a lot... and what happens? A dear, dear friend sends me a link to the moleskinerie site! The universe is helping out, and in what other wonderful way than to tell me to journal my thoughts through this time. And when you journal there is only one proper vehicle - a moleskine!

Thanks for reminding me, Michael and all the best... I look forward to walking into "your" cafe and sharing some of what I wrote in the moleskine I am going to buy ...

Your friend Frank

[Sophie Brown]

Are any of these novels published?

[Bill Austin]

Michael is so prolific online that I sometimes forget that he writes offline as well.

Thank you for the reminder Michael. You should probably meet my mother-in-law some day - she has written over 500 stories and keeps them in notebooks by decade.

[John Dierckx]

I always like seeing a work in progress. The anticipation, the curiosity of how things will be in the end. This is even better. It's sharing with us not just "a" work in progress it 's seeing a complete life in progress.

Impressive, beautiful and again Mike, you outdid yourself.

Love John

[Michael Pokocky]

@ Sophie Brown: I have not published my novels. I live in fear of doing it. I want to share what I have written with the world but something is blocking me. I don't know you, but I will say that your question felt honest and true and deserved an honest and true answer. I can write them easily. The first one took six weeks and the second one took 8 and that is the average of them all. They are all in those pictures you see and this is the year that a special feeling came over me and it felt like it was alright to have this fear and then I was suddenly released from it. I am now currently editing the first one and I am going to publish it because I can't imagine doing anything else with my life. Why do I know I will get published? That is because I am not reacting to the fear anymore. Therefore it has no power over me. It gets easier and easier day by day letting go and getting on with the novel. I trust my sincerity here is what you were expecting.

In Love and compassion,
Michael Pokocky
You may right me or anyone else may also at mp [st] michaelpokocky [dot] com
or call me at +1 450 229 1183

[Michael Pokocky]

Hello everyone.
Thank you so much for your letters. I don't like to use the word comments. I am traditional in a modern world.
I can feel so much love and compassion coming through these letters and this touches me very deeply.
But even more profound, collectively as a group of letters, each one to be read by each of us, I see that we are creating a wonderful space for our love and compassion towards each of us to be born on this page.
This is what makes this so special.
From the desk of michael somewhere in a cafe north of Montreal Canada,
Michael Pokocky
bonus+ my desk is a rock in the woods, a log near a stream, my lap sitting on forest moss surrounded by cotton wood and pine trees. What's yours?

[Chet]

I have been journalling since I was 14, in the early 70s. In those days, it was called "keeping a diary". In the last 80s, I switched to an electronic journal. These days, I have both an offline electronic journal and a blog, and occasional handwritten entries in different notebooks, including Moleskine and Circa. I still have those physical journals from all those years ago. They were mostly actual day-to-a-page diaries so I wrote each day in the designated page, and limited my writing to that page. Later, I used plain lined notebooks and each daily entry was not restricted to a physical page.

[ion danu]

I don't know much about moleskine (seems like a wonderful note/sketch book, looks like the ones I've always search for...) but I do know something about Michael's passion to writing... I remember Georges Simenon (who is not only the writer who slept with 10000 women and more but also this great novelist, one of the most prolific of all times...hard to equal, I'm afraid, Michael, with hundreds of novels)had similar writing habits: but he wrote with pencils, sharp pencils on paper...

[Wayne E. Yang]

I have never used Moleskines, but I enjoyed reading your post, Michael. For years, I have used regular student ruled, bound composition books. They don't have the great pocket size of the Moleskines, but the cardboard covers are sewn to the pages, and they are inexpensive. I've also used PDAs and computers, of course, but as you pointed out, there's nothing like writing directly on paper. Thanks for the post, W

[Gordon]

Hi Michael,

A great site, I think this will be a perfect place to showcase your passion for the pen and parchment...there is something uniquely creative about the act of writing....but also dangerous...who knows what the written word can do..it is given power as it is inked to the parchment...it can change the world...and lives

Slainte
Gordon

[Jan Karel Kleijn]

Wow that must accumulate to a lot of great toughts, visions ideas and insights into your life Michael.

My question would be: how in the hell are you going to get all this info out of those moleskins and let us read some bits too ;-) (other than the novels of course)

Cheers, Jan Karel