Welcome. I’m glad you found your way here. If you are the sort of person who appreciates nice paper, a decent pen, a well-crafted notebook, a solid pencil, writing and receiving handwritten correspondence, beautiful handwriting, or the clicky-clack of a dependable typewriter, you have come to the right place. The Cramped is a site dedicated to the pleasures of writing with analog tools (the name is purposefully ironic).
My name is Patrick Rhone and I have been writing all of my life. I like technology as much as any modern citizen, but none gives me the pleasure that writing by hand — using pen and paper — does. I have long preferred to journal by hand, take notes by hand, and am currently writing my first book entirely by hand. This grows out of a life long love of nice pens, good paper, solid typewriters, and an appreciation of analog writing and publishing tools of all sorts.
This is also an area where my normal goals of minimalism and simplicity in my life completely break down. I have more pens then I could ever use in my lifetime. My stack of brand-new notebooks reaches over two feet high — and I can’t seem to resist buying more. This is all to say that this site, at the least, will provide much needed justification to my addictions. Because, then I can buy new notebooks or pens or paper or ink “for the site”. I can tell my wife that my readers demand it!
I will have other semi-regular contributors as well. The first of these is Harry C. Marks. A writer who not only appreciates such tools as much as I, but has also written a book or two on his late ’50s Smith-Corona Sterling typewriter (of which I am most jealous).
The typeface used in the header is Mike Rohde’s Sketchnote Typeface and may be purchased at Delve Fonts. A special thanks to Mike and Delve for their support and blessing.
There will be some other goodies coming soon as well. A podcast is in the works. And, I’m working to line up some giveaways and exclusive specials for our readers. In all, I hope to pour some time into this and make this site a primary project for my endless interest in this area.
If you have any questions, requests, ideas, or other concerns email always works at patrick@patrickrhone.com, of course you can follow The Cramped on Twitter, or, true to the spirit of this site, feel free to send me handwritten correspondence and I will respond in kind:
Patrick Rhone
627 Ashland Avenue
Saint Paul, MN 55104
For now, take a look around and enjoy.
