I've been lucky enough to get lots of email from visitors to this journal. These are some of the interesting questions I received over the past month:

My tools change all the time. I love to experiment and playing with materials is part of the fun for me. Generally, the only pencils I use are colored ones and I never erase my lines no matter how 'wrong' they may seem at the time. I urge you do to do the same. Try out different pens till you get something you like. It should flow smoothly and feel good in your grip. I like Sakura's pigma micron pens, also Faber Castell's PITT artist pens, and my new beloved Staedler pigment liners, but there are many other good choices. As for paper, I like to buy heavy bond paper, in sketch pad form. It'll hold up to all sorts of abuse, ink, paint, markers, without bleeding and it feels solid and good. It also makes each page feel important, somehow.
Frankly, though, you could use a ball-point pen and a sheet of copier paper. The main thing is to begin, have fun, get hooked and then branch out. Don't worry about posterity, readers, mistakes, etc.

Bastards. It's a part of the massive conspiracy to keep journal-making an obscure hobby instead of an awesome power that will take over and transform the world. Barnes & Noble loves to shelve my book in the New York section. Look for it there or take some form of political action.

I'm not sure who Ganiesh is either. He won't be joining us in future discussions.

The most efficient way for you to get a copy of Everyday Matters is via Amazon or by badgering your local bookshop. If your really want, though, I'll gladly sign it for you. And please let me know what you think of the book when you get it.

While I hand wrote large parts of my book, the opening pages were primarily set in a font based on my own handwriting. It helped to distinguish these big blocks of text form the rest of the higgledy-piggledy stuff and stopped my publisher from asking if we couldn't just set the whole thing in type. I find it ironic that an English teacher would admire my handwriting — when I was in high school, I was always getting in trouble for illegibility!

Did you do a little Photoshopping on the color lay-in (of your Martha Stewart Piece), maybe? If so, how'd you like the experience? – Karen

I hated it.
I rarely work this way and regret it when I do. I did random sketches on location and made notes. Then I came home and scanned the pages and built my layouts in Photoshop, then printed them out, wrote in the captions, rescanned the calligraphy and laid it back in. Then, I colored the whole thing on screen because I was rushed. The colors are insipid and vague and didn't come from observation. The computer makes me fussy and wooden. I also hate having the ability to undo things and to mechanically work with transparent layers and I hate using a Wacom tablet instead of a pen and I hate working vertically instead of flat on my lap. And I also hate the fact that it exists only in 72 dpi form on line. I hated it. Hate.

I scan my book at 75 dpi. Then, in Photoshop, I adjust the curves so the whites are white, the blacks are black, and the colors look right. Then I use the 'Save for Web' function, and boil it all down to a medium quality, JPEG 650 dpi wide. Then I mutter a brief prayer to St. Twain, the patron saint of scanning.

Maybe the pain of losing your journal was meant to remind you of all the days you lost when you weren't making things. Don't lose any more! As for some practical advice: put your name and number in future ones!