I'll report back, of course, @Steerpike. Actually, given the interest people here have in fountain pens, I'm kind of wondering how different they are from normal ball-point pens. I'm wondering if I need to take a course in using them or something. I'm starting to get intimidated!
Hehe this reminds me of my mother's pen set from the 80's. She got this marvelous pen set as a gift with like 50 pens in every color imaginable - pink, peacock blue, emerald green, orange, banana yellow. She didn't use it much so she gave them to me. I was 10 at the time and had this teacher who yelled a lot. When he was nice I wrote in sky blue, when he was obnoxious I'd do my homework in banana yellow. I'd look over and see him tilt my paper up to the light trying to read it- lol. I used a fountain pen for a while but it seemed to go through a lot of ink.
You'll learn quickly enough the best angle for your pen, minstrel. I've found it varies a bit from pen to pen, so I don't know that I can give advice on writing with it other than to find out what works best (@Wreybies may have advice along those lines). One thing to remember is that you don't press down with a fountain pen like you do with a ballpoint. You're just going to let the pen glide over the surface. You also want to get decent quality paper, because the ink is more watery and will bleed into cheap paper. It doesn't take long at all to get the hang of it.
All of this is correct, actually. If you're one to really press the nib, you may quickly damage it. In the days when fountain pens were the only pens, manufacturers made special, snub-nose (stub) nibs of a heavier weight for those who press. Also, many people unconsciously roll the barrel of a ballpoint during writing pauses. If you're a roller, you may find a period of discomfort with the fact that the fountain pen needs a particular angle of presentation to the paper in order to write. You cannot roll it. Most rollers don't know they're rollers until they try a fountain pen. Even the highest quality of fountain pens are not items to toss around or treat brutishly. They will leak, all of them, when treated that way. And if you're a southie, a fountain pen is not your friend. There are fountain pens for southies, but the best they can do is polish the iridium tip at a different angle to smooth the writing. There's no way to deal with the edge of the palm of your hand passing over wet ink if you write in the over-hand hook fashion. I adore fountain pens, but ballpoints were invented for a reason.
I love fountain pens, but I get even "geekier" as my sister calls it. I have quills and bottles of ink. I write entire manuscripts with fountain pens, but really special prose gets the quill. Also, all poetry gets the quill. Ballpoint pens are annoying and make my hands hurt.
Ha! I love writing by hand. I don't do creative writing by hand as much simply because it's easier to change things and keep track of things. But I do have notebooks for when I start new projects! I also keep a hand-written journal (I'm on my fifth volume now as it its kind of an ongoing thing). I've even taken to writing letters by hand and sending them through the mail. It's kind of gratifying to see a letter in your mailbox when your out alone at college. This whole thread really makes my want to try a fountain pen! I've only ever used ball-point, so I can't compare them. I can say that I typically prefer fine-point pens, but as long as it writes smooth I'll use it. I have nice handwriting.
I still have a few fountain pens at home. All dried up. I tried using some of them, but I write so little at work these days, and I type much faster than I can write by hand (plus legibility is so much better!) that there is, sadly, little use for my fountain pens anymore.
Wow! Looks like Ive really started a fire here! Lovely to know there are some of you still holding on to the REAL way of writing... I have over 90 pens and 50 bottles of different coloured inks - yes they really do make that many shades: see here http://diamineinks.co.uk/listings.aspx?catid=67 Diamine is a fantastic ink manufacturer. They sell small 30 ml bottles at a very good price so ou can try out a colour without too much expense (but 30ml will last for over 30 fills of a pen, on average, and that equals many words on paper). Minstrel: The LAmy is a good first pen. You can buy a variety of nibs which just slot in and out. This enables you to find the right line width for you See here http://www.thewritingdesk.co.uk/showproduct.php?brand=Lamy&range=Z50 nib&cat=Spares&subr= I have my nibs specially ground now by a nibwright, so that the slope/angle, width and ink flow are custom 'built' to my hand, but then I am a total fountain pen anorak... You don't need to go to the lengths I do, of course just buy a good quality pen with a medium nib and some ink, and enjoy! The pens I would recommend for a complete novice would be either the Lamy Safari (You will need to always buy Lamy carts or have a Lamy converter to use bottled ink) or my (and Neil Gaiman's) absolute go-to pen, the TWSBI, in which the whole barrel
Sorry, above post ended abruptly! It continues... the whole barrel is filled with ink from a bottle. You can see these amazing pens on the Writing Desk website. In my opinion they are worth twice the price charged and are better than many pens which retail at £200+. BTW - I have no affiliation to any of the above companies, I just love the products they sell. Now, don't get me started on paper and notebooks or we'll be here for days... (If anyone wants info on pens, inks, paper etc I am at their disposal. Just PM me.)
I'm sorry, I have to disagree about your comment on southies (or left handed writers) I am left handed and did not use a fountain pen for many years because a teacher told me the exact same thing - that left handed people should not use fountain pens. I have been using them now for years, and can honestly say this is not correct.There are many left handed writers on www.fountainpennetwork.com to disprove what you assert. Also, lefties do not need to buy special pens. Although I now have my nibs ground, it is a geeky thing, not out of necessity. I used a standard medium nib for three years before getting into grinding. You can use any old fountain pen, as long as you angle the paper in relation to your body (see bottom left picture) against your desk. This is how I do it. Just turn the paper clockwise to somewhere around '2 o'clock' ( I write more like '3 o'clock') It takes a little getting used to for some, but it is not difficult. There are many articles about this on http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/, but this one is quite good: http://www.richardspens.com/?page=ref/ttp/left.htm
No, no, no. I did not say southies should not use fountain pens or that they have to buy special pens. I said fountains pens aren't terribly friendly to southies and that there are pen nibs ground for them. Don't be so sensitive; I'm not a southie basher. I was in the trade for a long time. Are there southies who love fountain pens? Of course! It would be silly to think otherwise. But I did get uncounted requests from southies on the best pens to buy, how best to use them, yadda, yadda.
I write letters to my pen friends with fountain pens. Sometimes I jot down ideas, but I don't care what kind of a pen I'm holding then. I can't be a part of the real writers' club now 'cause my right hand and wrist is enclosed in a clunky support thingy that's as nimble as a cast, really, so all I can do is type slowly with a keyboard. I hope it doesn't ruin the end product and make me less of a writer :'/ ETA: And yeah, maybe it is a little old-fashioned, but so what, as long as it's the way one is at their comfiest, doing the thing they enjoy. It's the product that matters, not how one produces it, I think
I have received my fountain pen! Now that I've figured out how to use it (you have to perform an eldritch ritual to get the ink to flow), it works great! I'm using it to write this post, in fact - you can tell, can't you? Actually, I'm not. I'm just typing, like always. It turns out this cheapo fountain pen doesn't have a USB port or anything on it, so it doesn't interface to my computer easily. Can you believe that? It's like it's 1987 again, or some other antediluvian epoch. Maybe those really pricey fountain pens are better equipped. This one doesn't even have a way to replace or recharge the battery. I guess you just throw it away when it dies. I suppose I could try leaving it out in the sun, just in case it's solar powered, but the darn thing didn't even come with a manual, so I have no idea if that works. I bought a terrifying bottle of ink for it, too. This bottle is terrifying because it has a dispenser for "blotting paper." I looked this stuff up, and it turns out people use it to distribute drugs. I hope I'm not on some law-enforcement watch list because of this! It's also used to absorb ink from a page (it came attached to a bottle of ink - coincidence? I think not!), implying that my writing is crap and I'm going to want to remove it before anybody reads it, in order to save myself, and the literary establishment as a whole, serious embarrassment. All this is causing me inordinate stress. I looked, but neither the pen nor the ink came with a discount coupon for any therapy I might require after attempting to use them - maybe I should write to the manufacturer and suggest this. I'm sure it could be a big selling point. I heard that Leo Tolstoy wrote using a fountain pen, and I know he wrote in Russian. My fountain pen doesn't write in Russian; in fact, from what I can tell so far, it only writes in English and really bad grade-school French. its translation module must be defective. Maybe I should return it - I was really looking forward to writing in Russian, having never been able to do that before. Waitaminnit. Maybe it's not the pen - maybe I need to buy special Russian ink. Would that work? Does Amazon have a Russian site? Where in Southern California can a guy earn some rubles without having to work very hard? Anyway, I'll keep working with this graphological monstrosity, and I'll report back here if I make any progress with it.
I devoted quite a bit of time and failure to learning to cut my own quills from turkey feathers purchased from fly-tying shops. Totally worth it! It was fun enough I added a section on that in my book
Hi there! Does anyone here like to write manually? I tried that yesterday as I didn't have a computer at my disposal and found it very pleasant. I also found out that writing manually is much easier for the muscles as well. I often notice that typing can result to muscle strain. And as a matter of fact, most authors throughout history have written manually (before machines were invented).
I write with pen and paper when writing non-fiction. I've found that it is helpful to be able to see previous ideas and to insert notes, clarifications, and references around the text and to type it out later when its ready to look pretty. With fiction, there is usually a lot less "research" involved, so a process that facilitates amendments based on that within the writing process aren't as necessary.
If it weren't for word processors I'd have never told the stories in my head. It was bad enough writing term papers with an 8 character backspace erase feature. I'm one of those people who does fine if I have time to edit and edit again.
^ Oh yeah, that's the other benefit of word processors: they save the obsessive compulsive revisionists among us a fortune in erasers annually.
I prefer to write on paper and then edit on computer. Technically it's easier to type (faster, easier to edit, no need to re-type everything for editing etc.) but writing journals really opened my eyes in this matter. For a few years I kept journaling both in MS Word and on paper, and later rereading everything - quality of writing, diversity of subjects etc. was significantly better when I had written on paper. Maybe it's not like that for everyone but for me typing is just too fast and easy; it allows me to put down all the bad ideas, detour, it's difficult to keep track of what's going on. When typing, every piece of crap is written down. When writing only the better of ideas are realized.
I hand write everything first, then type up after I've finished a chapter or so. I find my creativity flows more readily when scratching out sentences and re-wording it, whilst still able to look at what I've just rejected. As soon as I backspace something I've typed, I completely forget what it was I had written. Add to that, the fact that when I started writing in my high school library, all I had to hand was paper and a pen. It just felt natural to keep on going in the same style. I love looking at all those old pages with all the differing handwriting styles from over the years and the notes in the borders and the precise date that a certain page or scene was written. Maybe that's just the romantic in me, but that's the artistry of writing, in my opinion.
I scratch ideas out on paper only when I don't have access to a pc. I started out writing by hand in work, as a convenience... well, that and the fact I didn't have access to a computer. I ended up buying an electronic noteook. I write in rather haphazard, chaotic fashion so I found my initial notes hard to keep track of. I edit and continue to chip away. I'm still not at a point where I feel truly confident I'm done with a scene or chapter, as I'm still in the process of heavily experimenting with everything I'm learning. If I have a pen or pencil in my hand, you can confidently place a bet that I intend to draw. Never thought about it much until now but I wonder if it's my way of keeping a distance between my two hobbies. I only type marginally faster than I can write, never having properly learned how. My lazy typing speed gives me adequate time to think of what I'm trying to say, to select the right word and using Scrivenor in split screen mode lets me compare my edits so it's easier to keep a track on whether I feel they are working for or against me. I'll regress to pen and paper should the power suffer a blackout, or if I have an idea when I'm out and about, (biro on napkin/beermat, whatever... I really should keep a small notebook in my bag) but, aside from these instances, I'd much rather type. I have enough problems stopping my narration from being pass remarkable and seeing the words in my own handwriting makes me relax too much.
i enjoy writing on pastel lined ampads, with my favorite fat, medium point, blue ink ballpoints... and frequently do...
