I use a fountain pen and a good quality notebook for all my writing. I started with fp's when I began writing 8 yrs ago as they are much more ergonomic, and environmentally friendly (reusable). I began to collect them, ostensibly so that I could fill them with three or four colours to aid in revising. Now I have over 80 fountain pens and 45 bottles of different coloured inks! I find that I can no longer use ballpoints for any length of time without my wrist becoming fatigued, and use fountain pens everywhere, every day. But I get strange looks and bizarre comments. It's as though I'm using a tool from the Middle Ages, instead of something that was still widely used in schools here in the UK well into the 80's and 90's. I loathe the computer, see it as a necessary evil. I think at heart, I'm a real Luddite...
Well, that explains the user name. No, many writers here like to do early drafts in pen and ink. I am not one of them. My handwriting is so illegible that even I can't read it, especially if the ideas were flowing faster than I could write.
Hi Inky I don't know about fountain pens - I used them in school (in the 80s!) and remember the ink splodges well - I am a fan of handwriting the first draft though. I used to think the computer was better, mainly because I touch type so could get it down faster (and less messily), but then found myself with story but without computer a couple of times and realised that my writing is loads better when I handwrite the first draft. I reckon you take more time to think before you commit your thoughts to paper, whereas on the computer you can write any old crap. As I think I'm proving. I'll stop now.
I have always dreamed of writing with a fountain pen. Alas, I just use a really high-quality pen instead. I find writing with pen and ink allows the first draft to flow with ease and be more about the story than the rewrite. Don't worry, I tell my friends that I am an old-fashioned writer...I also own a typewriter. Keep with it and only think of computers for the rewriting and editing phases!
I have nice handwriting but it's time consuming and I write less. I love writing on the computer. I spent hours as a student in the late 70s-early 80s writing things out again and again in longhand because I'd left out a reference or wanted to re-format, or in correcting typewritten copy. Give me computers any time.
Wow , fountain pens that sounds pricey. I started out with Bic pens and a clipboard and wrote an entire 2900 page first draft and don't see anything wrong with it. I used to write so much however the pen would make a red groove mark in my finger. Even though I've moved on to a computer there is something still nice about having stuff down on paper.
I haven't used a fountain pen since high school. I always felt fancy when I did though, and I was always the only kid in class who did then. In jr. high, however, it was commonplace because we all felt cool when we left base and went to the fancy German stores and bought fancy German stationary stuff.
Personally, I love fountain pens and paper notebooks. I sometimes write first drafts by hand, but I'm a short story writer so it's a little easier for me than it is for the novelists amongst us. But really, for efficiency's sake I do most of my writing on my laptop. As much as I love handwriting stories, typing them up for editing/submission is a pain in my arse that I can do without most of the time. But on the plus side, the illegibility of my chickenscratch handwriting is an added privacy feature. If I can't tell what it says, how the hell can anyone else?
There's something very romantic about fountain pens (and typewriters.) I would love to use these tools to write but I think I've conditioned myself to need my computer. I do write poems and short-stories by hand but I've never used a fountain pen even though my handwriting is suited to it.
I respect people who write longhand still. I wrote all my undergrad stuff longhand and then typed it up on old word processor. Postgrad stuff and all fiction goes straight on the computer. BUT - I wonder sometimes how the different process affects the outcome of the work because of the different speeds and types of concentration, motor skills involved. Would longhand be better? Certain writers like JK Rowling and Jeffrey Archer both write in longhand, but I think Stephen King is a typist! I guess as long as it gets done...
there are nice, fat, comfortable-to-the hand ballpoint pens on the market, so you don't need to use a fountain pen for that reason... i can't use anything with less diameter than the pilot/dr. grip ones, which are my must-haves since they stopped making the beautifully fat schaeffer and parker models...
No you are not weird or old fashioned. A great writer writes when he/she is most comfortable also with the tools they use.
It depends on where I am. If I am at home or at work, I use the computer. If I am at a restaurant or someplace out and about, I use a pen and spiral notebook.
I used a fountain pen in junior high, and I'm 26, so I don't find it old fashioned -- if I did find it old-fashioned, I'd be admitting myself older than I feel, and I don't want to go there yet, haha. Today I can't find them anywhere here in my town, but I still like to write with good ergonomic ball pens. And I looove beautiful notebooks with nice, smooth and thick paper. I think for most of the people who grew up in the 80s and 90s, handwriting is still more intuitive than typing in a computer. For the new generation, I really couldn't say...
I only left school a couple of years ago and I used a fountain pen all through the sixth form so I wouldn’t say old fashioned, more an acquired taste. Been dyslexic though I find handwriting a real chore so avoid it like the plague, much happier on a keyboard
Hi, I haven't used a fountain pen since school either, and that's thirty years ago. But to admit a truly frightening thing, I can no longer write with a pen. My hands have forgotten how. And I used to have a lovely somewhat loopy handwriting style. These days if I use a pen at all, I do a sort of chicken scratching printing that's mostly illegible even to me. If the computer ever breaks down I'm in real trouble! Cheers, Greg.
You can pick up a fountain pen for a couple of dollars! And ink is cheap and lasts forever. And you don't get the 'red groove' because they write with very little pressure. Writing by hand is such a personal, intimate experience, I think it connects you to your characters much more. If you want advice about purchasing a good fountain pen to suit your budget, and about which ink to buy, PM me!
Being ADHD, my mind tends to run in overdrive most of the time. Sometimes it really helps to be able to slow down and sort of detox from the computer where I am almost in 'freefall' mode. This can be a good thing when my ideas are flowing and solid but, sometimes, I find myself having to delete pages and pages of work that, after the fact and given due consideration, just don't work. At times like that, I find writing in longhand to be quite helpful. Since you have your ink by the bottle, I know you are not using ink cartridges and, instead, refill your pens with a lever/plunger type ink system. That is really going back a bit. But, some of my favorite wrting instruments are fountain pens. My absoute favorite, imagine if you will, a fountain pen made from petrified wood. It is a beautiful blue - yes, natural color - stone and you can see the woodgrain in it. I absolutely fell in love with it at first sight. No. It is not mine - would that it were! - but I know you would love it. It is owned by a guy who has a wood veneer company. He has a curious collection (the largest in the world, I am given to understand) of petrified wood objects - clocks, bowls, tables, picture frames, orbs, on and on and one absolutely beautiful fountain pen. More colors than I would ever have imagined possible in wood and all just beautiful.
That's fine. I love writing by hand, too. The thing is, I type many times faster than I can write on paper. Also, even if I chose to write by hand first, I'll eventually have to type that same script onto the computer, anyway. That feels inefficient to me.
I used to only write my stories longhand...but this was a long time ago before computers were so mainstream and everyone had one. I've saved nearly everything and still have it in a big box in my closet and would probably die of embarrassment if anyone ever read anything in there it's so bad. These days I prefer writing on the computer. My handwriting is pretty bad (probably from using the computer more than writing by hand for everything) and I can type as fast as I can think.
If someone is aiming to write something out in 'left field', what distinguishes something that's 'weird in a good way' from something that's 'just plain weird'? What are the typical characteristics (including what either type of writing result is lacking) of both?