Tag Archives: fountain pen

Fountain Pens For Writing

August 30, 2014 Wendy Van Camp 14 Comments

Pen and paper is often overlooked as a method of communication. Most prefer to keyboard their written correspondence, then send it via social media, a text, or email. A pen and ink is out-dated and unneeded.

Young students do not learn to read or write cursive handwriting and make due with poor penmanship if they use paper at all. When a young student needs to learn a signature, he is often sent to an art class where the instructor teaches how to develop one.

Among adults, lack of using pens has stunted their penmanship skills. Many have forgotten how to write except for the most rudimentary of script. Cursive handwriting has become a lost art. Many people are at a loss at how it happened and wonder how they could return to having decent handwriting again.

I found myself numbered among these adults several years ago. I used my computer keyboard for most of my writing needs and seldom thought to use a pen and paper. As I returned to writing novels, I discovered that something was missing in my process. I did not retain my ideas and I had trouble brainstorming.

One day, I decided to use a workbook to help plot out book two of a trilogy. The author recommended getting a paper notebook and writing all the exercises by hand instead of using a keyboard. His method asked questions about the characters and I wrote a certain amount each day for a month. I bought my first composition book and pulled out a ballpoint and got to work. At first, the writer’s block was still with me. Within a week I realized that ideas for my book were coming quickly. When I looked back over what I had written, I could remember the details better than when I was writing on my computer. Within that month, the plot for my new novel sprang into being. I became hooked on using paper.

At that time, my handwriting was horrible. I could print, but my cursive had eroded to near unreadability. The long periods of time that I was brainstorming ideas were hard on my hand and I experienced finger cramping. I did not want to give up this new method of brainstorming on paper since it worked for me. Instead I began to explore pen options. That is when I discovered fountain pens.

Why Choose a Fountain Pen?

There are many benefits to writing with a fountain pen over a ballpoint. In writing with a ballpoint, you must exert constant pressure to the page and hold the pen at a low angle. This is what creates the hand cramping when you write for a long period of time. With a fountain pen, you use a more natural writing angle, around 45 degrees when you write. This wider angle is easier on your wrist. The fountain pen flows across the page with little resistance, no pressure needed to put ink on the page. This allows you to write for longer periods of time without cramping your hands. There are a variety of nibs to choose from to give more character to your handwriting.

Plain – This is most basic shape of a fountain pen nib. It gives a clean line in your choice of width, from very fine, fine, medium, broad, and double broad. Most people find that fine to medium will work best as a daily writer.

Italic – This is also known as a stub nib. The nib is a flat plain where it meets the page and it allows the writer to write thin and thick lines as he writes. It adds character to your handwriting with a little extra practice.

Flex – These are nibs allow their tines to widen when a small amount of pressure is applied to the nib. As the writer presses, a much wider line results.

Ink Me, Baby

Besides choosing a nib, there are around 600 different inks to choose from on the market. Some inks have unique colors, others shade between two or three colors, still others have a special shimmer that is known as “sheen”. Some inks are permanent and will last for hundreds of years without fading, others last in the sun for only a few weeks. There are even “invisible” inks that you need a UV light to see on the page. All the different brands of ink and their assortment of hues allows a writer to develop a certain look to their writing. It can make your notes distinctive unto themselves.

For me, discovering the fountain pen has aided my skills as a writer. I now create all my brainstorming notes, character sketches, and plot outlines on paper with a fountain pen. What I write never moves on the page, as it would on my computer screen, and it gives my ideas a more solid presence in my mind. For the actual writing of the drafts and editing, I move to the computer, but with far better results than I had in the past. One extra benefit to this new method is that my handwriting skills have returned with practice. I can write legible cursive and my printing is small and neat. Due to this, I’ve been gradually moving to smaller nib sizes so I can fill my pages with more notes.

Writing with a fountain pen is sheer joy. If you have not tried it for yourself, I recommending buying an inexpensive starter fountain pen. See how it might improve your own writing process.

Guest Posts, Writing Spaces

Writing Space: Blaine D. Arden

November 2, 2012 Wendy Van Camp Leave a comment

It is always wonderful to find a fellow notebook and fountain pen lover, just like myself. I hope you enjoy reading about Blaine’s writing space and her creative style.

Writing is something I do anywhere. Always have. When I was younger, I wrote in class, during breaks, at birthdays and parties. These days I write in waiting rooms, at volleyball matches–watching my kids play–on trains, and during breaks at choir practice. I never leave home without my fountain pen and my notebook. You never know when the solution to that little plot gap springs to mind, or when I suddenly know the name of my newest character.

I tried remembering, I really did. I’d go to sleep convinced that I’d remember it come morning, and would then spend all day cursing myself for believing it, and unable to remember, no matter how hard I tried reliving those minutes before falling asleep. So, I learned my lesson and don’t leave home without my writing implements.

What I use? Well, last year, friends gave me this wonderful magenta Parker fountain pen, and I love writing with it. I’m a bit finicky about notebooks, though. I’ve used everything from exercise-books to different sizes notebooks to an A5-binder, which though bulky, came closest to my ideal notebook. But it wasn’t until I sat across from a man writing in an Atoma notebook in the train, that I knew I’d finally found it. I fell in love with it at first sight and have been writing in them ever since. With the ability to take pages out and put them back in again, they make me feel so organized.

Being able to write anywhere and any time, I never thought I’d need a dedicated space for writing. Sure, I had a desk in my room when I still lived with my parents, and could be found in my room most of the time–pretending to do homework while I was really acting out my stories with the barbies hidden away in my bottom drawer. But when I moved in with my boyfriend–now husband–it was just the two of us, so I was easily satisfied with sitting on the sofa or at the dining table, and later, a desk in the living room.

It wasn’t until a couple of years ago–I think I was doing NaNoWriMo for the second time–that I started yearning for a space where I could retreat from the hustle and bustle of having kids playing with friends, playing games, and asking questions at the most inopportune times–bypassing Daddy who’d be sitting not a meter away, of course.

The smallest bedroom–formerly known as walk-in closet–was turned into an office, and at the end of last year my husband made me a lovely new workspace that spans two and a half walls and leaves me plenty of space to work at, read at and clutter. (yes, I tidied the desk before taking the picture). It’s a wonderful, inspirational, place, and it’s all mine. The only drawback is that I don’t have a door. We’d taken that one out years ago, sacrificing it for more closet space, and later reused it when we created a bedroom in the attic. Instead I have a sturdy pvc fly curtain with a yin-yang sign to create a sense of privacy.
As for the kids? They might not be asking my attention every couple of minutes anymore, and they’re old enough to leave me alone when I’m writing–considering that they’re almost all adults themselves now–their bedrooms are a little too close for comfort, and I often find myself grabbing my noise reduction headphones to tune them out to work. Early mornings, on the other hand, are blissfully quiet. 🙂

Blaine is a purple haired, forty-something, writer of gay romance with a love of men, music, mystery, magic, fairies, platform shoes and the colours black, purple and red, who sings her way through life. You can find Blaine at: her website, on twitter, and on facebook. You can also email her at blaine@blainedarden.com

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Prompts to Promote Creative Writing

October 12, 2012 Wendy Van Camp 4 Comments

There is an old adage, “Practice makes perfect”. As an artisan, I create product at my jeweler’s bench a few times every week. I either make simpler production pieces that keep my booth’s jewelry racks filled, or spend more intensive creative time working on complex showcase pieces that are displayed in protective glass cases. I’ve learned that as long as I keep making a few items as I go along, I never come to a point where I am unprepared for a sales venue or unable to offer a few new designs to my customers. Practicing my jewelry craft on a regular basis, attending jewelry making workshops to increase my skills, and studying gemology has all combined to make me a reasonably successful artisan jeweler.

Writing, as it turns out, follows a similar business model. To be a successful writer, you need to write something every day to sharpen your skills. I schedule time to work on my novel a few days each week and consider it as I would the time I put in on complex jewelry items. A long term fiction novel takes more time to dream up, to figure out the connections between the characters, and to create a satisfying experience for the reader. On days when I am not working on my novel, I am writing posts for No Wasted Ink or articles for magazines. I consider these works to be like the simpler jewelry pieces, they are popular with the public, I sell a great many of them, but they don’t take quite as much mental exercise as a complex focal piece. Between these projects and commenting on forums and blogs, I tend to write for a few hours every single day. Writing is like breathing. It is what I do.

If you don’t have a blog to spur you to write on a regular basis, the next best thing is to start a journal and use writing prompts to fire up your creativity and hone your writing skills. Your journal can be on your computer or perhaps in a paper bound book such as a Moleskine. No one needs to see your short exercises, but if you have an inspiring day, that prompt could be the beginning to a good short story, novel or article. Your daily writing habit does not need to be long, perhaps a few hundred words at best. You’ll find that as you write, over time your word count will increase and finding topics or stories to write about will be easier.

The following are online sources for writing prompts.

Creative Writing Ink

The-One-Minute Writer

Short Story Ideas

The Write Prompts

The Journal