Fountain pen adventures
Sep. 16th, 2022 07:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
onepageatatimeSo… I've recently started getting into fountain pens… and today was another learning experience.
My first four pen purchases have been very good ones: the fifth, less so. One of my pens has been maddening in its frustration. It just hasn't written consistently for me. So… I've used it for a tiny amount of writing each day and then set it aside for the pens that work better for me.
Today, I thought: I should spend a page just using this frustrating and mostly-neglected pen to see if I can coax anything out of it. And… I did. I found that, in my main notebook, that pen works much better when I write in cursive than when printing. That was a surprise. Once I'd written a couple of paragraphs like that, I attempted to switch back to print, doing what I could to hold the pen as similarly as when I wrote in cursive and… it didn't really work much better.
And then… I thought it was the perfect opportunity for me to try out a page in the notebook I bought a while back in a local store (especially since it has perforated pages, so if I later use that notebook for a specific purpose, I can remove this page). And… I could feel the difference immediately from the paper. Because it had worked so well in the other notebook, I started out in the new one in cursive. And then when I had written a line or two to get used to the new paper, I switched back to print… and it worked!
So, after this test, my suspicion is: this pen does not like the toothiness of the paper in the notebooks I've been using. It will work better on smoother paper. (At least, in my hand.) So, I will be able to use it more, having figured this out. I know some of that may change, if I put a different ink in it.
I'm somewhat relieved, because while it was a relatively cheap pen, it was of a brand that makes much more expensive pens, so it was bewildering that it could feel almost unusable (even allowing for corner-cutting in production for the lower price point). It is a reminder of what I have seen mentioned in fountain pen forums that there is a triad of pen, ink, and paper: that changing any of the three changes the writing and the experience of it. It is one reason I hadn't given up on the pen completely yet: because I knew it might behave differently with a different ink in it.
Now… I guess I should see what the pens I've already enjoyed do on this notebook's paper!
My first four pen purchases have been very good ones: the fifth, less so. One of my pens has been maddening in its frustration. It just hasn't written consistently for me. So… I've used it for a tiny amount of writing each day and then set it aside for the pens that work better for me.
Today, I thought: I should spend a page just using this frustrating and mostly-neglected pen to see if I can coax anything out of it. And… I did. I found that, in my main notebook, that pen works much better when I write in cursive than when printing. That was a surprise. Once I'd written a couple of paragraphs like that, I attempted to switch back to print, doing what I could to hold the pen as similarly as when I wrote in cursive and… it didn't really work much better.
And then… I thought it was the perfect opportunity for me to try out a page in the notebook I bought a while back in a local store (especially since it has perforated pages, so if I later use that notebook for a specific purpose, I can remove this page). And… I could feel the difference immediately from the paper. Because it had worked so well in the other notebook, I started out in the new one in cursive. And then when I had written a line or two to get used to the new paper, I switched back to print… and it worked!
So, after this test, my suspicion is: this pen does not like the toothiness of the paper in the notebooks I've been using. It will work better on smoother paper. (At least, in my hand.) So, I will be able to use it more, having figured this out. I know some of that may change, if I put a different ink in it.
I'm somewhat relieved, because while it was a relatively cheap pen, it was of a brand that makes much more expensive pens, so it was bewildering that it could feel almost unusable (even allowing for corner-cutting in production for the lower price point). It is a reminder of what I have seen mentioned in fountain pen forums that there is a triad of pen, ink, and paper: that changing any of the three changes the writing and the experience of it. It is one reason I hadn't given up on the pen completely yet: because I knew it might behave differently with a different ink in it.
Now… I guess I should see what the pens I've already enjoyed do on this notebook's paper!
(no subject)
Date: 9/17/22 01:23 am (UTC)