On pens and morning pages
Over a year ago, I decided that I should work through the pens and notebooks that I have laying around. I had a bunch of inexpensive Hilroy notebooks, the ones you’d buy for back to school in junior high school. There were Bic pens, a few rollerballs, and a Parker Jotter in my desk drawer. Slowly, I’ve been using them up.
The paper of the notebooks isn’t great but ballpoints work well enough with it, so that’s what I’ve been using for my morning pages. I got myself a Clairfontaine notebook – my favourite notebook – on Sunday and am excited to use it. I still need about 70 days of morning pages to get through the latest Hilroy I started. My impatience got the better of me, so I thought a good compromise would be to use a fountain pen.
This morning, I decided to pull out a fountain pen I got at Muji several years ago. Instead of using one I’ve made or a Lamy, Cross, or Faber-Castell, I chose the Muji because it’s a dry pen. That is, the ink flows quite slowly from the nib. It scratches across the paper. Most importantly, the ink doesn’t bleed too much.
It wasn’t a great writing experience. Changing pens is always an adjustment. Still, it was nice change, even though I made myself a nice ballpoint pen only last week. It’s a strange commitment to make, I suppose, but the experience of writing is part of the process.
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