That Bywater chap again independent.co.uk/arts-enter … 09252.html
Good article, too. My two favourite pens:
Metafilter people like scrivener too.
ask.metafilter.com/168448/Do-you … s-Software
Actually, the Independent’s article looks rather negative on Scrivener and other silicon tools. This does not keep it from being a great article, written with a fantastic prose.
Paolo
I didn’t interpret it like that, Paolo, and I don’t think it was intended that way either - the author, Michael Bywater, is a long-standing Scrivener (and Tinderbox) user, and some of his suggestions have gone into 2.0 (as have many users’). His main point - that handwriting is often better for thinking than computers - is fair enough, I think; I hand-write most of my initial ideas in a notebook myself (my only lament being the utter hideousness of my scrawl).
All the best,
Keith
A very nice piece.
“My own experience, too, is that the words come differently from a pen than from a keyboard.” Spot on. I have several treasured fountain pens, one or two inherited; I just wish they didn’t leak in aircraft. And pencils; for some purposes they’re better. I have a favourite Yard-O-Led (sic).
We should start a thread on favourite pens and pencils (but resist the temptation to call them “non-digital writing devices” – as a poster on a previous thread indicated, that’s a self-contradiction, almost Stoppard-worthy).
H
My grandson looked at my Waterman’s with great curiosity. He wanted to Google it and wondered where you put in the PIN number.
I mean, kids miss out on so much. How can you stick out your blue tongue at the prettiest girl in the class just to make her giggle if you don’t have a bottle of Quink handy. Hell, for that matter it means you have to drink water. Kids these days will never know the taste of a fine blue ink or understand the elegance of a Rorschach mystery hidden in a blot.
Sigh***
Interesting article about the increase in sales of fountain pens:
I love this caption:
Those silly birds, how could they be so narrow-minded and ignore the signs of human change? They should have started evolving to smelting steel out of their skin and running India Black for blood.
Interesting reading…I bought fountain pen, decent quality Scheaffer, and started to use it in a moleskin notebook as a journal/diary.
For some reason the ink and paper didn’t agree and each letter looked like a Rorschach blot.
On top of that years of computer usage have left my handwriting in desperate need of help and for some reason my brain makes me start writing two or three characters into a word - so for example “handwriting” would be “ndwriting” until I tried to correct it and then it would become just a mess.
I love the idea of a handwritten private journal created lovingly with a fountain pen but I think some goals are just not achievable for some of us.
It’s worth trying your Moleskine with one of these:
It’s a Pilot Birdie: inexpensive and small enough to attach to the Moleskine with a single elastic band, such as this:
which can be found on any pavement in the United Kingdom because they’re dropped in their millions by British postmen. (Down my way they’re now using white ones, but they’re just as suitable.)
Sadly, Moleskine paper, though all right for the Birdie, is too thin and absorbent for the likes of Sheaffers and Watermans. Perhaps it was thicker in Ernest’s day:
.
H
Have you tried the cornflower blue sketchbook variety? It has thicker stock and so fewer pages (but still plenty of them), and in my experience the tooth and density of the paper is perfect for handling even the most freeflowing nib. The writing stock notebooks have smoother paper, so they don’t grab the nib as well, and yes—ink just goes right through it, even with a gel pen.
I’ve heard that the paper used in Rhodia notebooks (the orange ones) is better for fountain pens than Moleskine, and then there are more obscure brands which are harder to find yet even better than Rhodia.
I’ve found that “drawing” paper is generally better for fountain pens than “writing” paper. So look for “sketchbooks” rather than “notebooks.”
On the other hand, don’t assume that you have to spend a lot. I write almost all of my first drafts on generic OfficeMax legal pads, and they work great with no blurring or bleedthrough.
Katherine
I’m a fan of Rhodia notepads. $5 for a nice thick bundle of perforated high quality sheets of paper.
Just bought a 5.8x8.3 inch rhodia “dot” notebook. I’m sold. I have read that they were (are?) having trouble with new inks for their lines/grids since they moved to a more eco-friendly variety. But if you’re buying off of a rack, you can pick and choose.
But the paper! For 5 bucks, I’ve got a nice notebook that doesn’t let my fountain pen bleed through. I’ve loved my moleskine notebooks, but now I can’t see going back to them.
I can heartily recommend Smythson notebooks for use with fountain pens (the paper is actually designed for, and every batch extensively tested for suitability). You don’t need to get the very expensive bound ones either: they sell leather A4 and A5 pad holders, and refill pads. I use the refill pads by themselves as I think they look perfectly lovely by themselves with their thin pale blue leaves and the gold gilt edges, and the extra bulk of the binder would just take up needless space in my bag, and give me something else to worry about scratching or otherwise marking.
Okay, as A4 refill pads go they are pretty pricey, but the pleasure they give me when writing with one of my Waterman Gentleman fountain pens with medium nibs (sadly long discontinued, but I pick them up on eBay when I can find them and have them reconditioned.