Who should use fountain pen?
Manage episode 355824750 series 3416384
When I used to write, I always used rollerball pens with the brand Onyx. Not only was I a complete addict, but I also had this obsessive compulsive disorder in which I required a new one to be in my possession at all times. Using these pens, I would write in clean block letters on eye-ease paper, which was one of my favorite ways to take notes. To summarize, I was losing out on something.
Keyboards are used for a significant portion of our writing processes these days. Even when I was a student carrying around those God-awful rollerballs, I would take my notes home at the end of the day and write them up on my computer. I make the most of my living writing these days, and especially during the pandemic, and in order to do it, I need to utilize a keyboard since I am either working in a screenplay format in Final Draft or I am writing in a Google Doc for a client's review.
Both of these forms of communication are valid, but there is something special about the way one's thoughts flow when they are recorded in a blank notebook with a writing implement. To put it simply, it's not the same as banging away at a keyboard. There is a difference that can be felt in the gut, a quality that is ingrained very deeply in the mind.
I use notebooks for all of my brainstorming sessions. I have a large number of boxes full of them, some of which date back decades. I find it helpful to write out my thoughts in longhand on paper. Perhaps a portion of this is attributable to the seven years that I spent obtaining a formal education in art, or perhaps it's just something that everyone goes through. I can't say. My point of view is that writing should not be a laborious activity. Writing by hand using a pen ought to be a pleasurable experience for the writer. Because of this, I prefer to write using fountain pens.
What factors led to the decline in popularity of the fountain pen?
First, a brief bit of history. Fountain pens have only been around for a very short period of time. They didn't appear on the scene until the latter half of the 1800s. The first ones were what we now refer to as "eye-dropper pens," which had to be properly filled with ink using an eye-dropper, and those pens spilled like crazy. The second type of pen was what we now refer to as a "ballpoint pen," which was much more reliable. It wasn't until the very late 1890s that pens with internal bladders were first developed, and by the late 20th century, there were many different kinds of devices for storing ink, such as pistons, vacuums, sacks, cartridges, and so on.
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