As a writer you know your tools are important to you. The type of paper you use, the format you use it in, the ease of typing on your keyboard. The amount of memory on your computer. All these things we pay attention to and once we have it set, you forget about it. That is until it breaks down.
I find myself facing such a predicament now. Not with my computer, keyboard, paper or even my desk, but with my pen.
I remember when I first got this pen. It was when I was going through a rough patch of trying to force myself to write on a computer. Only to find myself overcome with anxiety and panic at the very thought of pressing the keys. So I figured why not go back to basics. Hence pen and paper. However, upon using the regular ballpoint pens (most likely liberated from various offices). I found it unsatisfactory and actually frustrating.
Why, you ask? After all, a pen is a pen.
Well turns out that isn’t exactly true. Pens, although they were originally invented in the 1st millennium BCE by the Chinese in the form of a brush eventually evolving into the modern day, commonly used writing tool, known colloquially as a pen (Britannica). They are not all the same.
Of course you can tell that by looking at them. However, the ease at which one is able to write with the different pens is what makes the difference. I learned this when faced with the knowledge that the pen I was using caused more friction with the paper than was necessary. Resulting in me having to slow down my writing speed and use more pressure to get the ink to stay on the page. I had to figure out how to fix the issue or deal with daily hand cramps.
Hence research, of which I am not going to repeat. Needless to say if you want to know more about pens all you have to do is search, what makes pens different from each other. If you are not careful you will fall into a wormhole of ballpoint vs. gel vs. foundation and the differences between their various inks.
As for me, going through all this information only left me with one determination. To go to the store buy one of each of the cheap sample packs of black pens (because I only write in black) and test each one out. Then from that point on only buy the one that works.
So I did and that is how I ended up with my current favorite Pilot Precise V5 RT. I know it sounds like a fancy sports car, doesn’t it? Like driving a high performance sports car, writing with this pen feels like a dream. It just flows across the page. No friction and no smudging. I could read my words written with it, with ease. Additionally words written with it have yet to fade. It has lasted for over a year and it is only now as it comes to the end of its life that I am realizing just how integral this pen has been to my writing.
Although it is only a tool. It is a tool that has helped me to complete many stories and overcome writer’s block. It is a tool that helped in making writing by hand a joy. It did its job so well that it is only now, that the end is near, and I once more have to deal with the friction of the page, the slowing down of the words and, the need to add pressure to release the last dredges of ink that I realize just how much I love this pen. So much so that I am scheming on how I can get to the store to get another one and how many to buy so that I never again have to run into the situation of having to stop writing because my favorite pen is out of commission.
Do you have a tool that helps make your life easier? What is it and how did you find it? Tell me about it in the comments below.
The second installment of Happy Hills and Forlorn Fields have been posted on WattPad.
Here is the image of Mrs. Honker yelling that I created for Part 2.
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