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It's been less than a year since I started using a fountain pen in my daily life and I'm always carrying a ballpoint for cheap paper situations. But I use single - use ballpoints like BIC and pilot supergrip G, which result in hand fatigue (I'm pretty susceptible to it and that's why I started using FP). Any suggestions for comfortable ballpoints? Being refillable will be a nice characterisitic.

While searching through my father's old stationary box I found 3 parker ballpoint pens and while all of them look like jotters, they have some interesting deifferences. The first one is all metal, with a medium refill, made in France and does'nt have the logo on the push button, the second one is half plastic-half metal with a medium refill and made in the USA and has the arrow logo on the push button. The third one is all metal, is slimmer than the other 2, has a fine refill, is made in the UK and has the P logo on the push button. All of them come from the same 3-pen case. Any ideas about these models?

After writing with ballpoint pens almost exclusively since third grade, I decided recently to learn how to use fountain pens. I find that there are a few habits I need to break: Pressing down too hard on the paper – My pen makes a good clear line with almost no pressure at all, which is less tiring, but still an adjustment to make. I’m one of those people the mirror image of whose writing can be seen embossed on the back of the paper. If I were an old-time secretary who had to make multiple copies of what she wrote using carbon paper, this would be a good thing. In these days of Xerox machines, not so good. Holding the pen too close to the point- My hand always migrates down toward the point as I write (probably part & parcel of pressing down too hard). With an FP, that means inky fingers. Good thing my Safari is shaped so that there is a little ledge near the end of the barrel. When this starts digging into my fingers I know I have to move back up. Letting the pen rotate in my hand- I found out pretty quickly that the nib has to face up toward the ceiling and the feed toward the paper or the FP won’t write. With ballpoints I didn’t even know I was turning the pen. Despite the Safari’s triangular barrel, I still manage to do it. Weird, huh?Others who may be transitioning, what habits did you have to break?