What Do You Write?

[musicman123]

As a student, I tend to take lots of notes. I started doing notes on my iPad this year, but have regressed back to fountain pens after starting the hobby. I also scribble out stuff that come up onto half-sheets of paper, most of which are tossed if unneeded. I tend to go through a lot of ink doing pen/nib modifications, so that is also a big chunk of my writing done. Lastly, I recently started to pick up pen pals and have been writing lots of letters to people these days!

[Mindy]

I love this thread! I bought my fountain pens for my journal that I bought in early November of 2014. I also write elaborate notes in note cards late at night that come from the heart. People often tell me how I touched them with my words. I love that. There's something about a handwritten message instead of something typed up. I do thank you cards also. "The power of a thank you." I heard that once over the years.

 

I recently bought a bunch of colored gel pens to mark up my journal to find and highlight certain places. What I'd like to do is get MORE (yes more) fountain pens and have different colors. At least I'd like to have red, blue (I have already), and I don't know. Anybody ever do that with their journals? Ideally I'd like to color code but I don't know what I would need to do. So maybe I'll just get colorful in a random way!

 

A bullet journal sounds interesting. But I've found so many ways on how I can eliminate the use of pen and paper with an iPad, iPhone, and laptop. Now I will have to reverse engineer those processes in my head!! And yes, I have Scrivener! But I have yet to use it. I'm an aspiring social science fiction writer.

 

NOTE:

About editing, when I type on a computer, I have this nasty habit of editing as I go. I know this is a no-no. But I hate the idea of a piece of writing being littered with mistakes. So when I take pen to paper, I am not so strict. And I make LOTS of mistakes! I'm a bad speller and I don't stop to look up any words.

 

This is such a fun site! A fun topic. I love to write. Thank you.

[JLZenor]

Finally I like writing out bible verses as a good way to memorize.

Amazing idea... I should do this when practicing my handwriting.

[JimCouch]

The main thing I use my pens for is (near) daily journal writing. It is really the journal writing that got me back into fountain pens (I used them in high school.) I also use them for letter and card writing to friends and family. I occasionally will use them at work for note taking, but due to the nature of my work do not use them daily at work. At home I pretty much use them for everything, notes, lists, writing appointments and my work schedule in my calendar.

[Maurizio]

As much as possible with my fountain pens. For everday writing such as to do lists or anything else. I keep an index card in my pocket every day to jot down quick notes, addresses, phone numbers etc.

 

Even though I have an iPad, I still like to draft any work I produce with pen on paper 1st. I find I think better "on paper" than "on screen". As a lawyer I draft all of my work product on paper - letters and other legal writing to the court and adversaries, notes during client meetings, notes taken during depositions, and, notes while on trial. Trial is tricky because you don't want to use a pen the jury percieves as silly expensive or ostentatious and therefore hold it against you - you can never tell what can turn a jury's mind. Thus after some trial and error, I now use a matte black Pilot Vanishing Point at trial. The pen is understated, not flashy, and has such a small nib that from a distance it just looks like a generic roller ball or ball point.

I'm not a pen collector, just a user and have only about 10 pens; but I certainly couldn't take my Aurora Talentum black & gold to trial, nor my Falcons, my Custom 74, my Shaeffer Connaisseur or any of my other pens to trial. In my opinion, to the average non-fountain pen person, these pens are all "fancy" and expensive.

I also use my fountain pens to send notes to clients and others on nice notepaper.

 

 

Writing with a fountain pen makes my work a pleasant experience. I have only recently discovered sugarcane based legal pads and they have increased my writing pleasure at work greatly. Most legal pads are terrible for fountain pens. I now use Canefields legal pads, in white, so my ink color shows nicely (I believe they come from India or from a consortium including India); I get them from Amazon. Staples and Office Depot also have sugarcane legal pads but not usually stocked on their brick & morter shelves.

 

At home I use my pens for almost nightly sessions of handwriting practice. I feel that if you've going to use a fountain pen, you should at least have somewhat decent writing. My awful cursive writing has improved quite a bit since I started consciounly trying to improve it a couple of years ago.

Edited April 28, 2015 by Maurizio

[requiescat]

Alas, I'm moving away from fountain pens at the moment except for brief notes when brainstorming/outlining (I'm a writer, mostly). Currently I have some game coding projects going and those are much easier to handle on the computer than trying to write them out with a fountain pen (or in longhand at all).

 

It probably also doesn't help that I developed a Tomoe River paper habit. It's such beautiful paper, but I can only afford so much of it at a time. I miss the days when I wrote with ballpoints on scrap paper--the backs of discarded printouts and bulletins from school. I wrote most of a novel that way. It was a bad novel, but it taught me that you can do a lot with very cheap materials!

[Sailor Kenshin]

Alas, I'm moving away from fountain pens at the moment except for brief notes when brainstorming/outlining (I'm a writer, mostly). Currently I have some game coding projects going and those are much easier to handle on the computer than trying to write them out with a fountain pen (or in longhand at all).

 

It probably also doesn't help that I developed a Tomoe River paper habit. It's such beautiful paper, but I can only afford so much of it at a time. I miss the days when I wrote with ballpoints on scrap paper--the backs of discarded printouts and bulletins from school. I wrote most of a novel that way. It was a bad novel, but it taught me that you can do a lot with very cheap materials!

 

That's kind of a nostalgic thing for me, too, only with yellow legal pads: writing a short story per week in a leather wing chair at the plush reading room of the library, where I could pretend it was 'my' estate.

[Sasha Royale]

EVERYTHING !

I write all manner of wisdom, being a sage and whatnot.

I also doodle and just enjoy writing words. All day I have

been writing :

"Cannon to the right of them.

Cannon to the lift of them.

Cannon in front of them.

Volleyed and thundered.

Stormed with shot and shell, "

etc. etc. etc.

 

(Do you think it worth publishing, when I'm done ?)

[UDog]

I write the first draft of my novels with a fountain pen and then use Scrivener to transcribe it.

[sexauerw]

I use my fountain pens for almost all writing activities. Grocery lists, todo lists, puzzles, notes, letters, checks, etc. I have a Levenger "Two pens and your glasses" leather case that I carry in my shirt pocket almost every day. Then I tuck 8-12 index cards in behind it and I'm ready for the day.

[deepak23]

Everything.

 

Meeting notes

Notes and memos to co workers

First draft of papers to be published

Shopping lists

Everything...

[basterma]

I write lesson plans mainly. Some notes on meetings and text for assignments and projects.

[Parker51]

For work, voice mails, meeting notes, priority lists, and of course signatures. Also initial drafts of proposals, synopsis and reports.

For fun, Exonomic and Political theory, rants, criticisms and observations. Plus stories, which are the hardest for me to turn from oral storytelling to readable product. In particular dialogue is difficult for me.

[ISW_Kaputnik]

Most of what I write is with fountain pens, even the most casual notes at work or home. Most of my writing is in one of several daily journals, one for home, one for travel, and one for mundane notes on diet and exercise. Somebody gave me a journal with notebook paper but with alphabet tabs on the pages. I'm using it to compile a personal dictionary; when I learn a new word it goes in there (if I don't forget).

 

And like many people, I try my hand at fiction. Nothing that I'm prepared to try publishing yet, maybe never, but I enjoy the exercise.

[gweimer1]

I write just about everything. I suppose it starts with an auto accident in 1981. After recovering, I became aware of short term memory issues, so I started writing things down as a reminder. From there, it just seems to have grown.

 

I keep working journals at work, detailing problems, tasks, upcoming events, meeting notes, etc.

I keep a journal at home, where I usually close out the day with a few thoughts.

Grocery lists, reminders, check book, etc.

 

And, since I've been learning to repair as many types of pen as I can find, I have notebooks of nothing but scribbles testing each pen I get.

[SuperNib44]

I write quite a bit.

 

-school work/ home work, almost always done with a fountain pen

 

-journal

 

-scripture journal

 

-letters (maybe 6-7 a month)

 

-taking notes for giving talks at church

 

-practicing shorthand

 

Probably for other things too. I hardly even give a second thought that I am using a "unusual" writing instrument. Too me a pen is just a tool to write, a very personal tool, but a tool none the less.

[J85909266]

I am an inbound home energy consultant, I take calls all day and have to navigate programs on my monitors while taking notes by hand at the same time. I fill several pages a day with notes and other info.

 

Right now I am favoring 1.1 stub nibs. Makes my notes pretty.

[BillPorter]

Some posters got into fountain pens as a result of journaling. I got into journaling as a result of starting the fountain pen hobby. I've been retired for 10 years and am always on the lookout for new projects and/or hobbies. I was into microscopy quite intensely for about a year but suddenly lost interest in it last August. A few months ago I "revived" a couple of fountain pens that had been sitting in a drawer for years and sent off an old Sheaffer snorkel pen that had belonged to my dad for repair. Well, if you're going to take up fountain pens as a hobby, and you're not interested in just collecting them, you have to start writing stuff. The obvious solution was to start a journal, which I did. And then when I am fiddling with some of the cheap Chinese pens I've bought recently, I write and scribble to test my adjustment to the nibs. And I'm enjoying testing out different inks, so again, I have to write notes, letters, and journal entries to test them out.

[JLZenor]

And I'm enjoying testing out different inks, so again, I have to write notes, letters, and journal entries to test them out.

I'm running into that problem too. I have some ink samples I'm trying to test out, which means I need to write more!

[gweimer1]

It's pretty typical for me to use at least three separate colors of ink in a normal day. I did that with ballpoints, and it hasn't changed.