One Pen One Month Challenge

[sandy101]

I've tried using my #3776 today and find that my hand has got used to the heavier pen, and I'm having to readjust my grip to get neater handwriting.

 

I didn't anticipate this.

[ralfstc]

And I'm finished too! Here are my few lessons.

 

The first is that if a pen isn't working the way you'd like it too, nothing is better for getting motivated to fix it than having to use it. I got the Onoto working very nicely, though it's broader than I usually used. Which leads to lesson two. I used a lot more pencil this month than usual. When you have one pen, and it's the way it is, then you definitely accommodate to it in lots of ways. One was doing a full empty and refill for the trip to Copenhagen, another was using the pencil when I wanted precision. The third lesson was that I actually feel a little silly now for having all these pens. I think more than one is reasonable, especially if they are mid-tier, but I have well over twenty, and as someone who aspires not to be a collector, that's indefensible. And a fourth lesson was that I prefer 1950s-70s pens to the earlier one. The 51 collector, Tintomatik feed and so on made pens HUGELY more reliable as everyday instruments.

 

The way to the pure Zen experience, it seems to me, is not to keep buying pens in the hope that the next one will be perfect, it's to focus on a few, or even one, that's pretty good and satisfies you.

 

The next challenge, and it'll take more than a month, is to narrow down to focus on just those pens.

 

Thanks everybody, this was great.

 

Ralf

[przeklasa]

Okay, I did it!!!!!! I touched ONLY my modified Jinhao 922 for an entire month. I wrote with this pen every single day for the past 31 days. I had my pen clipped to my body somewhere every day all day long so it was right there, at the ready, when I needed to jot a note or write a paragraph. This pen is modified to hold about 1.5 ml of ink in a hybrid converter/ink sac and the nib (I will hand grind a nib to get it to what I want it to be) writes an ink line width of 0.25 mm on Clairefontaine paper. I use J. Herbin Perle Noire, a black ink that makes my skinny nib write smoother than any other black ink I've tried...even smoother than Aurora Black.

Please keep in mind that I use fountain pens like other people use ball point pens. I usually have 6 or 8 pens inked. I use my fountain pens for everything, everywhere, anytime! For instance, the past 15 days was especially hectic for me. I drove from New Mexico to Idaho to see the eclipse. A few days later I flew to Phoenix (it was 107 degrees F.) and then drove back home. A couple days after that I went to the Colorado mountains to camp for a few days. Yes, my Jinhao was clipped to me during all this and was used in situations and conditions somewhat hostile to fountain pens. So my daily writer, knock-about, always clipped to my shirt and at the ready pens are very low cost pens. Though the pens are low cost, they are wonderful writers. I enjoy making them write far better than the purchase price would indicate. I know cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but I can get a $1.20 pen to write very, very nicely.

So during the past month I was able to write on all paper I encountered. The skinny nib made that possible. I don't see how a wide Fine or especially a Medium nib can be used on a daily basis because the ink line width of my skinny nib widened considerably on cheap, absorbent paper. A wider nib would not work well at all on some of the "newspaper" paper I came across this past month. Also, bleed-through was pretty much a non-issue. For daily use, and when you can't choose the paper, a skinny nib is better.

I am SO familiar with this pen now. I know how it feels in the hand. I know how the nib feels on paper of various quality. I know pretty much how long the ink in the pen will last. I know how the pen wants me to hold it. I know how the nib wants me to touch it to the paper. After using this pen exclusively every day, several times a day for a month, I realize the pen instructed me how to use it properly to get the very best from it.

I do believe the most important lesson I learned from this experiment is that I cannot get the best from any new pen until I use that pen exclusively for some extended period of time...one week is the absolute minimum and the longer the better. Another very important lesson especially for me is I should not smooth the nib until I use the pen for a while. One of my faults is I tend to work on a nib to get it as smooth as possible far too soon. I need to be much more patient and see if the nib is already perfect from the factory and that I simply need to adjust my hand to the pen.

I have a lot of work ahead of me. I have many pens to revisit and re-evaluate. There are pens in my box that need a second look, a second chance. I need to give these pens enough time to teach me how to best write with them. Sometimes the problem is not with the pen, it is with the writer.

Thank you, Sandy 101!! I learned a lot.

[MsRedpen]

Bumping the thread up (thanks to Sandy101 for opening it more than a year ago, great read and great learning experience).

 

I am picking up July this year for One pen one month challenge.

 

Any new / old members who will give a try?

[sandy101]

Yes, I was starting to think the same thing. Having used a modern piston filler last year, maybe I should go for a P51, so I have a valid form of comparison. However, being left handed - I find the grip or the feel of the parker 51 doesn't work so well for me. Am I the only one? I have a P51 that came with a "squint" nib - the nib isn't dead centre to the tip - and I get on much better with it.

[Calabria]

I'm thinking of giving this a go. I am off for holidays August 4 - September 4, which is a month. I usually pick one pen for travels, but also take a backup (like a Safari) for shopping lists etc. What is interesting to me is the "emotional connection" to a tool that Ralf mentions. I have that connection to my bike and watch ... but with pens I keep switching. I did use a M605 for most of last summer when I was relocating from New York to San Diego, and that intense time has created a bond between me and that pen that can't be replaced.

 

Question: Will I choose a pen that I already rely on, or will I select a new pen that may be unreliable which I'll have to deal with (I have a M605 with a nos OM nib which would be fun to bond with - just adjusting to the nib will take practice - and I also have a Lamy dialog 3 in the mail which is interesting but notoriously finicky, uncomfortable to write with, and probably leaks on planes)?

 

I always imagine every new pen to be a possible "lifestyle companion" (as Lamy marketing literature puts it) - part of an essential watch/wallet/phone combo. But no pen has actually made it that far (except for short periods of time).

 

Inspired by the narrative of this thread moderated by Sandy, I'll think about my relationship to pens this summer. I'll start the next few weeks by letting the 12 pens currently inked run out. That alone should be a nice contemplative warm up.

 

Derek

[sharonspens]

Good luck with this. I did it last year, and enjoyed the opportunity to get to know one pen better.

 

I currently am in the midst of the opposite challenge - 30 inks in 30 days (#30inks30days). I have more than enough ink to pull this one off easily; I could probably do it with 30 different pens if I put my mind to it (I didn't choose to do that).

 

Sharon in Indiana

Edited June 18, 2018 by sharonspens

[Karmachanic]

Kinda reminds me of when I used one camera, one lens and one film for 10 years.

[DrDebG]

While there are many great reasons to do this, I just don't have the discipline. When I am journaling each morning, I can't even stick to one pen for one hour, let alone one pen for a month. I generally have 20-30 pens inked at a time.

 

Actually, now that I think about, I may have tried this sometime back. I think I lasted about 3 days.

[DrDebG]

After 15 days, I'm finding the weight of the MB to be less of a problem than before - I've gotten used to it. It was something I was concerned about, but using the pen everyday seems to have somehow resolved this issue. What I'm missing most is not other pens, but other inks.

 

This is making me think about attitudes towards pens.

 

A lot of us here spend a considerable amount of time trying to find the right pen - and we measure this by thinking about the pens we already have, and what qualities they have, or don't have. Based upon this experiment so far - the pen you already have may be the ideal pen - you just need to invest some time with it and your initial impressions through the first few days of use will change after a couple of weeks.

 

Of course, there are many reasons for owning more than one pen and I don't want to discourage anyone from keeping their collections going, but if your main objective is to have something that writes well, then perhaps it is more important to invest time in the pens you have to develop a better relationship with them, rather than buy more hoping to find "the one" that will make up for the perceived deficiencies of the ones you have already bought. Some of these "deficiencies" will iron themselves out through extended use.

 

It might be good advice for newbies. Buy one (decent) pen and use it for a month or so before you buy anything else. You might find that one pen is all you need.

 

Hmmm . . . this is really good advice. I may have to give this a second chance. Maybe I will start slowly. One pen for the entire day . . . then maybe one pen for a week. Perhaps in a year or so, I can graduate to one pen a month.

 

I am not making fun here. I really do think this is a good idea. If anything, I am making fun of myself.

[ENewton]

I'll participate, starting on July 1.

[wags]

We could do it during lent. Maybe only allow the use of pencils on fridays. Then we could all do pen-ance.

[JulieParadise]

What a horrible idea to only use one pen for a whole month. All his rejected and neglected friends would stare at me and cry and weep. Nope. Not for me.

 

I do think, though, that using a pen for a while and giving it time -- writing time and touching time and inspecting it closely, smelling (seriously, some pens smell funny) and getting to know how it reacts to different inks and papers -- is a valuable thing. I just could not pare it down to less than 2-4 pens at a time for different tasks like long form writing, colourful headers, a flex pen for fun, one for my wallet (Liliput) and maybe one for drawing (Platinum Carbon Desk Pen). Reducing to 1 would take a lot of the fun out for me.

[praxim]

I have too many pens yet untried by me, or written once at best, to waste time refilling a single pen so it lasted a month. This is just a different stage or state of affairs, not a rejection of the idea in other circumstances.

[minddance]

I have been living quite happily with a Pelikano (not the twist grip, I can't stand that) for quite some time, maybe 2-3weeks? Boring, I know, but works. I had a hard time trying to adjust it to write wetter on grainy copier papers due to the hardness and narrow slit on the nib. I guess I will keep it inked. Does not preserve inks as well as higher end Pelikans, I find.

[BorisoftheStars]

Sign me up! I have got me some summer ink, so Juy sounds best to me. This challenge is rather easy for me to do because I currently use one pen. (I'm waiting to get the brass sheets, and I need to get a journal for my Jinhao since the current journal I do have is not fountain friendly.... well... some fountain pen friendly journals are not compatible with some pens/inks... I'll retry with my journal and jinhao.)

[Krulle]

I'm in ... I only have one ...

you can choose any month.

[wallylynn]

Been using my Hero 616 for a few months. Maybe I'll swap next month.

[Torrilin]

I have others inked, but my Kaweco sport has been the pen in my pocket since about May. Got me through planning an international move and all the paperwork involved. Light as a feather, a fine nib that writes like an xf, and uses international carts. Since the big move was to Germany that has come in handy.

[pajaro]

No matter which pen you choose to use, this is an interesting practice to try. I did this before, and I am trying it now with a Lamy 2000 extra fine.