F is for Fountain Pens

From bottom to top, a Lamy 2000, a ‘Cult Pen’ by Kaweco and a Limited Edition Charles Dickens Meisterstuck from Montblanc.

I had not written with a fountain pen in years. My writing buddy Amanda and I were swapping emails on notebooks and she was focused on paper quality, something to which I had never given much thought. Intrigued, I looked out the Montblanc which had been bought years ago at a charity auction. I began writing some notes.

Disappointingly, my handwriting is still terrible. So terrible that I have bought myself ‘Improve your Hand-writing’ by Rosemary Sassoon & Gunnlaugur Se Briem.

It’s a work in progress.

There is something wonderful about writing with a proper pen. Suddenly, you feel like a writer. An artist. It is quite peculiar really. Another benefit of a fountain pen is that it helps suppress your inner editor. Writing my first draft on a computer, I found myself endlessly deleting words and rewriting sentences. Fountain pens have no backspace. Crossing out very quickly becomes a mess – so I don’t. The words just keep flowing out. When ready – I can go back and edit where necessary.

I am enjoying it so much, I have started writing letters. Real letters. For any younger readers, a letter is a kind of analogue e-mail. Back in the dark ages, before the internet (yes, there was a time before the internet) people used to write emails, put them into a kind of paper bag called an envelope, and throw them into a box at the end of the street. Several days later, the email would be delivered to the house of the person to whom you sent it (a bit like getting a package from Amazon). Who knew?

Obviously, it is a much slower mode of communication, just as writing with a fountain pen is slower – but sometimes, slow is good.