Category Archives: Writing

The Best Laid Plans Abandoned Again

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I had a plan. Actually, I have a plan, and it’s a good plan except I’ve never been able to put it into action.

The plan is to write these posts earlier in the evening when I’m still feeling the effects of afternoon coffee and have the energy to dedicate to writing and editing, and to taking and editing photos if necessary. It’s all very simple and would allow me more time to read in the evening and get me away from screens before bed.

Unfortunately, that’s not always how things work out; or, more specifically, that not always how I work things.

First there’s the problem of working after work which is a difficult thing to do. My normal habit is to plop down at the computer and do absolutely nothing useful for an hour or so.

(Note: according to my definition “or so” can last anywhere from two hours up to several hours.)

If I’m really looking to waste time and or get frustrated at nothing, I might play a few matches or so in an online game. If the matches go well the “or so” might only be a half hour. If they don’t well, “or so” happens and I either play longer or rage quit. After rage quitting I might actually get some writing done, but none toward these posts.

Eventually we have supper and that’s followed by the nightly ritual of “Arguing With the Genius Teenager Who Knows Everything but Hears Nothing.” The arguments typically involve proper use of an Asus Tablet during study time. (Note: for me there is no proper use.) This typically ends in a victory for me but it’s annoying enough that I need to read something and end up putting off these posts.

Eventually I sit down to write these posts. That process involves 20 minutes or so of staring at the screen going “okay, so now what?” Eventually something gets written.

Next week the goal is to implement a new habit to write these posts earlier and then post them early.

It’s a good plan. The trouble is, it’s lot like all the ones that have come before. Also, I might have  a new, for me at least, Asus Tablet to play with and that could complicate things.

Every Day is Vaguely the Same

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If you ever want to verify that you need to shake things up in your life, keep a diary. If you want to make the sameness even more horrifying, try keeping a log in different colored inks.

I’ve mentioned before how I’m not a big fan of keeping a diary (with apologies to all my history professors who consider such items to be an important part of history which is why I hope historians will some day find my diary and wonder if I could actually fly) but have decided to experiment with keeping a daily log, where I record events and my thoughts on them soon after they happen. To do so, I use different colored inks for different events. Weather is usually done in Noodler’s Midway Blue and Apache Sunset and my morning routing and morning pages are done in either purple or green.

This not only gives the log some visual flair but also lets me test different inks and pens on the Muji paper.

Now, at four months of making regular entries, I’ve begun to notice flaws in the plan.

Part of the trouble is I only have a few inks. After several days, each page looks similar to the ones before and after and I even seem to dedicate the same amount of space to the same events, including meals and complaining about work. This means despite my efforts to make it interesting have instead made it kind of boring.

Also, because my work days don’t change much from week to week, it’s easy to fall into a foolish consistency in the way I describe them and complain about them. Classes are either crappy, ordinary bad, decent or better than normal. I’m wasting time, fretting over wasting time, writing about wasting time or, on occasion, actually doing something. It’s the same “Okay day” metronome click click click that made me stop keeping diaries in the first place.

Now, there are a few solutions to this:

A–Buy more ink.
B–Try different ways of keeping a log.
C–Both A and B.
D–A and B plus buy a new pen.
E–Abandon this and keep a calendar like a normal person.

As much as I should probably choose E and would like an excuse to choose D, I’m leaning toward C. I do like having a personal history on hand to occasionally peruse, but since the log is supposed to be an experiment, I’m feeling the need to shake it up a bit. No more descriptions of food, I’d rather draw what I ate. No more sloppy sketches of the weather, I’d rather make the sun into a character with regular expressions and a consistent look.

Hopefully, in four months, I won’t have chosen E, but there are days.

Backpocket Journal (Tomoe River Edition)–Long Term Review

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I don’t remember where I heard about Curnow Bookbinding and Leatherwork’s Backpocket Journals, but once I did, I ordered a few packs of their Tomoe River editions. That was the first problem.

Curnow seems to be a casually run business that generally only sells stuff that’s available (it apparently will take special orders, though) and does so through an oddly complicated process:

They announce what’s available.
You email them and tell them what you want.
They tell you the price including shipping.
You respond and agree to the price.
They send you a PayPal invoice.
You pay.
They send you notebooks.

It took a few extra steps, but they arrived with no problems.

It took a few extra steps, but they arrived with no problems. Each order has three notebooks and a lined insert.

Once this process is over, you end up with three well made notebooks. Backpocket Journals are 3.5 inches (8.89 cm) by 5.25 inches (13.36 cm). This puts them halfway between a passport and a Field Notes notebook. The ones I ordered had rounded corners and cream card stock covers. They have sewn bindings that hold 48 pages of unlined fountain pen friendly Tomoe River paper).

A Backpocket Journal sandwiched between a passport sized MUJI notebook and a Field Notes notebook.

A Backpocket Journal sandwiched between a passport sized MUJI notebook (top) and a Field Notes notebook (bottom).

The Tomoe River paper makes the notebook thinner and flimsier than a Field Notes notebook. At first I was unimpressed because, although they are gorgeous, the Backpockets feel too flimsy to last. The one I used, though, survived over a month in my pocket and my bag with few problems. The only visible signs of wear were some wrinkles, black scuff marks on the cream card stock paper and small tears around the holes for the binding thread. The thinness makes them well suited for backpockets as they conform to any shape back end.

Only perfectionist fountain pen users will dislike the paper. There is the typical ghosting that comes with Tomoe River paper, but only Noodler’s Apache Sunset managed to bleed through, although it didn’t mark the following page. Curnow includes a lined card to serve as backing. I personally never used this as it was just something else to carry, but it does provide a good book mark and adds just a touch of rigidity to the notebook when you’re writing without a hard surface.

I like them a lot and will add them to my rotation of notebooks (I’m using about one a month now) but I’m not sure I’ll get any more, especially as I already have a lot of pocket sized notebooks. I would like to try one of the regular edition Backpocket Journals to see how it holds up, but we’ll see.

The notebooks fresh out of the post.

The notebooks fresh out of the post.

 

 

Abandoning that Paper Thing and Hoping the Batteries Last

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Well, maybe it was a waste of time after all.

I’ve written before about my odd (to most normal people) habit/hobby of constructing my own analogue calendars, entering the dates by hand and then crossing off the days as I go along. It takes a couple hours of work (plus or minus several minutes of swearing at various complications) to get it more or less how I want it.

Have fun now, because your days are probably numbered. No pun intended.

Have fun now, because your days are probably numbered. No pun intended. (No, really, they are numbered.)

Normally I carry it around and scribble To Do lists and random daily tasks and record correspondence and then use it as reference to remind me where I was and when. In the past I also kept all my calendars as a reference.  For the record, on one occasion I actually had to refer to them to establish the most likely possible day the term would end and summer would begin allowing a colleague to make travel plans. (Therefore hoarding, for want of a better word, is good. Hoarding  works.)

I also mentioned, though, that I’d also started using Google Calendar as a back up.

The trouble is, this year, I’ve been using the back up more than the analogue version. I can use it on my phone and my tablet and can use it on different browsers. It’s easy to change and I can make corrections without having to track down some correction tape. and leave evidence of my mistakes everywhere.

Lately, the analogue calendar has been carried but not consulted. Every now and then I remind myself to look through it and cross off the days, but that doesn’t inspire me to use it.

I’m now at the point where I’m ready to pull it apart and salvage what I can. (I can also just turn it backwards and upside down and use it for morning pages.) I am, however, struggling with the sunk cost fallacy. which in my case can be summed up as “I made the thing and even though I don’t use it I have to carry it so that didn’t waste my time making it even though I don’t use it because carrying it is symbolic of me having made it to use even though I don’t use it.” Something like that.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to enter the destruction date in my Google Calendar. I just hope the batteries last in my phone.

 

Morning Pages for Worse and for Better

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Several months ago, as part of a plan to write more, I decided to try my hand at writing morning pages. I quickly modified them but I’m not sure if that was for the better.

For those who don’t know, “morning pages” are the brainchild of Julia Cameron from her book The Artist’s Way. To do morning pages you’re supposed to wake up, pick up a notebook and knock out three pages of writing without putting any thought, grammar or punctuation into it. (Rather like this blog, at times, now that I think about it.) The theory is that you’re essentially performing a kind of brain dump and cleansing your mind of whatever flows from your fingers and your pen. You then are supposed to throw away the completed notebook.

I tried the pages that way for a while but then eventually felt as if I was wasting time with them.  I’d zone out, nearly fall asleep, and long for coffee. Most of my early pages were along the lines of  “I need coffee I need coffee I need coffee I need coffee sweet mother of Jesus I need coffee coffee coffee coffee my kingdom for coffee my soul for coffee your soul for coffee death to all who refuse to bring me coffee no coffee no life no coffee no God decafen, decaffinated, decaf coffee is evil and freaking hard to spell.” (Something like that.) Basically, it was all the kinds of navel gazing that kept me from writing morning pages in the first place. (In fact, it’s the same thing that kept me from writing a blog for a long time and still keeps me from writing a proper diary.)

That lasted for about a tablet and a half. Since then I’ve modified my morning pages routine. I write on A4 copy paper pads I assembled myself from scrap paper and I don’t start writing until I’ve showered and had at least one sip of coffee. My goal is two A4 pages in half an hour, although I’ve been known to take longer on weekends and days I don’t have to be into work early.

I change pens every day so I have a chance to do long term tests of different pens, nibs and inks on cheap copy paper. I also write different types of pages. There are the whiny brain dumps where I complain about life in general; the pen reviews where I describe how it feels to write with the various pens; and the focused writing.

In the latter I focus on whatever particular project I happen to be working on. I sketch characters and scenes and brainstorm ideas for different plots and different characters. If anything seems particularly useful and legible, I underline it and then go back and type into a computer file. I’ve managed to get some useful stuff that way.

If I were smart, I’d brainstorm one of these blog entries and kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. But, if you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know I’m not that smart.

 

 

Pelikan 4001 Blue Black Ink–Banned for Good Reasons

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Pelikan 4001 Blue Black ink is so bad I’m actually kind of hoping I somehow got a fake bottle of it.

The ink comes with a certain mystique as it has been banned in the USA for reasons involving a Chemical That Is Never Named (probably not its real name). For this reason everyone interested in fountain pens and blue black ink is trying to get a bottle. I’ve also read reviews praising it on many websites and thought I’d give it a try.

The box and the bottle. Neither can be trusted.

The box and the bottle. Neither can be trusted.

I started out using it in my aluminum Nexus Minimal with a steel M nib. As part of my pen and ink testing process I usually sit down and write two pages of morning pages. This lets me test the comfort of a pen and the flow and color of the ink on cheap copy paper. Later I try the pen and ink on a higher quality paper.

I was immediately struck by how poorly the ink flowed. It felt dry and it left a grey line that darkened a bit over time but still seemed very pale. I cleaned out the pen and made sure it was completely dry. I shook the bottle to mix the ink and tried inking the Nexus again.

I got the same result.

I thought it might be the nib, which needed to be adjusted, and decided to try it in a different pen. The next day inked up my Levenger Sunset, which is one of the juiciest pens I own.

The line was slightly darker but not much. Even with the gold nib on the Sunset I felt as if I was writing with a dying ballpoint pen. I had to resist the urge to press harder to make the ink flow and to refrain from breathing on the end to help the ink flow. In the way some inks change color as they dry and age, the ink does eventually darken but it never has that satisfying color from the label and that many reviews praise.

A sample on Tomoe River paper. You can see how pale it is.

A sample on Tomoe River paper. You can see how pale it is.

In the end, Pelikan 4001 Blue Black is a good example of what fountain pen types call a “dry ink”. It’s helpful when you’re confronted with the question “What do you mean that ink is dry?” (As if any normal person would ever ask that question.)

I left the ink in until the converter was used up and it’s officially been banned from my pen and rotation. Now I just have to find a place to store the bottle until I finally decide to throw it out or give it away.

 

MY DIY Notebooks–Long Term Review

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It seemed to be a good idea at the time. And it was. Until it wasn’t.

A decade ago or so the school where I work asked us to hand out surveys to our students assessing our and their performance in class. (Many marked low scores without realizing they were marking themselves low.) Part of my game was to give out the survey at test passback classes and then, once I was safe, pass back the exams.

Unfortunately, not only did we get the results of the surveys, we also got all the surveys back to go through if we wanted. I had about 280 students or so and we did the surveys twice a year. This meant we had stacks of paper. Well, at least it meant I did. I have generally saved old worksheets as scratch paper in order to use the backsides before I throw them out. With the surveys, I had a stack of paper that got bigger twice a year.

I then downloaded a freeware program that let me make lines and set about making my own writing tablets. I printed the surveys and bunches of random worksheets I still hand on my bubblejet printer. (Keep in mind, given the price of printer ink, it would have been cheaper to pour Dom Perignon champagne on the floor.) I bound the pages with staples, covered the staples in black gaffer’s tape and, in a few cases, used an Exacto knife to create ghetto perforations to make pages easier to tear out.

The original stack of 50.

The original stack of 50.

I ended up with 50 tablets and set about using them to write novels. Each tablet had 65 pages and about 35 lines or so from top to bottom. With my handwriting it worked out to about 11,000 words per tablet and I used several of them for novels one and two.

There were, however, several problems.:

Not only could I see my shame (any poor surveys) so could anyone else who saw the tablet. Some pages had heavy ghosting from being printed with bubblejet printers. This made them hard to use.

Ghosting and, if you look real closely, you can see the results.

Ghosting and, if you look real closely, you can see the results.

My handwriting is terrible and 65 pages of my handwriting is madness. Before the school stopped asking us to do surveys, I acquired more paper, and therefore more tablets before I could finish the ones I had. The longer the tablets sat, the more they turned brown and the more the staples rusted.

Also, not only was there the ink expense, but printing them was frequently a pain in the ass that took more time than taking the train to Tokyo to buy expensive notebooks would have. Because I was using different types of paper, I couldn’t just start printing and walk away. I had to be there to undo jams and sort printed sheets from those that got fed through in clumps.

Lately I’ve been moving away from those tablets toward higher quality, more fountain pen friendly paper. I threw away a stack that had begun to turn brown and mildew. I also started tossing spare handouts in the recycle box rather than my desk. I still have a stack of tablets and several others I bound but never printed. I’ll use them to write morning pages, or to sketch out rough drafts of school assignments, but I’ll never print anymore.

A more modern stack. Now side-bound but still with staples and gaffer's tape.

A more modern stack. Now side-bound but still with staples and gaffer’s tape.

Note: The first two pictures above were first published in an article for Notebookism.

 

Revisiting Silly Newsletters with Spots of Bitterness and Anger

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Today I’m going to cheat a bit and recycle some very old material.

I’ve mentioned before how a large part of my life and writing career revolves around silly newsletters. During my closet cleaning, I stumbled across a copy of one of the newsletters I made when I was in Albania. Even I’m shocked at how angry it is.

The newsletter is called Gremlin II and features the motto “Fighting the Good Fight Against Bad People”. Being a fool I didn’t put a date on it, but I suspect that was for plausible deniability (Hey, this thing was written on the day Dwayne was in town using the Peace Corps computer. What a colossal coincidence!) However, a reference to trainees means it had to have been written at the start of our second year.

It starts with an angry farewell message from a volunteer who’d had enough and headed home. “The express purpose of the Peace Corps is to act as a glorified welfare system for third world countries and to keep inefficient middle-management Americans employed outside of the continental United States so as not to damage the American economy or capitalistic thought.”

Yep, definitely proof it’s the toughest job you’ll ever love. This person also summed up the Albanians as “They’re ANIMALS! They’re animals without teeth!” You can tell this person was ready to go home. That I ran that quote in the newsletter meant I probably had a lot of sympathy with this person at times and had been rejected by at least three Albanian women.

The rest of the newsletter was an attack on the administration of the Peace Corps. It reminded everyone that they were “not allowed to get married, divorced, drink American beer, accept candy from strangers, have sex, ride a moped, eat, breathe or shit unless a proper memo has been issued in triplicate…”

Since I wrote that, I’m sensing a lot of bitterness from me as well.

I tried to start a Money Matters column in the newsletter as a cynical way to celebrate our 450 lek (US $4.50) monthly stipend raise, but I’m pretty sure I never did.

The rest of the newsletter was dedicated to cruel insults about a member of the Peace Corps staff. These were solicited from other volunteers. I’ve included some of the clean ones:

–She’s a zombie . . . but that does imply she was once alive.”
–She’s an android. I swear I saw her scalp move.
–She’s an alien, but that does assume higher intelligence.
–She’s a victim of the body snatchers.
–She’s the world’s greatest genius undercover as the world’s most incompetent idiot.
–She’s a ridiculous petty tyrant wannabee hypocrite with a squeaky Minnie Mouse voice.
–She’s an aging starlet whose plastic surgery went horribly, horribly wrong.
–She’s a coma victim: that implies she has life, but no brain function.

Again, I think I sense a spot of bitterness there.

This, of course, was produced on government computers, printed on government paper with government ink. It was childish and cruel, but surprisingly well received even by people who actually got along with the staff member in question.

Somewhere during the two years, some of us also sketched out a Peace Corps movie and cast all the parts. I think I still have that around somewhere, but I’ll have to clean more of the closet to find it.

 

TWSBI Diamond Fountain Pens–The New Workhorse

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I bought some pens from Taiwan that were designed with advice from all over the world. One of them fell apart almost immediately.

I’ve written before about how I’ve used Pilot Vanishing Point pens for decades. Last year, however, at the suggestion of some fellow pen addicts, I decided to try pens from TWSBI.

TWSBI is a Taiwan based company that used to produce OEM pens but then decided to design their own. To do so, they gathered suggestions from fountain pen forums (yes they exist) and then gave the forum members chances to comment on designs. (In fact, fans of their Facebook page still get a chance to comment on possible future designs.)

The results were a series of demonstrator (see-through) pens with piston filling mechanisms. (You twist the end to draw up ink and don’t have to mess with cartridges or converters.)

I ordered two: The TWSBI Diamond 580 Black Rose Gold and the TWSBI Diamond Mini Classic.

The TWSBI Mini (left) and the 580 (right).

The TWSBI Mini (left) and the 580 (right).

The 580 is a nice sized pen and because of its smooth writing M nib, it quickly replaced the Vanishing Point as my everyday workhorse pen. (It even appears on this blog along with the Vanishing Point.) Although I miss the nock mechanism on the VPs, and the ability to operate a fountain pen one-handed, I like the ink capacity of the 580. I was worried I wouldn’t like the Rose Gold, but once I had it in hand, I immediately liked the copper look of it.

Also, TWSBI includes tools that allow the user to disassemble and clean the pen. I haven’t done that yet, but I have had to replace the cap and the nib assembly on the Mini. (And the nib, but that’s not TWSBI’s fault.)

The Mini is designed for pocket carry. It is small, but the cap posts making it much longer and much easier to use. I also got it with an M nib and even though it’s smaller, I like the ink capacity.

The only thing I didn’t like was the cap. I noticed out of the box that the clip on the Mini moved side to side. I though it was simply too flexible but over time I realized that cap was cracked. Eventually it cracked all the way around the entire finial fell off.

You can see the damage. This is a but not a feature.

You can see the damage. This is a bug not a feature.

I also noticed, after a couple rounds of inked fingers, that the MIni leaked ink. Careful inspection with a loupe revealed that the end of the nib assembly was cracked. I contacted TWSBI and without any proof–although I did offer some–they sent me a new cap and a new nib feed.

Unfortunately when I was reinserting the nib and feed, I didn’t set the nib correctly and when I put the new cap on I felt the nib go crunch and ended up with a nice hook nib. I ordered a new nib from a local vender, installed it correctly, and now the pen works perfectly.

The 580 nib (top) and the Mini nib (minus the hook).

The 580 nib (top) and the Mini nib (minus the hook).

Despite these issues, and stories of cracked plastic from other users, I recommend TWSBI pens for those looking to try a fountain pen for the first time and for those who’ve been playing with cheaper mass-market fountain pens and are ready to move up in quality. The customer service alone is worth the price and the risk. Also, if there are a series of common complaints, TWSBI usually redesigns the pen to fix the problem.

I’m not as big a fan of the Mini as I am of the 580. The Mini’s grip section is a bit too short and something about the balance with the cap posted doesn’t feel right. I am tempted to sell it and get a second 580 (either clear or orange).

A dirty pen and whiskey in a dirty glass. Bad ideas ahead.

A dirty pen and whiskey in a dirty glass. Bad ideas ahead.

 

Namisu Nexus Minimal Fountain Pen–Good First Impressions at Long Last

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I bought a couple pens in August 2014 that were supposed to be shipped in November. I didn’t get them until this week.

Thus far it seems to have been worth the wait.

First The Wait:
Kickstarter likes to tell the public that it is not a store. Its users are not “shoppers” they are “backers” and a lot of pixels are used to explain the difference. Quite frankly, a lot of the backers disagree with this lesson in semantics (I suspect it’s the exchanging money for goods thing) and they tend to get upset when a project repeatedly misses it’s deadlines, especially after the first few deadlines have been missed.

But it’s important, if you’re going to back something on Kickstarter, to remember that if it is a store, it’s not like a normal retail store. It’s more like a hybrid of shopping, investment and gambling.

In my case I bought a pair of Nexus Minimal fountain pens from Namisu, a company out of Edinburgh. The project overshot its 10,000 British pound goal by ten times, finally finishing at over 104,000 pounds. This meant, to those of who’d backed other projects, that the pens were going to be delayed. In Kickstarter, success breeds delay. If it doesn’t, it breeds crap.

That said, my problem with this Kickstarter is that although we got a lot of backers updates, we didn’t seem to get a lot of information. The deadline was always being pushed back by some technical issue and we would get more information later that turned out to be an update telling us we’d get more information later. I was an Early Backer and wanted to know where I was in line but I never found out until I got my pens.

The Pens:

The Titanium version (bottom) and the Aluminum version (top) you can see blue ink in the threads.

The titanium version (bottom) and the aluminum version (top) you can see blue ink in the threads.

The pens themselves are very nice, with a few small quirks. They both needed a thorough cleaning and I had to tighten the nib and feed on the titanium version. Because the cap threads are at the front of the pen behind the nib–which does make it more comfortable to use–the threads fill up with ink as the pen is being filled, adding an extra bit of clean up.

Also, the cap is barely bigger than the nib which means I have to be careful when I re-cap the pen.

I’ve used the pens for the past few days and although it’s too early make any serious judgements, I think they were worth the wait. The titanium medium nib on the titanium version is surprisingly juicy and writes like a broad nib. It also had a funny squeak when I first started using it, but that’s already going away. It writes well, but the tines are slightly out of line and will need some work. The aluminum version has a steel medium nib that writes well and leaves a thinner line than the platinum nib.

The machine work on the section looks great–part of the delay involved improving the fit and finish of the pens–but they dig into my fingers if I’m not careful how I hold the pens. The threads on the titanium version need some polishing as they grind when I put the cap on and off.

I’ve already worked the two pens into my daily carry by cleaning and setting aside a couple other pens. Eventually I’ll have used the two enough to make a long term review.

Until then, I have a lot of writing to do.