Holding Stationæry

Like most kids, I remember loving notebooks. There was something so adult about writing important things down, how cool a little pocket notebook felt, how fancy a nice hard-cover one was. Of course, I have no idea what I put in them – terrible drawings, crude replicas of the trashy fantasy novels I devoured.

I don’t remember caring for writing implements in the same way; I probably just used whatever pencil was at hand. The one tool that looms in my memory wasn’t mine, but my dad’s. As long as I can remember, he’s used a marbled green, gold-nib fountain pen (which I now know to be a Waterman Exclusive), his indecipherable scrawl in a distinctive green ink (which I believe is a Pilot Iro-shizuki). That was always his thing though, like the steel Rolex he bought when he was eighteen, not something I seriously tried to emulate.

I first began actually thinking about pens in university, while studying engineering. My first semester made it clear that trying to take notes on a laptop was not going to work – not only was it too convenient a distraction, but trying to write LaTeX as fast as a professor could scrawl formulas across chalkboards was a fool’s errand – to say nothing of diagrams. The pace of my program (generally six to eight courses per semester, about 150% of a full course load) meant that notebooks would both be insufficient for each course and too bulky to carry all of them around. The workflow that I adopted was to use printer paper, since it was easy to find in sufficient quantity and the lack of lines and ruling meant I could maximize my use of each page.

In pursuit of said maximization, I worked on getting my writing as small as possible. I sampled many of the pens the bookstore carried, eventually settling on the Pilot V5, with as fine a tip as I could find (I recall one of my friends found a finer-tipped pen, but stopped using it, because it would actually slice the paper if one made too fast a line). That setup – printer paper in an expanding folder & a trio of Pilots (black for most writing, blue & red for annotations and diagrams) – got me through reams of paper, dozens of empty pens, and four years of Canada’s hardest undergraduate program.

After graduating, I didn’t do much analog writing for a while. I got slowly back into using a pen and notebook creatively¹, first starting an “ideation exercise” practice: Inspired by a business partner, I would try to come up with a new idea for something to build or make everyday. I’ve kept that up since…2016 or so? A while, in any case. To record these ideas, I used notebooks and pens from MUJI I’d received as “stocking stuffers” at Christmas.

The notebooks were fine – nice little passport-sized things – but the pens I fell in love with. The black “stick-style” 0.38mm pens were perfect for me and I proselytized them vigorously. My consumption accelerated in 2020 when I began my daily “page of fiction writing” habit. I started keeping all the MUJI pens I’d finished and the amount of waste plastic was starting to bother me. By 2023, I was considering making a change in my pen game, both to get some variety and to be less wasteful with my consumption.

Shortly after my daughter was born, I decided I would treat myself to a fountain pen. Not only would I be reducing plastic waste, I’d be giving my child the same sort of memories that I had. What to get though? I didn’t really know anything about fountain pens; years ago I’d bought some cheap little plastic one for drawing, but I didn’t want something that tiny or disposable-looking. I’d also randomly looked at the Pilot Vanishing Point at my local stationery shop, but balked at the price. Shortly thereafter, Dr. Drang linked to the Pen Addict and I found in the “Top Five” list answers to that question, as well as a rabbit hole I fell deep down in to.

To begin with, I learned I should start with either a Lamy Safari or a Pilot Metropolitan. I tried the Safari, didn’t love the grip, then was delighted to find the Metro came in purple, my favourite colour. I bought the Pilot, a bottle of Diamine “Amazing Amethyst”, and of course another notebook (Maruman Mnemosyne 105). I was very happy with this purchase, loved how smoothly the nib skated across paper…but I didn’t stop reading about pens. I perused most of the guides on JetPens, trawled through the Pen Addict archives (both the podcast and the blog), followed links (Gentleman Stationer, Well Appointed Desk, etc, etc) and devoured their archives too.

In fairly short order, I decided I needed an even finer nib than the Japanese fine that the Pilot came with. My local didn’t have anything compatible, so led on by a JetPens guide, I ordered a Pilot Penmanship with an EF nib that could be transferred into the Metropolitan. While I was ordering stuff online, I threw in a bottle of Noodler’s Tchiakovsy – the colour looked nice and the notion of waterproof (or “bulletproof”) ink appealed to my “but what if” paranoia.

I held steady with that modded pen and Noodler’s ink for a few months. The only addition to my writing setup was a Traveler’s Notebook I received for Christmas. I kept reading about other neat pens, but held firm. “This is fine”, I told myself. I’m absolutely not a collector – I just want one and only one tool that will serve my needs, which the Pilot certainly did. Sure other pens looked neat, but I needed this needlepoint EF. Besides, the inexpensiveness of this pen was a feature, as it allowed me to not get paranoid taking it out.

But…as time passed, I started to think. I did like the nib…but I could always get another pen custom-ground. I liked the colour of the Metropolitan body, but I wasn’t crazy about the shape or the little band of ellipses on the middle. Sure, other pens cost quite a bit more, but all the ones I was looking at cost substantially less than my phone and I’d never lost that.

With this ember kindled, I began curating my shortlist. I knew I wanted a metal pen, I wanted a less “cigar-shaped” body, and I wanted it to look interesting. That pretty quickly led me to Schon Dsgn and his wonderful creations. I do my writing at home and have fairly big hands, so I opted for the full-size pen instead of the pocket pens. That didn’t actually completely narrow things down though, since the aluminium pens come in a huge array of gorgeous anodizations. I spent a while looking at the options and wound up pretty sure the “Dark Unicorn” was the colour for me. But…I hesitated.

First there was my built-in hesitation for buying something frivolous for myself. I could afford it, but there’s still that guilt. I just had to be really sure. More than that though was the sense of waste. What would I do with this perfectly good Pilot pen? There was already the bottle of Diamine ink gathering dust…having both sitting around would be too much for me to bear. See, I really am not a collector!

Fortunately, I already have a surfeit of another resource – siblings. One of my sisters in particular I suspected would be interested in a fountain pen, having some of the same memories of our father’s pen. I asked if she’d be willing to take the Metropolitan and ink off my hands, she was, so I was ready to go on that count.

Only my aforementioned reluctance to indulge myself held me back and, after a few particularly sleepless nights of baby-tending, I talked with my wife and she helped me convince myself to pull the trigger. One final twist remained though: I was showing her the anodization options to verify my choice, but then also mentioned the limited-edition options with the black PVD nib. She thought those looked great, I agreed, so I made a last-minute switch and bought the “Rainbow Scratches (Hot)” with a black nib.

Now, I was pleased with this, excited to imminently have a new pen, but this nib did somewhat complicate things. Since I “needed” a very fine nib and I was lead to believe that a Jowo EF would be much broader than a Japanese EF, I had been planning on either buying a needlepoint nib from my local nibmeister or getting the one that came with the pen ground. However, if I was buying this fancy PVD-decorated nib, it seemed foolish to either replace it or mess up the finish with a grind. I figured I’d just try the nib, see how it worked, and figure something out.

The pen arrived and looked amazing. The finish was gorgeous, the Schmidt converter was much more fun to use than the CON-B, and the shiny black nib was so beautiful in person, I certainly didn’t want to replace it. It was, however, much broader than even the Pilot F. I persevered though; I decided I’d hold on until the beginning of February when the nibmeister of the Toronto Pen Company was doing grinds in a shop. If I couldn’t adapt by then, I’d see what could be made out of this nib while maintaining its appearance.

Well, it turns out I did need some adaptation. I’d previously come across “Extra Fine Writing”’s recommendation of Write Now, to solve the problem of “having a fancy pen but still writing like a drunken badger”, but only taken a cursory glance at it. Now, with the motivation of truly having a Nice Pen, I tried again. This time I actually made progress – copied the pages, did the exercises – and within a few days my wife was remarking that she could actually read what I’d written! It turns out I only really needed a micron-width nib because my writing was so cramped and messy that any surplus of ink transformed “barely-decipherable scratches” into “a blob”; if I actually take the time to properly form letters, this nib is perfectly sufficient to write small and neatly. Plus, I get to see a bit more of this lovely purple ink as I write!

At this point, I’m pretty happy with my setup and I’m optimistic that I won’t be buying too much more. I’m planning on this pen being my final (fountain) pen and I want to finish this bottle of ink before I get another one, so my stationery purchases in the medium-term will be limited to replacing notebooks as I finish them. I’m considering getting something with Tomoe River paper after my current Leuchtturm is finished, but beyond that I’m just looking forward to writing! I hope to prove it’s possible to be “into” stationery without accumulating piles of pens and oceans of ink 😅 (but no judgment on those that do, of course).