There is something fundamentally awesome about writing with a fountain pen. Perhaps it’s that writing with one evokes the olden days of writing with quill and ink, when handwriting was fancier and the language sounded just as artistic. Perhaps it’s that writing by hand gives us a more physical connection to the thoughts in our head, lets us feel more like we’ve created something, given real life to an idea, and using a fountain pen is the most pleasant form of the act. You needn’t push down like you would with a ballpoint, as if you were etching cuneiform onto a clay tablet. The ink just flows, and with it flows imagination and creativity.
Unlike other pens they’re reusable, refillable, not a mere tool to be used and discarded but an instrument to be cared for and cherished, like a violin that has its own unique sound. And if writing is a kind of art it’s also a kind of magic, so surely the law of contagion applies. Every story written with a fountain pen, every word and idea scribbled, builds up in it until you have a reservoir of imagination literally at your fingertips. All you need to do is pick it up and set nib to paper, and something interesting will eventually come out.
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