Hello everyone
I hope you’re keeping well.
If you’re coming out of lockdown, I hope you are enjoying your new found freedoms however limited they may be. If you’re not unlocking or you’re still shielding, I hope you’re holding up.
This month, I thought I’d talk about a very basic tool for every writer—the pen.
Why Use a Pen?
There are many reasons to use a pen, such as speed, utility, and permanence.
I will often use a pen when I’m making notes. I think differently when I write things down, and I can also bring a range of tools and techniques. So for instance, text no longer needs to be a linear stream going from top to bottom. Instead, I can place notes at different places on the page and a note at the bottom can be written before a note at the top.
But more than that, each note can then be annotated and I can use different colors to highlight different aspects. Plus I can make links joining different thoughts on the page.
The Pen
The pen is the object that the writer holds in their hand. As such, for a comfortable writing experience, the pen needs to feel right. Feel is a very subjective matter, and there will be many factors which determine how a pen feels for any individual, including the shape of the pen, the weight, and the material the pen is made from.
For me, I want a pen to be invisible in my hand—I want to not notice the pen that I am writing with. So the pen must be comfortable and not draw my attention to it.
But it must also feel right when it writes and the quality of the line it leaves must be good. I don’t want a pen that scratches or feels rough on the paper when writing, nor one that smudges or put out blots of ink. And for these matters a pen needs a good refill.
The Refill
From the reader’s perspective—and that reader may be the writer—all that matters is the result of how the ink has been applied to the page. The pen is irrelevant.
From the writer’s perspective, the refill can have far more of an effect on the writing than the pen. A refill that doesn’t work for a writer’s style—for instance, if it requires too much pressure or is too scratchy—will have far more of a detrimental effect on the end result than the choice of pen.
There are many choices for the writing medium but I want to focus on ballpoints and rollerballs. While both make their mark with a small ball touching the page, there is a difference between the two.
Broadly, a ballpoint is the more traditional (and cheaper) form of pen. It uses an oil-based ink that dries instantly, but requires more pressure to produce a mark on the page and that pressure must be consistently applied. These refills can be a bit clumpy, giving a less precise result and there is a less wide range of colors.
By contrast, the rollerball uses water-based ink which does not require pressure to write and gives a far more assertive line on the page. These refills are available in a wider range of colors and those colors are more vibrant than their oil-based equivalents.
There are other differences, for instance the ballpoint will write on more surfaces (where the rollerball can be more finicky about shiny paper) and the ballpoint can be expected to last longer.
What’s the Best Pen?
So after all this, you might be wondering what is the best pen…but that would be the wrong question. The better question is: what’s the best pen for me?
Any pen has to fit your hand. The ink color has to be right and the line laid down on the page must work with your writing style. And the pen/refill combination has to work when writing over a sustained period of time.
I like the Kaweco Sport, in brass with a Monteverde blue/black refill.
For me, this combination works. The pen has a good weight but is small enough to fit in my pocket, and the octagonal cap means that the pen doesn’t roll when placed on a flat surface. The ink writes well, and I like the color (although it is maybe a touch closer to midnight green rather than midnight blue—however, that’s a compromise I’m prepared to make since I like the shape of the pen and have to go with the refills it takes).
Write On
Go get yourself a good pen. You’ll appreciate the investment.
I’ll be back in July.
All the best
Simon