My history with fountain pens

I remember being in primary school, where the younger students used pencils and the older ones used pens. I saw writing with a pen as a form of prestige, where you are so good at writing that you don't need to fall back on rubbing out your mistakes. I made it a personal goal of mine to start writing with a pen, and counted down the days until I could.

When I finally started writing with a pen I realized I was wrong. Pens glide over the page in a weird way, but they need you to push the pen into the page, which means you have less control. You have to angle a pen vertically instead of the more relaxed slanted grip I was used to with pencils. I found myself writing with more force and hurting my hand more.

One day I didn't have a pen, and a classmate let me borrow one of his. This pen was weird. It had a metal nib instead of a ball tip, and the act of touching the nib to the paper would deposit ink. This pen didn't need to be pushed down to write (and I was warned to not do that), and it could be held at a more comfortable angle. I later learned this is called a fountain pen.

My first pen was the Dollar 717i Demonstrator, a budget pen made by a Pakistani company. Turns out it's a very good pen. From a beginner's perspective it's cheap enough that if you break it you can just get a new one, and it's made of transparent plastic so you can see how the piston mechanism works. I bought 3 more of them so I could have a black, blue, red and green one, and they got me through high school.

After that I got it into my head that writing is old and outdated, and that typing is the future. I dropped my fountain pens for a Google Nexus 7 and a shitty Bluetooth keyboard for note taking, and over time I started to regret it. I appreciate that I learned to touchtype, but I lost my old diary due to being careless with my digital data.

One day, during the Covid lockdown, I decided to restart my diary with a pen and paper. I had a lot on my mind, I was going through hard times and I wanted to note them down for a future me. I got a cheap notebook from Amazon, and decided to get a Lamy Vista. That pen made me fall in love with fountain pens all over again. The standard Lamy pens (Safari/Vista) are incredibly well designed. The triangular grip forces you to hold the pen correctly, the nibs are easily swappable, and the converter (that lets you use bottled ink) has little notches to keep it locked in place.

I've kept a pen and paper diary ever since, using my ever growing fountain pen collection. I even relearned cursive. I highly recommend getting a cheap notebook and decent fountain pen (Lamy Safari/Vista or Pilot Kakuno) and starting a diary.

As a side note, I've found mechanical pencils to be a lot of fun to write with as well. The Pentel GraphGear 1000 0.3 and the Uni Kuru Toga Roulette 0.5 are fantastic pencils, and they're cheaper than the average fountain pen. Good option for people who want to write on a budget.

Maybe I'll come back to this subject and go into more detail.