Leave your mark!

When I was young, I loved to write and tell stories. As far back as third grade can I remember having a school segment on creative writing. I was a hit with the stories I came up with and the whole class would laugh and be thoroughly entertained. Somewhere along the way of growing up I lost that piece of myself and as technology moved rapidly to a more digital presence, I wrote less and less.

Then I bought a fountain pen and literally fell in love with writing all over again. I now write in a journal daily, I am making new pen pals every week and I am writing letters more and more. I got to thinking about all of the factors that make this experience so special and ink is quite a big one.

A pen will look sleek and classy based off of what you like and the materials they are made from. A pen can have different nib sizes to change the line width or different nib materials to give a smooth effortless writing experience. Paper also aides in this but what really brings it all together is the ink used.

There are so many different types of ink and brands and colors. I myself have the ink bug and have amassed quite a collection of ink. What shows on the page is ultimately what this is all about in the long run.

A mood can be conveyed with ink, personalities can be expressed through ink and depending on the ink, your thoughts can be timeless. Fountain pen ink has so many different properties and sometime I will try to go through them on this blog. It is so much more than a medium, ink can be fun.

Every fountain pen user who has been using them for a bit have their favorite inks, whether by brand or colors or specific properties they have (shading, permanence, shimmer...etc). Some users love to match ink colors to their pen colors which can be fun. In fact, that right there is the whole point of this...ink is fun.

I was looking through my journal and noticed that every paragraph is in a different color as well as a varied line width based off of what pen I used. I then realized what I had been doing and that was using a different pen with a different ink color when changing thoughts. I didn't realize I was doing it at the time I was writing, but it sure makes the journal vibrant and fun.

Through fountain pens, paper and ink, I have rekindled a love of writing as well as storytelling. I have influenced a few friends into fountain pens and they have said the exact thing to me; fountain pens make writing fun. I could not agree more.  

Pick up your favorite fountain pen, grab your paper of choice and fill that pen with your ink of choice. It is time you make a splash of your own.