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Waterman's Florida Blue
In preparing to write my post-interview thank-you notes today, I decided to take out and refill my fountain pens, which I haven't used in at least a year. I've been using them all day and remembering the joys of fountain pens.
I love the way they write! I don't know why it's so different from other pens, but I am fascinated by the movement of the ink on paper. A to-do list, rather than being hastily jotted notes, becomes an Event as I write out each entry in longhand, spelling out the full names of everyone I have to thank and reminding myself to do things that I don't really need to be reminded to do. I'm just making excuses to keep writing.
I've been reading a lot of creative writing guides lately (in preparation for NaNoWriMo) and I wonder if I would write more or write better if I wrote more things out with a fountain pen. Of course... when I lived in Vichy, most of my blog posts were drafted in that way before I typed them into the computer. And quite a lot of them were crap.
I don't know where I'm going with this (not a good sign for my NaNoWriMo novel, I suppose), other than to say: Reading a lot of books on How To Write a Novel is not helping me very much, but perhaps a mental crutch (in the form of a fountain pen) would.
srah - Monday, 8 August 2005 - 12:15 AM
Tags: nanowrimo, pens, writing
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Just start writing! Those books, although they include good tips, can make you paranoid. Better to just get out your creation, and then use those tips when you go back and revise.
Many writers have said (and I'm learning to agree) that most of what you write will be crap. When you rewrite, most of that will be crap too. But somewhere along the line, amidst all the crap, you will run across something that isn't crap and is, incidentally, quite good.
So I guess my point is, go out and start writing crap! :)