Collecting Pen-Based Addictions

(Oh look, I'm remembering to post on the right day!)

Like a lot of writers, I'm a bit of a stationery nut.  My favourite places in Nottingham involve either books or stationery (and the best kinds of places contain both), but until recently I mostly contained it to notebooks.

I think, between here and Twitter, I've documented fairly well my love of all things gel pen, particularly of the novelty kind, and my undying adoration for the Copic atyouSpica glitter pens (also known as my preciousssss).  But recently, my pen-based addiction has taken a darker, more sinister turn...

Lamy fountain pens.

(Did you think I meant sniffing permanent markers?)

My friends Claire and Danni are big, big stationery fans (I am but an apprentice in the art) and one of the things that they both mention, now and again, are Lamy pens.  They come in different varieties: not only fountain, but ballpoint and pencil too, and in various different styles and themes and, in the end, my curiosity won out.

I've not used a fountain pen in... well, over a decade, not since I was 14 or so, and I've never bought any of my own, so when I became curious I turned to them for advice and in the end bought a Lamy Nexx (the grey one) and a Safari (the blue).  I have suitable ink cartridges to go with them, and a couple of converters that allow me to use bottled inks—one of which I wrote The Fair Automaton with, and covered myself with it in the process—and, to my surprise, I've been getting on really well with them.

Recently Lamy brought out a new special edition AL-star pen in a particularly violent shade of coral.  Pink isn't really my colour, but while I was looking at it my eye was caught by the beautiful colour of the bluegreen AL-star and... well, let's just say that as you can see, my tiny pen family has grown, and my non-too-fondness of pink didn't stop me from buying two sets of limited-edition coral cartridges either.  And, of course, where there's a pen order there's other stuff too, and I seem to have found myself the owner of three Rhodia notebooks I didn't quite intend to buy (they leapt into the cart themselves, honest!) and a pretty nifty mechanical pencil that rotates itself every time you use it.

So it looks like I've picked up another addiction, to go with my sparkle-pen one and my gel pen habit...  because where there's fountain pens, there has to be a healthy range of inks to go with it!  And on the up side, at least it means I'm physically writing a lot more now, even if none of it seems to be related to what I'm supposed to be finishing this month (sorry, all two readers of Three Graces, it's not the sequel yet).

I'd say I think the guilty parties responsible for this particular addiction know what they've done, but I also think they're both quite gleeful about it really...