Yesterday, I bought a new fountain pen: a Lamy Extra Fine Safari in Charcoal Grey and some fresh bottles of ink (in the classic colors of blue, black, and blue/black). Yes, much in the way that Veronica in the Archie comics will feel better about the world when she impulsively buys shoes, I feel better when I impulsively buy stationery and pens. (Worth noting: on the Archie-inspired TV show Riverdale this week, Veronica mentioned using a Mont Blanc.)
When I got home, I broke in the pen by working on a scene in the novel I’m working on, A Choir of Exiles, on my favorite kind of paper, old accountant ledgers.
Why old accountant ledgers? I wrote about that here.
Though I should say that these aren’t old accountant ledgers, anymore. I took the truly old ledgers to a print shop and had them make me a box of new tablets to the exact specs of the old sheets on which I first started writing fiction when I was a scrawny teen in the late 1970s/ early 1980s who looked like this (pretentious beard and all):
And why fountain pens? I wrote about that here.
Here’s the current pile of A Choir of Exiles sheets I’ve been writing on said ledgers with said fountain pens, next to a bottle of absinthe for scale and to show that I’m still pretentious.
But something occurred to me this morning… I never really thanked the person who introduced me to the joys of writing with a fountain pen, as opposed to the shitty ballpoints on which I’d learned to write cursive.
Anne Lindberg was a friend from college whom I’ve not seen in 31 years. Back then, I was busting my ass to to get a degree in History and Medieval Studies, taking a heavy load of classes that were very lecture-focused. Scribbling notes in ugly ballpoint (and sometimes felt-tip) while seated in those horrible plastic desks/chair hybrids took up most of my time. While we were hanging out in Anne’s dorm room one night, she gave me a fountain pen. Now, it was one of those basically disposable Sheaffer jobs that cost (as I recall) $2.95 back then, but I thought it was one of the most miraculous things I’d ever used. I couldn’t believe how the thing just skated over the paper when I took notes while in lectures, like these notes of mine from 1985, about Early Medieval Cosmology in De consolatione philosophiae by Boethius :
By the way, did you see how I used the original Latin title of De consolatione philosophiae instead of just saying The Consolation of Philosophy? I told you I was still pretentious!
But back on point, the fact is, Anne taught me that the physical act of writing could be a delight, that grinding a 19 cent, piece-of-shit pen into foolscap wasn’t the only way to commit words to some kind of permanence without typing. Since then, I’ve written probably a million words in fountain pen, maybe more. And for that, I owe her thanks.
So… wherever you are… thanks, Anne! Your random act of kindness to a college friend has had a lovely effect on my life and my craft.
Inside the mind of author Michael Marano 