Brad Dowdy — AKA The Pen Addict — posed an interesting question in last week’s member newsletter: Do you have any pens, pencils, or other stationery that gives you that instant burst of happiness, or a sneaky grin just for yourself? It was intriguing enough that I want to answer it in a post.
Honestly, this is precisely what I want my entire collection to be, both pens and ink. My goal is to get to a point where any pen I ink up gives me a burst of happiness. Of course, I’m still a ways away from that goal, especially with my inks.
That said, I do have a couple of general things in my collection that give me extra joy.
Fine lines
Because I tend to write small, I love fine lines. While a medium nib is OK, fine, extra fine, and even ultra extra fine are my jam. The finer the line, the cleaner my writing looks, and the happier it tends to make me.
Oblique nibs
There is one exception, though, and that’s oblique nibs. I love italic obliques since they offer such nice line variation, even on smaller nib widths. The best kind of oblique, though, is one that manages to meld my love of fine lines (with ultra-narrow cross strokes) and my other favorite nib property.
Uber-smooth nibs
I know many people love nibs with feedback, and when I’m in the mood, I like them too. But, I adore super-smooth nibs. The ones that glide across a page like a slice of butter on a hot pan. Some are so smooth that it doesn’t even feel like they’re touching paper, and they make me smile every time.
And pens
I can’t end this post without mentioning some of the pens that bring me that instant flash of joy. So, off the top of my head without looking at my pen collection, hats off to all of my Stanford Pen Studio pens — although my Bumbledore one does also bring some sadness now — my two Namiki Yukaris, my Kurikara-Ken, my Iron Feather Creative pens, and my ARTUS four elements pens.
There are more, of course there are, but these are the ones that come to mind at the moment of writing.
What brings you a burst of happiness? Let me know in the comments! I’d love to hear from you.
Thanks for reading to the end, I hope you enjoyed my post. Make sure to subscribe to my blog or follow me on Instagram so you don’t miss any posts. I generally post at least once a week.
Attribution: The image I used in the share images for Instagram and Facebook is a modified version of an unnamed file by Dzianis Vasilyeu, on Vecteezy.
