This was supposed to come out two days ago, but things got a little side tracked. Sometimes it’s worth getting side tracked though.
After the typewriter series, I thought I would talk some about another writing-tool hobby: fountain pens. But, I found that I was having a harder time generating ideas for that.
They both serve the purpose of writing, but beyond that typewriters and fountain pens are very different tools.
Typewriters are not just for hipsters, but there is a bit of insight in that stereotype. Using a typewriter in the year 2025 is an affectation. If I write a post here on a typewriter that fact is unusual enough to bear mentioning in the post itself (this post was not written that way).
Using a fountain pen is also an affectation. If you get one you’re not just getting a pen, you’re getting a whole commercialized hobby with it. But the actual use of them lacks the clamor of typewriters. Using a fountain pen is much closer to using a normal pen than using a typewriter is to normal typing. It is a much more transparent tool. It more directly conveys the motions of your body into marks on the page.
That transparency makes it harder to talk about as a thing itself. One of the main benefits of fountain pens is that they right much more smoothly than ballpoints. But that lesser friction means there’s less for ideas to catch on.