On New Pens

Click-click.

Hi friends.

I spent seventy-five dollars on pens as a holiday gift for myself with the great hope/aspiration that I would be handwriting as much as possible in the new year. Writing seriously, but also writing in an easy, non-judgmental, free-flowing kind of way. I love to double click a new pen, then flick off the waxy bits at the top. I look forward to doing that with this batch.

I spend a lot of time on screens because it’s how I make my living and also because that is how the final product of a book gets made, but I am really happiest when I am just sitting quietly with a notebook, scrawling in my increasingly messy handwriting. I was looking through some notes from a year ago this week, and my handwriting was cleaner then, as if I thought someone might be paying attention to it someday besides myself. Now I just feel like I’m sprinting wildly when I write, like some kind of messy cardio at the gym, just trying to get that creative heart rate going, channel the feelings inside of me, keeping them alive, alive, alive. I can picture myself panting happily at the end of every writing session.

By the way, I am no expert on pens. I like to keep it loose and casual. I am pretty sure I can’t go wrong with an S-gel but also I will try anything once. Once Elif gave me a Kaweco as a thank you for interviewing her at an event in New Orleans and for a long time I wrote with that and loved it, but then I lost it somewhere along the way, maybe during the move last year. This is not a commentary on my feelings about Elif (because I love Elif), it’s just that I lose pens all the time. I lose them like they’re socks. Sometimes I find them again, all in one place, but then the pens no longer have the kind of feeling I need them to have.

After the pens arrived this week, I put some in all my usual places I look for a pen, the desk drawer, the big table in the front room, the kitchen table, by my bedside. I do this so I never have to question my love for my work, because I’ll always have whatever I need when I feel inspired to write. I’ll try them one at a time, spread throughout the next few months, a little pick-me-up to get me through the winter. There is a new pen energy that is comparable to a new notebook energy, which is that it makes you feel like anything is possible. Click-click.

Seventy-five dollars seems like a lot to spend on pens, although everything is expensive these days and I did get a lot of bang for my buck. I’m lucky I have any kind of money to throw around. Everyone likes to make that “not in this economy” joke but actually, can you believe this fucking economy.

I do feel like I deserve something nice to encourage me to write, though. I am a devoted servant to it, after all. And sometimes we need pats on the head that only capitalism can provide.

Anyway I hope you also got something to encourage you to be your most creative self this month. A book, a journal, a pen, a subscription to a literary magazine, a verbal contract with someone in your home that you get more time to yourself. You deserve it, too.

If you feel like joining me for writing three days in a row, I’ll be doing a Mini 1000 Words of Summer January 17-19.

Thank you for a great year. If you feel like supporting what I’m doing here, please subscribe or buy one of my books.

Peace,

Jami