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There's something special about writing by hand, writing with a fountain pen, and there's something special about writing into a book, to take a blank book and turn it into an actual book.
When Reg died and we first looked into getting a new dog, I was adamant we should pick up a mongrel from an animal-rescue shelter. It's not only that they're usually healthier and have better temperaments, they also fit with my world view - I prefer a ballpoint to a fountain pen, a barber to a hair stylist, and camping over glamping.
I've always written by hand. Mostly with a fountain pen, but sometimes with a pencil - especially for corrections.
There was one 'crime' during the whole time I was at school, when a fountain pen went missing. Stealing just didn't happen. I was taught not to shoplift, not to steal, not to behave badly. We weren't even allowed to drop litter.
It is difficult to describe in short the enthusiasm and devotion provoked by and given to my research. We lived almost in poverty. I used pencils, two for a nickel, and could not buy a fountain pen, when I lost mine.
I write everything with fountain pens. I don't know why. I've done it since I was bar mitzvahed. I was given a fountain pen, a Parker fountain pen, and I loved it, and I've never liked writing anything with pencils or ball-points.
The material came bubbling up inside like a geyser or an oil gusher. It streamed up of its own accord, down my arm and out of my fountain pen in a torrent of six thousand words a day.
I have to write a first draft with a fountain pen before I type it up as a second.
My two fingers on a typewriter have never connected with my brain. My hand on a pen does. A fountain pen, of course. Ball-point pens are only good for filling out forms on a plane.
I used to write exclusively with one particular Montblanc fountain pen, although lately I have had to use a roller-tip fountain pen, because I find it harder and harder to control the fine muscles of my right hand during prolonged periods of work. I buy boxes of Deluxe Uni-ball pens, use them until they start to drag, and then change.