It’s been a while since I last wrote a post where I went through my whole pen collection, and I figured it might be time for a little update. So here are some numbers, and a rough overview of fountain pens, inks and other relevant things in my collection. To do the inks first: I currently have 228 bottles of ink. This includes 100 small bottles (30 ml) of standard Diamine ink. I also have an almost complete collection of…
A while back, the blog Olive Octopus created 17 ink questions, and over the past several weeks, quite a few others have decided to also answer them. I always enjoy doing things like these, and I think it’s a nice way for you the readers to get to know me and my personal preferences, so here goes: 1. What was your first (memorable) ink? The very first inks I got was a few bottles of quick-drying ink from Private Reserve….
Happy New Year to all our readers! I usually take some time during the holidays, and the first couple of weeks of the new year, to evaluate the year that has passed, and set some goals for the coming year. A lot of those goals are correlated to this blog, and my pen hobby, so I thought I would write a little about it in this first post of the year. Last summer I made a plan for all the posts…
Sigh… This was the year I failed National Novel Writing Month. I’ve been participating for twelve years, and won every year, right up until this year. Despite that, this year’s NaNoWriMo was actually a pretty good experience. At least much better than the previous two years, where it felt like nothing was working, even though I was able to finish. This year’s NaNoWriMo started quite well. I had an idea that I thought had potential and that I enjoyed writing. And after a whole month…
Earlier this autumn, I wrote a blog post where I tried to get to the bottom of why I always prefer to write with modern fountain pens, and not vintage pens. As soon as I had published the post, an idea began to form: maybe part of the problem was that I hadn’t given the vintage pens a good enough chance? Were the points I listed in the August post actually based on empirical evidence, or just an outlet for my own prejudice against…
This is a blog post about National Novel Writing Month. If you don’t know what that is, you might find it useful to read my post “Nibby Sunday – Write a novel in a month!” first. This year will be my fourth time writing National Novel Writing Month by hand. The first time was in 2016. I started the month with a trip abroad, and didn’t really have time to write much the first couple of weeks, which led to…
For the past two years, I’ve had sub-optimal NaNoWriMo experiences. In both 2021 and 2022, I had a lot of other things to do before, and partly during NaNoWriMo, I wasn’t motivated, I didn’t have time to prepare well enough, and I didn’t have any good ideas for what to write about. This year, I am determined not to have a third NaNoWriMo in a row that turns out like this. For those who don’t know what NaNoWriMo is: it stands for…
Last Friday (September 22), we had the pen event of the year, Pelikan Hub, and over 30 fountain pen enthusiasts flocked to Tudos’ premises at Frysja in Oslo to share their experiences, try each other’s pens, exchange inks, and talk about this and that. Pelikan Hub was initiated by Pelikan in 2014, and has in relatively few years grown to become an annual event that many pen enthusiasts around the world look forward to. The aim is to bring together people…
In my own collecting, I’ve had several pens that I like to call “milestone pens”; that represent a shift, or the transition into a new stage of my fountain pen hobby. These are the pens with special significance in my fountain pen journey; the pens that changed me, or changed my perception of fountain pens, or the way I approach pens as a hobby. I think it’s good to be aware of these milestone pens, to sort of mark out…
It’s bothered me a little in recent years how the focus in the pen hobby is very often on constantly acquiring new pens and inks. This can make the hobby unsustainable over time, both for the wallet and for the environment. The eagerness to test new things can quickly lead to losing control over your spending. I have definitely experienced that myself. Many of the most famous and popular blogs, YouTube channels, and others within the pen community probably also contribute to reinforcing…