I went to Hap Tallman’s Stockman Supply one day, and needed to borrow a pen to write my check. In a jar on the sales counter, there were these green pens with purple caps. They had the store name, address, and phone number printed on the pen. They wrote in black ink. Simple pens, nothing fancy, probably one of the better PaperMate models with a medium point. However, the one I picked up wrote smooth and it felt wonderful in my fingers. It disappeared into my purse along with my checkbook as I gathered my purchases and left the store. I still have the pen.
I have a writing notebook with this pen attached in the spiral binding. My writing notebook isn’t a journal. It is a storehouse of ideas and random thoughts, notes I need to remember to include in my writing, names, pertinent quotes, urls, and other writing-related things.
My writing blocks come not from a lack of ideas, but from a wealth of them. I get overwhelmed sometimes with how to start a section simply because there are too many ways to start. Or, in the middle of a section, I have to puzzle out a transition because there are too many transitions floating in my head, and I don’t know which one is the best. Endings are just as bad. Think about it…when you come to the end of a section/chapter/story/novel…how many alternate endings are there just bubbling to be used? I usually have at least three or four, and only rarely, one. When I have only one, it is a cause for much rejoicing.
Enter the notebook and pen. Sometimes it is helpful to read over my notes concerning the work in progress (WIP.) For those instances, a pen isn’t necessarily needed, but I always have one in my hand, just in case. Other times, I find it helpful to do a brain-dump about my current dilemna. I write the problem-causing question, and then I try to answer. This usually brings up other questions, and I try to answer those, too.
The act of writing BY HAND seems to help me. But to write by hand, I must have a magic pen. It must fit in my fingers like it was made to be there. It can’t be slippery or have an otherwise bad texture. The weight must have the perfect balance between the nib and the top, like a well-balanced sword. I has to be the right width to be comfortable. The nib must allow the free-flow of ink with no hesitation, skips, or clumps. The ink must dry on the page quickly and not smudge.
The magic pen WANTS to write. It makes me smile when I have it in my fingers…it urges. When I put the nib on the blank page, it feels like it can fly and all I have to do is hold on while it takes wing. It guides my hand; I have only to start to think my thoughts, and it acts to complete them on the paper. My imagination drains out onto the page with the ink.
The magic pen is nothing more than a superstition. Yet it is also an ideal and a facilitator. Eventually, my magic pen will die, and I will mourn its death. Even if I could, putting in a new nib will change the pen irrevocably. Therefore, I pick up pens in my travels. I write with the strangers, toy with them, test their mettle. Often, they are nothing to write home about. Still others are special in some way, or near-magic. But they aren’t there yet.
Perhaps there can only be one magic pen (“There can be only one”…?) Perhaps it will take the death of the first for one of the others to step up and take its place. But I have hope. I am sure when the right time comes, the lure of the new magic pen will call to my hand. And I will write.
