A new ink database column has joined the game
I added a “Last Inked” column to my ink database. The column, once populated, tracks the last date each ink played in a pen. Sorted by oldest date, I now have Insight into which inks are shelf-stable yet unattended.
I already track which pens are inked and when each pen was last inked reliably. That information has proven insightful when ensuring my currently inked rotation … rotates. Otherwise, my habit is to cycle through the same handful of pens again and again with many left near-abandoned in my pen case — simply because they are not top-of-mind. Sad.
All those blank cells … filled with such promise
Diversifying the inks I use each week plays a similarly substantial role in ensuring novelty. Varied color palettes draw me into uncapping my pens. Uncapped pens lead to more writing, grading, and reflecting. Novelty brings me back to my desk. And my desk is where my oft-measured work is undertaken.
Habit and routine are, ironically, also antagonists that interrupt newly exciting stationery combinations. Recently used inks quickly come to mind when I sit down to ink up my penvelope’s sextet. If left unchecked, my ink choices cycle across the same ten or twenty choices. Novelty wanes, quickly followed by a waning to my eagerness to write. Womp womp.
A quick review of my past currently inked highlights that I’ve begun cycling through the same narrow cadre of inks. Success in tracking. Novelty incoming.
This week’s Inked Tines update includes last week’s currently inked writing tools.
Toolset
Pens. Stationery Station’s special Platinum 3776 drove both the week’s day-to-day task management and pocket carrying duties. The matte blue colorway is calming and professional enough for administrative meetings. The EF nib was wet and reliable. This pen will be in rotation again quite soon.
Nakaya Neostandard (B Naginata) — Empty. I chose the wrong converter, which wriggled free often. Sea Glass evaporated when unused and needed flooding before writing sessions to restart ink flow. Perfection with a saturated feed. Journaling, lesson plans outlines, reading notes.
Pilot Custom 74 (B) — Empty. Brothers Grimm has shading for days. I returned to this pair again and again as a result. Dark forest greens fit equally well in serious and creative spaces. Would pair again.
Platinum 3776 Kylo Ren (F) — 1/3. Trifecta: narrow line, reliable ink flow, and pencil-like feedback. Detailed notetaking all week during student-led discussions and lecture notes.
TWSBI Vac 700R (B Selvedge) — 1/2. Yoseka’s searing ceramic blue produced lively lesson plans, meeting notes, and markups to students’ writing. Hiccup-free scribbling. N notes.
Visconti Homo Sapiens (EF) — ??? Dries out after a few hours but restarts after a quiet moment of holding nib to paper. Dusty purple-blue-grey worked equally well for detailed notes and whimsical creative writing. Journaling and some poetry.
Notebooks. Work bujo. Plotter Shiranami (A5). Yes yes. The Shiranami indigo colored leather is gorgeous. And the playful blue-to-white gradients across the notebook’s design are gleeful.
See what I mean?
I wrote all over ten pages this week. A two-page weekly lead into six lesson plan outlines, and two pages of meeting notes. Notes began with the Pilot 74’s round B nib and ended with the Visconti’s unground EF. Easy, concentration-free scribbling that let me take notes quickly without attending carefully to my writing angle.
Messy, recorded, and searchable notes
My two-page weekly spread tracked tasks and unplanned meetings — all in Slag Gray’s earth-toned grey. I used a Mild Gray Mildliner to highlight student-led lessons within the weekly’s lesson scheduler along the top of the pages.
And a two-page spread metal tab to help me find all this over-thought planning
Journal. Musubi Halos 90 (A5). Four short entries last week. Six new pages. Less can be just enough.
My longest entry last week is a three-paragraph strategy session for organizing my new Plotter. Which folders to use, how many pages to carry through the week, and which logs from the school year’s prior two A5 notebooks warrant migration into this new binder. A thoughtful, targeted planning session.
The Nakaya’s well-rounded Naginata grind wrote reliably as my mind (and so writing angle) wandered. Sea Glass shaded in lovable sage-y greens that encouraged me to keep scribbling. Balanced.
Balanced with a margin
Written dry. Three pens leave rotation after this week: the Nakaya Neostandard, Platinum 3776, and Pilot Custom 74. Two green inks and green-undertones grey ink. All three entered rotation three weeks ago.
Accept your applause and have a seat
The Platinum ran dry in the midst of a Friday afternoon tutoring session about mid-1900’s Chinese history. I spent the remainder of Friday’s school day writing with my other 3776, which sports a F nib and a dark near-black-purple Papier Plume ink.
The opener and closer
The Nakaya emptied Thursday evening in large part due to my converter flub.
The Pilot, though, wrote right through the week until Friday morning’s curriculum review. I slipped the emptied pen into my pants pocket and snagged the Visconti Homo Sapiens to wrap up the meeting. Swapped the murky for the playful.
Newly inked. The beauty of a currently inked setup that fits my mindset well is that the penvelope houses a nib and ink option for every kind of writing I swerve into during the week. Success.
There Franklin-Christoph goes … housing the week’s writing friends in suiting fabric
Classy success.
The collection
Incoming / new orders. May begins my DC Pen Show buying embargo. No new orders in carts internet-wide. For pens and inks. Do Plotter accompaniments count? If they’re for work? If they’re arguably for work? Uh-oh.
Outgoing / trades or sales. No pens or inks shipped on to other homes this week.
Currently reading and listening
Fiction. I am presently re-reading T. Kingfisher’s Paladin’s Grace. The humor, good-hearted characters, and thoughtful magic-filled world is a ray of sunshine amidst dark real-world newslines. A ray of sunshine powered by paladins whose god recently died.
My partner and I have taken to an hour of reading as we unwind on weeknights. Five hours of book time led to over 100 pages of fantasy work journeying, from 219-328. I read fiction almost exclusively on a Boox.
Nonfiction. Reading and annotating nonfiction takes up much of my workdays. Essays and book chapters about modern world history and LGBTQ+ history.
Annotated with a medium-firm wood pencil
Music. Ripe has been a staple in my headset and desktop speakers all week. Energetic arrangements with prominent vocals. Company for thought-work focused on re-arranging notes I’ve already taken.
Quick note: some songs carry an explicit label.
