I tapped a non-Japanese ink for the first time in 2026. The fellowship, it seems, has broken.

The week’s ink palette is split between three somber colors (Usuzumi, Ainezu, Schwarz Rose) and three bright (Hanada, Koke, Koiame). Even so, my inks’ personalities lean towards a conservative middle. Koiame, the week’s brightest ink, still holds to moody burnt oranges. Schwarz Rose is a dark green, sure, but rose gold shimmer lends welcome flair.

I chose Pilot’s CM nib for the week’s latest ink addition, bolstering my M-wide options to three nibs with line variation. The Pelikan and Esterbrook architects both live between M and B line widths. The CM offers horizontally-arranged ribbons of ink that dry slightly wider than either of the architects. Diversity in moderation.

Grey/Black

Platinum 3776 Tsuki Kusa (EF). Taccia Ukiyo-e Utemaro-Usuzumi. Pairing a securely-capped pen with a heavy-sheen (and so prone to dry starting) ink makes for a usable and mostly reliable writer. Planning out my scribbling prior to uncapping keeps this pair an enjoyably feedback-y daily driver. The narrow EF lines ensure easily readable detailed notes, task lists, lesson plan outlines, and reading notes.

Blue/Teal

Platinum 3776 Uroko-Gumo (M). Taccia Ukiyo-e Hiroshige-Ainezu. Ainezu is a beautiful denim blue (or a gothic near-black) without being too shouty about it. The Platinum M nib continues holding Ainezu to account in its most denim-forward manifestation. The smooth comination has grown into a go-to for quick-moving mid-length and long writing sessions: meeting notes, journaling, and manuscript drafting.

Asvine v126 Matte Black (S). Taccia Ukiyo-e Fukaki-Hanada. The week’s brightest blue opens possibilities for accenting notes and for marking up papers. The Asvine’s stub nib is a forgiving grind, allowing for slow writing and moderately-paced tasks like accenting meeting notes, curriculum design, and longform analytic reflections.

Earth Tones

Pelikan m805 Stresemann Anthracite (F Architect, by Custom Nib Studio). Kyo-no-oto Kokeiro. Koke continues on as a whimsy-forward color option for a second consecutive week. The Pelikan’s architect grind shuttles dark pools of ink to the top and bottom edges of my letterforms — adding flair to tedious tasks. Accenting notes, tagging notes for migration, journaling, tracking grading and lesson revision, and lesson plan outlines.

Pilot Prera Iro-Ai (CM). Robert Oster Schwarz Rose. The latest addition to my writing posse (with a mistaken two hashmarks on my swatch card). The Prera is a compact snap-cap writer tailor made for pocket carrying. However, the crisp CM nib requires attention to writing angle — which adds challenge to rapidly-jotted pocket notebook squiggles. Meeting notes, journaling, creative writing, lesson plan outlines, longform reflections, and curriculum design all come to mind.

Esterbrook Estie Back to the Land Quirky Leaf (B Scribe, by Josh Lax). Taccia Ukiyo-e Sharaku-Koiame. Koiame is easily the loudest color this week. The orange remains a favorite for marking students’ work because the orange is bright enough to demand ocular attention and not red. Many of my students lose their minds when they see red comments on their work. The architect writes a wide-ish M-B line width, wich is excellent in moderately paced longform writing like journaling, teaching reflections, and curriculum brainstorms.

Wild Cards

Such cavernous emptiness.

All in the family

A little tweak can make all the difference.

Entering Monday, the Esterbrook Estie was writing increasingly scratchy. I went through a checklist of possible causes. The ink converter was fully seated. The nib’s tines were properly aligned. The tines were flossed and free of paper-debris and shimmer clogs.

I found the poor ink-flow culprit while toying with the pen over lunch on Tuesday. The nib had slid to one side of the feed. The ink channel (at the center of the feed) needed to be re-seated underneath the nib’s tines.

Problem solved.

This week’s Inked Tines update includes last week’s currently inked writing tools.

Toolset

Pens. Last week’s second-most-used pairing stands out to me. The Esterbrook Estie (B Scribe) was continually on my desk while journaling, outlining lesson plans, taking notes through lesson activities, and even marking up manuscript drafts. Koiame’s shading leaps off the page, especially against the murky blues comprising half of last week’s palette. 1/2 full.

• Nakaya Neostandard (M Naginata) — Sabimidori is a hall of fame worthy ink. Fun dark blue while wet and green-teal once dry. The Naginata-esque nib accommodated quick jottings during a lesson observation, some manuscript drafting, and reading notes. Feed only.

• Platinum 3776 (EF) — Usuzumi aged well. Flooding the feed once last week led the pair to write reliably without dry starting since. Hair-thin lines in a moderately-sheened black make for easy legibility with pops of fun. Drove teaching-related writing all week and even lived as my pocket carry. 1/4 full.

• Asvine v126 (S) — Asvine’s feed encourages Hanada’s shadiest aspects. The Asvine’s somber colorway traveled through both a parent meeting and a curriculum review without distractions. Flawless performance. 1/3 full.

• Platinum 3776 (M) — Ainezu writes a glassy blue-black line in this particular M. A go-to for rapid writing all week: reflective journaling, manuscript drafting, one lesson outline, and two lesson observation notes. 1/2 full.

• Pelikan m805 (B Architect) — Pelikan’s wet feed bookmarks Koke’s shading at the beginnings and ends of letters. Fun punctuations of dark lemongrass color throughout my writing. A pairing I aim to tag in more frequently next week. Creative writing, D&D notes, journaling. 4/5 full.

Notebooks. Work bujo. Plotter Shiranami (A5). Last week had three teaching days. I adapted my typical weekly spread to capture Wednesday through Friday and a section for tasks that crop up for future dates, which I title “Later,” one a single page. Conservative.

All told, I used six pages. The adapted one-page weekly, a one-page homework check tracker, one page of meeting notes, and one more single page of curriculum-design scratch notes. The final two are lesson plan outlines.

Koiame’s burnt orange contrasts beautifully against Usuzumi’s dark black. Easy scanning was much-needed during a lesson that ran on timed rounds. The Esterbrook’s architect grind added flair, fun, and impressive legibility given the small size of my letterforms.

The Asvine’s stub nib carried me through a curricular meeting. Short narrative notes, detailed notes on a recommended rubric design, and jottings related to follow-up meetings. An impressive feat given the stub nib’s wide lines.

One of the week’s lessons involved grading my students’ ability to sustain evidence-supported conversation. I tapped the Uroko-Gumo twice to track students’ contributions about the influence of nationalism in the late 1800’s. The M nib is uncomplicated and forgiving on writing angle, and offers lines small enough to remain readable.

I took notes for two more classes with the week’s other middling-width writers: the Nakaya and the Esterbrook.

Journal. Musubi Tomo Halos (A5). I returned to my journal after three weeks of stasis. Three new entries. One descriptive recap of the prior weekend, two single-page analyses of my priorities going into 2026, and four poem excerpts. Eight new pages in all.

The Platinum Uroko-Gumo carried Monday evening’s scribbling. A brain dump of sorts. I recapped the prior weekend’s escapades with my partner. The round M nib let me focus on my thoughts over proper writing form. Two pages of wall-to-wall recounting.

The Esterbrook left fabulous gradient shading throughout the week’s second entry. A one-page application of a reflection I stumbled onto over in Instagram: how pleased eight-year-old and eighty-year-old me would be with my present day priorities.

Koiame’s burnt orange felt suitably old-timey for digging into the past-me side of the reflection. The Estie’s broad architect offered a wonderful balance of shading, line variation, and reliable ink delivery.

Written dry. Six pens entered the week. Six pens remain.

Newly inked. Absolute crickets. A decided absence of activity.

The collection

Incoming / new orders. Fountain Pen Revolution’s EF Flex Nib landed on the desk pad this week. The nib is primed and advertised with flex calligraphy in mind. Slow, deliberate writing that extends into maximum line variation.

I’ve taken to the give of soft nibs lately. Pilot’s SF and Delta’s Semi-Flex offer a whimsical bounce to my everyday printing. Mundane writing deserves some whimsy.

The FPR nib is presently seated in my Carolina Pen Company Charleston. Uninked.

Outgoing / trades or sales. No movement here.

Currently reading and listening

Fiction. I finished Ross’ Enchanted Sea Tuesday evening. The story was set in a magic-infused Ireland-ish world. The magic system, infused into the everyday lives of the people on the island, intrigued me.

I transitioned into a sardonic high-fantasy getup with Wexler’s How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying. Davi, the protagonist, is easy to empathize with. The joking tone has given me a desired outlet from the gloom and violence of the real world right now. A balanced escapism.

Nonfiction. My latest arrival is Max Stearn’s Parliamentary America. Stearns makes his case for three new amendments to revise the United States’ political system back towards democratic practice. A thoughtfully hopeful trio of aspirations.

I’ve been using a USA Generals Cedar Pointe pencil for annotations. The 2HB core quickly grew on me. A happy middle of dark grey lines and point retention. Thanks to the reader who kindly shared this excellent wood pencil!

Music. I am floored with how strong Chillhop’s latest Winter Essentials compilation record is. The lo-fi record has been on repeat through nearly every writing and reading session so far in January.

The tracks feel wintery. The vibe befits calm me-sessions. The tracks and videos are family friendly. Bases covered.

Taccia’s Ukiyo-e series feels designed to spur excitement. Each ink comprises cleverly engineered colors capturing multiple aspects of an historical woodblock print. I’ve collected six inks from the collection which, taken together, cover each color family I like to keep inked in my penvelope: grey/black, blue/teal, earth tones, and one wild card.

I swapped out the Nahvalur and it’s Mini Cutlass grind this week. Ume-Murasaki was simply too dry to write enjoyably in the Nahvalur. No shade to either pen or ink, which are both excellent individually.

I chose a broader, wetter architect nib to replace the Nautilus. The Pelikan m805 is the only pen represented twice in last year’s longest-inked swatches. The moment felt right to re-ink the m805 — not least because the Pelikan was last inked in March 2025.

Grey/Black

Platinum 3776 Tsuki Kusa (EF). Taccia Ukiyo-e Utemaro-Usuzumi. A combination of periodically flooding the 3776’s feed and Platinum’s sealing cap mechanism keeps the pairing from dry starting between writing sessions. And yet, ten seconds or longer in open-air results in a dry start. Disciplined EF lines make for easily legible detailed notes, even with my scrawny letterforms. Daily driver, task management, lesson plan outlines, and reading notes.

Blue/Teal

Platinum 3776 Uroko-Gumo (M). Taccia Ukiyo-e Hiroshige-Ainezu. The Platinum M nib and Ainezu are a glass-smooth writing combination. The 3776’s feed is dry enough to coax denim-blue hues out of an often near-black Ainezu. Simply glorious as a pairing. The round nib and smooth writing make for an excellent meeting notes writer. Also: manuscript drafting.

Asvine v126 Matte Black (S). Taccia Ukiyo-e Fukaki-Hanada. Hanada is an ink of moderation: middling flow, dry time, and brightness. An excellent accent color for marking up manuscript drafts and student papers alike. The Asvine is comfortable in short scribblings and longform sessions, opening the pairing up to a diversity of tasks. Journaling, longform reflections, curriculum design, manuscript marking.

Earth Tones

Pelikan m805 Stresemann Anthracite (F Architect, by Custom Nib Studio). Kyo-no-oto Kokeiro. The sole addition to this week’s currently inked. Koke is a powerhouse shader, a feature emphasized by the Pelikan’s generous feed. Koke’s lemongrass green contrasts easily against this week’s somber palette, which lends this pairing to accent and migration annotations. Also: journaling, creative writing, and journaling.

Nakaya Neostandard Heki-tamenuri (M Naginata-togi, by Kyuseido). Taccia Ukiyo-e Sabimidori. Sabimidori color shifts from blue to green as it dries. Writing that would benefit from a degree of whimsy would benefit from placing this pairing to hand. Journaling, creative writing, lesson plan outlines, longform reflections, curriculum design, and meeting notes all come to mind.

Esterbrook Estie Back to the Land Quirky Leaf (B Scribe, by Josh Lax). Taccia Ukiyo-e Sharaku-Koiame. The combination of the crisp Scribe grind (an excellent nib that shows off line variation) and two-hands-required press-and-seal cap directs this pairing towards slow moving writing: journaling, commonplace notes, notes review.

Wild Cards

Made you look.

All in the family

Swatch cards are brilliant. Swatches emphasize the details in an ink. The cards ease comparing different inks, particularly when two inks have similar hues. A swatch library emphasizes which color families my collection favors, which helps me make informed ink-buying decisions. I sincerely have a lifetime’s supply of somber blues and the tall stack of cards drives that reality home.

Importantly, ink swatches are fun to make.

Tracking pen-nib-ink combinations

More to the point, swatch cards are also a vehicle for thoughtfully tracking which pens and nibs and inks I use.

I added hash marks to my ink swatch cards in 2025 to track which pen-nib-ink combinations I enjoyed enough to keep inked over consecutive weeks. Inversely, updating tracking marks on swatch cards would also uplift pairings that only lasted a single week in rotation.

The goal was to keep the tracking system simple. A horizontal hashmark down the right-hand side of the swatch card signifying each week that pen-nib-ink pairing knocked around in my currently inked. An easily revised and reviewed tracker.

2025’s longest-serving pen-nib-ink combinations

Novelty and change drive my inking decisions. I often partially fill pens to hasten the need to swap out even enjoyable pairings. As such, pen-nib-ink pairings typically live two-to-four weeks in active rotation.

Eight consecutive weeks inked

Four pairings enjoyed eight consecutive weeks in rotation. In other words: only four inks paired so well with their assigned nibs that I kept them in active rotation for two months.

All four pens sport huge ink capacities. Two vacuum fillers (TWSBI Vac700R and Asvine v200) lean towards full fills due to the physics of their respective mechanisms. The other two are piston fillers (Pelikan m805 and Pilot 92). Partial filling vacuum-fed and piston-filler pens would require separating the body and then syringe-filling only part of the ink chamber.

Two blue-black inks, one bright blue, and one burnt orange-brown. Four ground nibs: three italics and one architect. A clean split between accent colors and darker, work-friendly tones.

Six consecutive weeks inked

Five more combinations spent six weeks on my desk in active rotation. A pair of blues (one blue-black and one mid-toned blue), a pair of teals (one dark and one whispy), and an earthy green-brown.

Four ground nibs and one B. Four dark, professional shades (Koninginne Nach-Blauw, 340, Enchanted Ocean, and Walt Whitman) and one bright accent in KOBE’s Fairies. Interestingly, the Pelikan m805 made a repeat appearance.

The ink swatch cards whisper to me that …

Dark blue inks stick with me. Denim and teal, in particular. Wide, ground nibs anchor themselves in my currently inked rotations — two-thirds, to be numerically detailed about the pattern. Most tellingly, these swatches teach me that I don’t know why these combinations were inked for so long.

Some possible reasons:

• The pen-nib-ink combination worked so well I kept reaching for it.

• The pairing was forgettable and I simply left it unattended in my pen case.

• I disliked the pairing a perfect amount: not enough to for it (and left its ink level secured) but enough that I wanted another go at the pair the following week.

My realization, having reflected on 2025’s longest-lasting ink swatches, is that I would benefit from a note recording my feelings about each card to know what lesson to draw from its rotational longevity.

A lesson and a next step. Good deal-e-oh.

I’ve moved the blog over to Substack. New posts, updates, and resources are available over on yonder platform.

mnmlscholar blog scribbles on over here

This site will remain open as-is for about a year while I finish transitioning the mnmlscholar archive over to Substack’s servers. Then we’ll ensure the mnmlscholar.com url brings you right to the shiny and fresh Substack version of the site. Easy peasy.

What does this mean for those with RSS feeds?

RSS feeds to the mnmlscholar.com url will go dark in the short term. The temporary mnmlscholar.substack.com url offers easy paths to subscribe for email and for trusty RSS automation. Wahoo.

Long term, RSS feeds to this url should reactivate when I move this domain over to the new Substack servers.

Best of both worlds … after some temporary choppy seas.

Why all the fuss?

I’m a firm believer that technology should work for me. Apps and publishing tools should ease my ability to think in writing.

Squarespace is invested in serving e-commerce businesses with easy-to-use webtools — which it does well. Writing and editing posts, especially from markdown imports as I do, have lost the nuanced functionality that made posting with Squarespace enjoyable for me. My workflow is now a mismatch to how Squarespace has resourced its post editor. Posting has felt more a chore than a joy.

I would need to overhaul how I write and upload images to continue within Squarespace’s editor. The inverse of my technology philosophy is working to suit the app’s functionality. Naw.

Substack is a text-forward medium more in line with my own process. I’m committed to sharing what I’m using and how I’m using it. This blog is fun to write. And meeting awesome people through comments has been life-giving.

Substack’s editor matches well my existing writing process and syncs with the software living at the heart of my blogging workflow. A happy fit.

Join me on Substack?

I’ve found a new internet home. Like a snail with a new shell, time is needed for me to fill it in with ramblings, reflections, and retellings of my stationery adventures.

I’m excited. I hope you’ll continue on this analog journey alongside me :)

— JP

A new year calls for a fresh desk of inked pens. My most recent ink acquisition, Taccia’s Ukiyo-e Fukaki-Hanada, brought my collection of Taccia’s excellent Japanese painters series to six bottles; a sextet that makes a workable currently inked in-and-of-itself. The universe sent me a sign and I inked it.

I anticipate a slow week on campus filled with detailed planning, reading notes, and student meetings. Three architect-shaped nibs lend fine line variation to three different paces of detailed record-keeping: the Nahvalur’s EF Cutlass for deliberation, the Nakaya’s M Naginata for moderate scribbling, and the Esterbrook’s B Scribe for rapid fire distraction. Slow weeks can accommodate adventurous nib choices.

Grey/Black

Platinum 3776 Tsuki Kusa (EF). Taccia Ukiyo-e Utemaro-Usuzumi. Usuzumi’s black sheen is a prominent feature of the ink, and one that encourages dry starts. I chose the 3776 for its slip & seal cap which should mitigate the worst of Usuzumi’s dry start side-effect. My all-time favorite EF nib cements a function-forward daily driver. Task management, meeting notes, lesson plan outlines, and reading notes.

Blue/Teal

Platinum 3776 Uroko-Gumo (M). Taccia Ukiyo-e Hiroshige-Ainezu. A smooth writing, eye catching pen design that matches Ainezu’s murky grump joyfully well. The M nib is dry enough tease udnertones of blue out of Ainezu, particularly after a long writing session keeps the nib exposed for minutes at a time. The M nib is also forgiving on writing angle, which opens the pairing up to fast moving tasks like brainstorms and rough drafts.

Asvine v126 Matte Black (S). Taccia Ukiyo-e Fukaki-Hanada. The Asvine is impressively sturdy for a pen at the sub-$30 price point. The matted translucent black body and black trim should fly under the proverbial radar during administrative meetings. The stub nib and feed provide gradient shading with the beginning and end of words mid-toned blue and the middles of words an antique turquoise. Escellent for longform reflections, manuscript drafts, and meeting notes.

Earth Tones

Nakaya Neostandard Heki-tamenuri (M Naginata-togi, by Kyuseido). Taccia Ukiyo-e Sabimidori. A surprisingly wet feed-and/ink combination producing prominent red-orange sheen in the final third of words. The Nakaya’s “naginata” nib grind is forgiving, which lends this writer to thoughtful middling-speed writing sessions wherein I get lost in my own thoughts to the detriment of a disciplined writing angle. And Sabimidori’s fun color-shift (blue to green) lends whimsy to creative brainstorms. Journaling, lesson plan outlines, meeting notes, and creative writing.

Esterbrook Estie Back to the Land Quirky Leaf (B Scribe, by Josh Lax). Taccia Ukiyo-e Sharaku-Koiame. This particular Scribe grind is quite sharp, which maximizes line variation at a proper writing angle. Koiame’s orange hue leaps off the page for easy reviewing. The Estie’s press-seal cap requires intention to re-cap the pen which lends this particular writer to slow moving recollections and reviews. My go-to accenting writer for margin notes in manuscript drafts, marking student work, and for reviewing notes.

Wild Cards

Nahvalur Nautilus Primary Macchiato (Mini-Cutlass, by All in the Nib). Taccia Ukiyo-e Ume-Murasaki. The Nautilus is as goldilocks width for my hand — as comfortable during rapid bursts of scribbling as through longform drafting. Murasaki’s unsaturated red-purple blends just enough alongside Usuzumi to keep me focused while standing out enough within the week’s palette to also serve as a mild accent. The EF-wide Cutlass grind works best for slow-paced tasks like pedagogy analysis and manuscript revision.

All in the family

mnmlscholar is presently a stationery snail that is still growing into its new shell.

Temporary Complete Blog Archive

Moving the archive at a snail’s pace

I recently transitioned mnmlscholar from my prior home at Squarespace to Substack. And, like the stately snail, the transition process will take some time to get from there to here.

Transitions are challenging. Substack only automatically imports the 20 most recent blog posts. So, I am in the process of copying the ≈ 500 older blog posts manually.

The Temporary Complete Blog Archive allows folks access to the entire mnmlscholar library while I continue porting posts over to this snazzy new blogging home.

Three of the week’s inks are technically shimmer inks. I opted to fill each without shaking their bottles. I particularly appreciate separating the fancy from the function of an ink when I anticipate a wealth of short form writing. All three (Enchanted Ocean, Sparkling Shadows, and Sugar Snap) flair up with excellent shading and, without shimmer, flow easily.

As for color: I chose a palette of light-and-dark pairs. Enchanted Ocean is a dark, sheen-forward blue while Eau de Nil is a brighter mid-toned teal. Sugar Snap continues on as a mid-toned yellow-green with deeper shading while Seaweed is a pale green. A little bicoloring.

Grey/Black

TWSBI 580-AL Silver (EF). Diamine Sparkling Shadows. Moderately shading grey inks elicit smiles for me — a boon for a daily driver I’d like to reach for time and again throughout the week. Shadows is quite wet in this EF nib. I need to slow down and breathe before closing a notebook to prevent ink smearing. Task management, meeting notes, scratch notes, and pocket carry.

Blue/Teal

Junlai 930 Ivory White (B). Diamine Enchanted Ocean. My initial expectation of the Junlai, with its massive #9 nib and well-balanced tree-branch dimensions, was as a go-to during teaching reflections and meetings. However, it’s so large as to blitz into meeting agenda. So, the Nunlai has found a happy home when writing at my home desk: journaling, drafting, D&D notes, and, on the weekends, lesson plan outlines.

Delta Dune Zephyr (F Semi-Flex). Diamine Eau de Nil. What a neat pen with a less-than-one turn uncapping. A comfortable size in my hand for brief, medium, and extended writing sessions. The semi-flex nib is soft, providing real-time control over how much shading Nil throws off. Banger. Meeting notes, longform teaching reflections, personal journaling, and some manuscript drafting.

Earth Tones

Pilot Custom 743 Deep Red (F). Diamine Sugar Snap. The 743 is my alternate meeting notetaker. I also like the deep red pen for grading students’ formative homework. Snap’s shading lends whimsy to routine writing like grocery lists and task brainstorms.

Gravitas Monster Aluminum Teal (EF). Dominant Industry Seaweed. The universe took away and the Pen Addict Slack delivered. I swapped the black EF nib over from the cracked Monster for a dark contrast against this Monster’s lovely teal shade. The EF-wide light green lines work great for marking students’ writing, marking my own writing, and for detailed note taking like reading notes. A true bookworm enabler.

Cypress Kawari-nuri Casual A (Sketch, by Monty Winnfield). Teranishi Nostalgic Honey. The paintbrush-to-fine polarity of the Sketch nib is a giggle-generator. The paintbrush scribbles lecture notes that are readable from feet away. The F nib lays out letterforms that work great for journaling and longform reflecting.

Wild Cards

Gravitas Monster Aluminum Black (B). Taccia Ukiyo-e Ume-Murasaki. When the penverse is kind, it’s quite kind. My replacement black Monster sports a disciplined B nib. The week’s palette benefits from a shading-forward earthy purple-red in Murasaki. Nerves lead me to relegate the Monster to longform seated writing: journaling, letter writing, manuscript drafting, and D&D notes.

All in the family

This post is part of a series of reflections, each focused on one of six trays comprising the current state of my collection. You can find tray one’s review here.

———

I last took inventory of my pen collection back in 2022. My collection has changed considerably since then, driven by evolving needs and workflows as I moved cities and jobs. This post continues my check-in process as to which pens continue to suit my needs and which might warrant re-homing is a worthwhile reflection.

I measure each pen against three guiding principals.

1. Do I regularly use the pen?

2. Does the pen spark joy when I ink it up?

3. Is it well-suited to the kinds of writing I most commonly take up?

As I wrote about collection-level check-ins back in 2022,

“I hold the same rule for my collection as I do for technology (new apps and the like): each pen should work for me, not me for it. As the kinds of projects I take on change, the pens and inks that serve me best also change. Moving targets.”

An opacity spectrum

This week, I’m thinking through a second of my collection’s six 13-pen trays. A tray populated by Pilots and TWSBIs. The tray of transparent pens.

An air force of pilots

Pilot Custom Heritage 92: Clear, Transparent Blue. I turn to my 92s during entropic weeks when my calendar is expected to be jam-packed and dynamic. Such weeks happen infrequently. The Clear was last inked in March 2025 (six months ago) and the Transparent Blue was last inked a full year before that. Irregular use for both colorways.

I enjoy the slight feedback Pilot’s nibs offer. Pilot’s Number 5 nibs are easily swappable and fit in both my 92s and 74. This gives me access to narrow (EF) and wide (B) lines, as well as line variation from my FM Architect. The whole spectrum is covered.

Further, Pilot’s penchant for business-meeting-friendly colorwways suits my in-school and at-home writing scenes. And they fit securely inside pockets while moving between classrooms. Pilot’s 92s are well suited to my use-case but are, nonetheless, rarely rotated onto my desk.  A curious realization.

Pilot Custom Heritage 912 Black & Silver. I last used the 912 during Summer 2024, over one year ago. The 912 falls short of the regular use standard.

However, the 912 houses my sole Soft Fine nib. The pen is also my widest Pilot section, which I find remains comfortable across medium and long writing sessions. The nib sparks joy and pen design suits my writing needs.

The 912 meets two out of three benchmarks. So I’m opting to tag the 912 in more often rather than move it on to another person’s collection.

Pilot Custom 74 Forest Green. The 74 holds sentimental value for me as my first “luxury” fountain pen was a Custom 74. The dark green cap and barrel, tipped with grey finials, still brings a smirk to my scholarly face (just above the beard-y area).

My database tells me that I last inked the 74 in April of 2025, just shy of half a year ago. A proximate use, if not recent. The 74 passes.

Custom 743 Deep Red. Warm toned reds rarely find their way into my collection. This 743 is an exception. The 743 also sports my collection’s lone size 15 nib. A disciplined F that can daily drive and carry longform writing in equal measure. Further, the 743 is inked as I draft this post. Huzzah for our backwards-walking writers.

Pilot Prera Slate Gray. I hold a deep appreciation for the Prera. The clip is tailor-made for holding to pockets and folders alike. The snap cap seals well enough and fits securely onto the body for balanced writing. And it even comes in grey. Joy affirmed.

I last inked the Prera back in October of 2024, eleven months ago. The question is: why do I fail to reach for the Prera if it checks my use-case and joy boxes? I suspect it’s the M nib size. An EF or B would suit my tastes better but, alas, the Prera comes primarily in F and M. Am I working to keep the Prera? Likely.

Seven may be one too many …

580-AL Silver, Turquoise, and Lava. I have a tendency to treat my TWSBIs harshly. The 580s all accept the hard use, crack without fully breaking, and keep on reliably performing. All three have seen ink and paper in recent months. My trio of 580’s offers me a warm tone, a cool tone, and a neutral silver. As a set: I’m set.

580-ALR: Prussian Blue. The ALR’s use-case matches exactly the ALs described above. However, the dark blue metal-worked ALR was last inked in May 2024, over 15 months ago. Such a prolonged dry spell suggests that I have too many 580s in my collection.

That said, I’ll need to think carefully about which to move on to another home — particularly since cracked caps will create a lower entry point for folks who might not otherwise be able to jump into the 580 line.

580 Smoke RoseGold II. I’ve scored the ink channel in the Smoke’s feed so that it puts down wet channels of ink. The Smoke is my pen of choice for high sheen and high shimmer inks. The F nib is tuned tighter than standard to offset the wet, nigh-uncloggable feed. Frequent, intentional use make the Smoke a keeper.

Vac 700R: Iris and Kyanite Blue. The 700s both house specially-ground nibs: one F CI and the other a M Selvedge. Having noticable flair available in moderately narrow line widths keeps detailed notes fun, lecture notes readable, and journaling interesting.

“Unsaturated” seems to be my color preference

Note — You can check out my entire collection over at my pen database. I use a Google Sheet to track details about each pen in my collection. Where I got each, which nibs are compatible, when each was last inked, etc. The database updates live to mnmlscholar as my tinkerings continue. A system that sounds organized when I describe it like this but functions more like contained chaos.

I unintentionally inked 80% of this week’s totable writables with liquid from Diamine’s science chambers. An unintentional consequence of digging into long-unused inks. And Diamine has a strong bench.

Nib choices are split evenly between narrow lines and wide writers. The TWSBI’s EF, Pilot’s F, and Cypress’ Sketch nib write small letterforms legibly. The Junlai’s B and duo of Togis offer wider heading-worthy lines. What’s more: the Sketch nib empowers a magic marker width line when needed.

Power to the welded

Grey/Black

TWSBI 580-AL Silver (EF). Diamine Sparkling Shadows. Shadows dates to the early days of shimmer inks. The dark purple-undertoned grey shades well in all line widths, even my happy-happy EF. A clip should hold this daily driver securely in my pocket in-between desks and in-between writing sessions. Task management, scratch notes, lesson outlines, and event tracking in my personal planner.

Blue/Teal

Junlai 930 Ivory White (B). Diamine Enchanted Ocean. Ocean shades in gradient when paired with a dry nib. However, the 930’s feed pours ink onto the page akin to an ebonite feed. The result is murky blues punctuated by red sheen. The pen’s size relegates it to slow-moving personal sessions: lesson outlines, teaching reflections, journaling, and perhaps D&D notes.

Earth Tones

Carolina Charleston Cool Tone Primary Manipulation (Soft Vintage Naginata Togi, by Monty Winnfield). Diamine Celadon Cat. Cat’s shading is giggle-inducingly prominent. (Thank you, Reddit.) The Charleston writes generously, producing wide lines suitable to longform writing and headings. Journaling, creative writing, and drafting the ongoing manuscript.

Nakaya Neostandard Heki-tamenuri (B Naginata Togi, by Tokyo Station Pens). Bungubox Dandyism. The pairing provides a storm of near-black ink on the page in a disciplined FM line. Wet enough to overpower Dandyism’s shading everywhere except the tail ends on long words. The Nakaya is a comfortable size for my hand, rendering all-length writing sessions enjoyable. Meeting notes (particularly headings), lesson prep, journaling, and lesson outlines.

Cypress Kawari-nuri Casual A (Sketch, by Monty Winnfield). Teranishi Nostalgic Honey. Regular writing provides a M line width with powerful, legible shading. Honey’s burnished hues keep lecture notes readable while standing. Reverse writing makes a BBB line that I’ve taken to using as a highlighter, accenting migratable tasks from within notes.

Pilot Custom 743 Deep Red (F). Diamine Sugar Snap. I inked Sugar Snap without its limey shimmer. Narrow, grass green lines make for excellent margin notes while reading and marking papers. The long and narrow 743 is comfortable through short and medium duration writing sessions. The dry ink/feed combination dries with minimal feathering on copy paper. Let’s go.

Wild Cards

Cavernous echoes of none.

All in the family

I sat for an all-faculty meeting Wednesday afternoon. A gathering that takes place after a full day of teaching. My colleagues and I roll in tired, feeling varying levels of accomplished. Faculty sit in small aluminum desks on choir risers. Wednesday’s sit-down was the first such meeting of our academic year.

My head was elsewhere, thinking about family and mentally revising my lessons from the day.

I set my Gravitas Monster, the week’s dedicated daily driver — and an absolute banger of a recent acquisition — in the crook of my notebook for safe keeping while I reached out to snag a handout that was getting passed around.

Clack. Metal and acrylic on the riser three feet below. And an audible “Oh no!” from the good-natured colleague next to me. They rose and snagged napkins while I started cleaning spilled ink from the riser.

I recovered both pieces of my Monster, wrapped them in a backup shop towel I keep in my work bag, and wedged the pen upright in the topmost exterior pocket of my bag with the bag’s zipper.

Rest easy, you spectre of the inky deep

Even beastly pens are fragile beings.

This week’s Inked Tines update includes last week’s currently inked writing tools.

Toolset

Pens. The TWSBI 580-AL and its EF nib roared in off the proverbial bench after the Monster broke this week. I opted for a pen with a clip immediately following the sad events of Wednesday afternoon. I started the daily driver with a half fill on the expectation that a few weeks with the same ink will , aided by also journeying alongside me as my pocket carry. 2/5.

• Gravitas Monster (EF) — Empty. A sizable #8 EF nib that grew on me during its month in my currently inked. RIP, dear Monster.

• Mythic Aeschylus (BB). — Empty. The BB nib rapidly tore through a converter’s worth of ink. Smooth, tasteful feedback while writing. Excellent for accenting meeting notes and for scannable lesson outlines.

• Cypress Casual A (Sketch, by Monty Winnfield). 1/3. Nostalgic Honey’s power shading highlights the strengths of the Sketch nib, which functions well as both a brush and a FM. Same uses as the Aeschylus above.

• Nakaya Neostandard (B Naginata-togi, by Kyuseido). 1/5. A wet pen/ink combination. Dark green-black tones effectuated stealthy meeting notes throughout the week.

• Carolina Charleston (Soft Vintage Naginata-togi, by Monty Winnfield). Full. Celadon Cat’s shading on Halos is strong enough to make reading challenging, but shades readably on Plotter paper. The pen/paper/ink trifecta in action.

• Junlai 930 (B). 1/2. Enchanted Ocean shades smoothly and writes evenly, even on copy paper. The massive #9 nib works great for slower, deliberative tasks like annotations and journaling.

Notebooks. Work bujo. Plotter Shiranami (A5). Six new pages scrawled across the pages I lovingly snapped into my teaching Plotter. Three full-page lesson plan outlines, a two-page weekly task management spread, and one-third of a page of meeting notes.

The types of activities within the lesson run down the leftmost side in the Gravitas’ green-steel Sohayanotsuruki coloring. Details I want to surface within each activity are noted down the right-hand column in more colorful tones. The Cypress’ Nostalgic Honey denotes this particular lesson on Horace Miner’s excellent essay on the Body Ritual of the Nacirema.

Sweet principle analysis

I also took the Mythic Aeschylus for its final lesson planning ride Friday afternoon. Pumpkin Patch runs lighter until it ran scratchily-near-empty by the final debriefing activity. Just enough ink to wrap this introductory lesson on the Aztec Empire.

Orange is easy to read in quick glances while teaching

Journal. Musubi Tomo Halos (A5). Poetry was a refuge for me this past week. Four of the week’s five journal entries conclude with a transcription from one poem or another. Eleven pages in total. Four of which are half-filled with writing as I begin each new entry on a fresh page.

Poetry often mirrors my headspace better than direct descriptions. Adding a poem to the end of an entry is also a great excuse to swap pens mid-journaling.

You’re excused

All five entries were medium-length descriptions of my feelings. Writing out my feelings on events, rather than recounting the events, helps me to find shape. The shape of what I want. The shape of what I want to accomplish next.

The reflective power of “should”

Reviewing my journaling emphasizes that I favored B and M nib options throughout the week’s reflections. Wide lines made for prominent shading. Wide lines also fill up pages more quickly than would narrow line widths.

Broad and proud

Written dry. The Mythic Aeschylus ran empty Friday afternoon. The BB nib did its work rapidly drawing down the ink level.

Newly inked. I called the TWSBI 580-AL out of the pen case when I arrived home on Wednesday evening. A quick swap of the M Selvedge nib that was installed on the pen for my stock TWSBI EF rendered the 580 ready for daily driving service. Hoo-ah.

The collection

Incoming / new orders. I put out a call to the Pen Addiction Slack folks for possible Gravitas Monster replacements. The outcome of that call is substance for a future post. What I’ll say this week is: mail services have been chartered.

Outgoing / trades or sales. The Gravitas Monster broke after an unplanned fall this week. The barrel is unusable. That said, the filling mechanism, seal, and section/nib are all fully functional. A collection of parts for future repair or, perhaps, for a future custom build job. Putting positive vibes into the inky ether.

Currently reading and listening

Fiction.I finished re-reading John Scalzi’s Interdependency last week. I have a weakness for snarky, smart dialogue, which is one of Scalzi’s strengths. 46 pages in all.

I’m quite taken with my Boox e-ink tablet. It runs on Android and so gives me access to public library loans and private ebook servers alike. Evening reading without a backlight, so my partner can sleep soundly through my end-of-day nerdery.

Nonfiction. Jason Stanley’s Erasing History has slept on the right corner of my desk for months now. Unattended. September is a great time to break out the ol’ pencil and highlighters.

Music. Rainbow Kitten Surprise has visited, revisited, and rocked my speakers this week. Morning and afternoon commutes. Evening journaling sessions. A soundtrack while making dinners.

The band is a high-energy blend of rock, glam, and up-tempo beats. A cadre of solid musicians who are open to joking around with their music.

A word to the wise: some of Rainbow Kitten Surprise’s tracks are explicit.

This post is part of a series of reflections, each focused on one of six trays comprising the current state of my collection. You can find tray two’s review here.

———

I last took inventory of my pen collection back in 2022. My collection changed considerably over the following three years, driven by evolving needs and workflows as I moved cities and jobs. A check-in reflection on which pens continue to suit my needs and which might warrant re-homing is a worthwhile reflection.

The check-in process involves measuring each pen against three guiding principals.

1. Do I regularly use the pen?

2. Does the pen spark joy when I ink it up?

3. Is it well-suited to the kinds of writing I most commonly take up?

As I wrote about collection-level check-ins back in 2022,

“I hold the same rule for my collection as I do for technology (new apps and the like): each pen should work for me, not me for it. As the kinds of projects I take on change, the pens and inks that serve me best also change. Moving targets.”

Nippon Nibbage

This week, as proof of life after many weeks away from mnmlscholar, I’m sifting through the topmost of my collection’s six 13-pen trays. A tray populated by Platinums and Sailors. The tray of nippon nibbage.

What’s the plural for “platinum?”

Platinum Preppy Wa. The Preppy is my go-to model for a pen-ableing gift. While the green checkerboard Wa has survived the ‘great gifting,’ it has not yet been inked. A result that speaks to the Preppy’s excellent design — a design that lives outside my current preferences.

Platinum 3776: Star Wars Kylo Ren, Laurel Green, Uroko-Gumo, Tsuki Kusa, and Nice Pur. The 3776 is a design replete with happy mediums. Moderately wide, moderately long, and moderately light. The slip-seal cap lining keeps the pen ink-secure.

All five 3776s are understated colorways, flying below the attention of students, colleagues and parents; all minimizing distraction. Two of my favorite F and one of my favorite EF nibs reside in these 3776s.

The Laurel and Uroko-Gumo have not yet entered rotation in 2025’s eight months. The Nice was inked last March, the Kusa in April, and good ol’ Kylo in May. Recency is my clarifier. Two 3776s might be better served rehomed.

The navy, in port-of-call

Sailor Pro Gear: Imperial Black, Graphite Lighthouse, Slate, Blue Moon, Bora Bora, and Blue Train. Sailor’s resinous plastic has an oily feel that I find pleasant. I tend to rub the cap with a thumb while thinking. My sextet is a rainbow of black, grey and blue. Somber and cool tones with tiny pops of humor: a translucent finial or section, silver shimmer in a silver-grey colorway.

I drifted away from heavily using Pro Gears since 2022. Only the Blue Moon has been inked in 2025. Only the Blue Moon passes Rule 1.

Do my Sailors warrant so much pen case real estate? My colorways all pass Rule 3. The answer depends on whether they continue sparking joy when reintroduced to regular rotation. I clearly need to put my Pro Gears to the Rule 2 Test this Fall. Anticip … ation.

Sailor King of Pen. My collection’s only Sailor demonstrator is the only pen with an expansive metal converter sheath to show off. The B nib is crispy, offering consistent, if feedbacky, scribbling.

The King of Pen also passes Rule 1, having seen regular use as recently as the beginning of this summer. I consider all bases (read: rules) covered.

Sheath-like skeleton

Sailor 1911 Large. The lone 1911 in my collection is a true accent in its bright tangerine orange, offering the only bright color in Tray 1. The 1911 is also the longtime home for my only Sailor architect nib. Flair enough for a Chotchkie’s.

The 1911 also sees regular use, inked only a few weeks ago in June. Passing on all cylinders.

———

Note — You can check out my entire collection over at my pen database. I use the Google Sheet to track details about each pen in my collection. Where I got each, which nibs are compatible, when each was last inked, etc. The database updates live to mnmlscholar as my tinkerings continue. A system that sounds organized when I describe it like this but functions more like a chaos filter.

I crafted three new pen-and-ink pairings for the week. Two large demonstrator pens will ensure longform writing and end-of-year teaching reflections (which also tend to run long for me) are comfortable affairs.

Crafting involved swapping two nibs. The first swap was easy because Pelikan’s m805 nib units are made to screw in and out. I wanted the cursive italic grind from my Stresemann Anthracite in the Souverän Demonstrator. As easy as uncapping a pen.

The second crafting was trickier. Exchanging the nibs and feeds between the Graphite Lighthouse model and Blue Moon careful attention and a gentle hand to keep from damaging the delicate plastic fins on the underside of the feed.

These fins weren’t made for walking …

Grey/Black

Sailor Pro Gear Smoothie Blue Moon (EF). Diamine Earl Grey. I swapped the EF nib into the Blue Moon to pair the purple-undertoned neutral colors matching across pen and ink (Earl Grey). My task management go-to is also the week’s daily driver: serving up meeting notes and pocket carry for the coming week. All the things.

Blue/Teal

TWSBI Vac700R Kyanite (B Selvedge, by Nib Tailor). Yoseka Ming Kong Que Blue. MKQ Blue is, by far, the brightest in color in this week’s palette. The pair is tailor made to render accent notes noticeable, and for marking student papers that require a healthy amount of teacher feedback. The bright blue should be calming, where a red ink might raise anxiety. I also aim to tap this second demonstrator for curriculum meetings, D&D notes, and lesson plan outlines. And certainly some journal shenanigans.

Visconti Homo Sapiens Blizzard (EF). Troublemaker Abalone. Abalone has grown darker, mercurial, and moody now that it has had over a week in the Visconti but continue to throw off pink tones. A joyful mellowing of this pen-and-ink pairing. The EF nib keeps tiny, detailed notes easily legible, which is especially important when marking students papers and revising my own writing drafts. Plus some journaling.

Earth Tones

Sailor King of Pen Demonstrator (B). Platinum Fuji-Unkei Aka-Fuji. This particular Sailor B  nib lays ink onto the page in generous furrows, granting Aka-Fuji ample opportunity to show off red sheen as a result. The King of Pen’s wide section and clear colorway make for comfortable longform writing sessions regardless of slow or fast scribbling. Creative writing, lesson plan outlines, reading notes, and letters.

Pelikan m805 Souverän Demonstrator (F CI, by Custom Nib Studio). Diamine Ancient Copper. Ancient Copper throws off beastly (yet consistent) halos of dark brown. That shading is combined with a cursive italic grind, rendering this pairing a subtle and fun go-to. Analytic teaching reflections, targeted journaling, lesson plan outlines, and reading notes.

Wild Cards

Platinum 3776 Star Wars Kylo Ren (F). Papier Plume Bootlegger’s Sacrament. Sacrament has aged into a true near-black in the more than one week it has been paired with Kylo Ren. The Century’s section is narrow enough to accommodate fine-detailed notes. And the mostly black colorway keeps in-class notes distraction free, which helps my students stay on task rather than veer off topic via questions about a cool pen. Discussion notes, reading notes, D&D notes, and perhaps some journaling.

All in the family

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.

The week of May 4 has become a Star Wars fan’s holiday amongst my friends and coworkers. I dug deep and added two pens which channel a galaxy far, far away to the week’s currently inked.

Platinum released a line of 3776 pens years ago and the Kylo Ren edition lives in my pen case. The F nib is one of my all-time best writers, and narrow enough to serve as an EF most weeks. This week, though, the junior Solo carries a moody purple accent ink.

Brooding, as Kylo Ren is prone to do

The white on black of Visconti’s Blizzard colorway channels Bad Batch era stormtrooper armor for me. Add the helmet-like nib art and the Homo Sapiens proves a fitting May 4 addition to the week’s penvelope.

Grey/Black

Platinum 3776 Tsuki Kusa (EF). Birmingham Slag Gray. I like a tidy, narrow line for task management. My tiny handwriting stays legible and narrow nib sizes often dry quickly enough to avoid smearing. Platinum’s EF provides both, and throws in pencil-like feedback as a bonus. The 3776 is light with a narrow section that allows fine control whilst scribbling scrawny letters.

Blue/Teal

TWSBI Vac 700R Kyanite (B Selvedge, by Nib Tailor). Yoseka Ming Kong Que Blue. A searing turquoise blue with intermittent red sheen keeps my accent notes and students’ paper markings cheery, even as they highlight improvements to be made to our writing. The Selvedge grind lends an unobtrusive flair to my niggling of students’ works. Bonus.

Visconti Homo Sapiens Blizzard (EF). Troublemaker Abalone. Stormtrooper. A reader recently recommended Abalone to me as a next-choice for my empty Aonibi: a murky blue with lively pink-red chrome shading. The magnetic closure facilitates rapid note taking during fast-paced meetings and while brainstorming. A stormtrooper that hits its mark.

Earth Tones

Pilot Custom 74 Forest Green (B). Montblanc Homage to the Brothers Grimm. Grimm shades to a beastly degree; lending a shouty dark green to even quickly-scrawled lines of text. The 74’s muted green also camouflages into administrative and casual meetings alike. A notetaker for all cases. Reading notes, meeting notes, and journaling.

Nakaya Neostandard Heki-tamenuri (B Naginata, by Kyuseido Tokyo). Troublemaker Sea Glass. Two days inked resolved to highlight for me that the platinum converter I chose seats only loosely in the Nakaya. It rises up out of the section following travel in my penvelope and so requires frequent re-seating to prevent spillage into the pen’s body. Otherwise, the Naginata is a forgiving grind and Sea Glass is a calming green well-suited to creative writing and brainstorming.

Wild Cards

Platinum 3776 Star Wars Kylo Ren (F). Papier Plume Bootlegger’s Sacrament. Sacrament is a sleeper purple — a dark purple bordering on purple-black. Kylo Ren’s F lays out narrower lines than even my true Platinum EF (score!). The 3776’s section is moderately narrow, rendering the pair comfortable for medium-length detailed writing: mental inventory, planner tracking, and lesson planning.

All in the family

Aonibi has a central space in my inky heart. It was one of my first “now I get what this fountain pen ink obsession is all about” additions. Excellent shading for whimsy while scribbling. And dry — which both prevents smearing on most papers and narrows line widths. Narrow lines are warm hugs for those who write with tiny letterforms.

I emptied my Aonibi bottle this week. Another reminder that my most-loved stationery will get used. Saying goodbye to an old favorite is healthy.

Oh, Aonibi. My final fill of an old friend.

The week’s nib choices over-represent sharply ground nibs: six ground nibs to one round. Line variation features prominently. Grinds that require conscious, intentional writing angles — and so deliberate writing speeds. The week’s writing involves a tide of drafting manuscripts (creative and academic). Carefully considering my word choices and sentence structures are an intended outcome. A nib selection to suit the writing I see on my planner’s horizon.

Grey/Black

Nahvalur Nautilus Primary Macchiato (Mini Cutlass, by All in the Nib). Teranishi Guitar Antique Black. Antique Black is a black ink with insistent brown undertones. I opted for a similarly dark-brown pen in the Nautilus. Further, Antique Black writes wetly enough as to keep the sharp, miniature cutlass grind singing along the page. Diminutive and precise lettering. Near-black ink that send up personality. An arithmetic that adds up to this week’s task management combination. Bwa. Bwahaha.

Blue/Teal

Pilot Custom Heritage 92 Translucent Blue (FM Architect, by All in the Nib). Kyo-no-oto Aonibi. Damien’s architect grind charts a middle path of prominent shading and quick-drying denim blue. Excellent for use on copy paper and ink friendly paper alike. The FM line width accommodates both detailed notetaking and the shading keeps longform creative writing exciting. Lesson plan outlines, meeting notes, marking student work, storyline drafts, and journaling. All the things.

Pelikan m805 Stresemann Anthracite (F CI, by Custom Nib Studio). Sailor Ink Studio 340. This Pelikan feed is a wonderful, generous writing partner. Paired with 340, as it is, the feed breathes steely-grey life into the combination. Moderate shading and flowy ribbons of line variation contrast the straight-laced colorway of the pen itself. A pairing that works seriously without mourning the process — a go-to for revision and editing the week’s drafts. Add on meeting notes, teaching reflections, and journaling.

Asvine v200 Titanium (M Imperial, by Pen Realm). Tom’s Studio Loch Ness Mystical Green-Blue. The Imperial grind is a true multitasker nib. A well-rounded stub on one side allows for rapid scrawling. The reverse side offers sharper relief. The combination of quick and slow writing makes the Asvine my chosen pocket-carry for the week — and my in-meeting pairing. And the pen’s large size suits longform writing tasks with aplumb: journaling, teaching reflections, and analytic reflections.

Earth Tones

Cypress Cone Micarta (M SIG, by Franklin-Christoph). Kyo-no-oto Koke. A combination that matches earthy micarta with Koke’s grass-green hue. The M SIG nib is the most forgiving of all my collection’s SIG grinds, which allows for moderately paced writing speeds. An excellent option for fast-moving meetings, for slower scenes in the week’s D&D session, and for recording reading notes. The Cypress’ size also stays comfortable in my hand across long writing sessions.

Wild Cards

Pineider Avatar UR Stone (F). Ferris Wheel Press Candy Marsala. I enjoy pairing saturating ink colors with muted pens. The Avatar has the best magnetic seal of any magnet-capped pen I’ve owned. The Avatar is also light, which lends it to careful, precise writing tasks like margin notes, annotations, and session notes during D&D. Strong design for high nerdery.

Franklin-Christoph 45 Blue Diamondcast (B SIG, by Franklin-Christoph). Teranishi Guitar Innocent Mauve. A tiny pen with a loud statement of a B nib. A fun contrast. The SIG nib throws off shouty gradient shading throughout my letterforms. A pairing comprising fun size contrasts, shiny pen coloring, murky ink coloring, and shady writing. For writing that needs whimsy: an experimental lesson plan, journaling, NPC-specific story notes, and letter writing.

All in the family

Recently gifted stickers have found their way onto the week’s currently inked spread. Ink scribble stickers that represent a more inclusive minimalism borne of my partner’s kind-hearted attempts to convert me towards their maximalist preference. The things we do for love.

I’m splitting daily driving duties between two pens this week. The Franklin-Christoph 03’s EF SIG makes a careful, dark line. The Pilot 92’s FM Architect leaves light grey lines (with pink-purple shimmer). The 92’s clip gives me a note taker away from my desk while the 03’s sleek clip less form makes for a sleek penrested companion.

Five of the week’s seven pairings are equipped with ground nibs. Four architects and a SIG. Thoughtful slow writing central.

Four of seven inks have shimmer or pigment particulates, too. Paired with wet feeds, all four take advantage of getting to write on coated paper throughout the week. A little extra.

Grey/Black

Pilot Custom Heritage 92 Transparent Blue (FM Architect, by All in the Nib). Wearingeul Virginia Woolf A Room of One’s Own. The Pilot’s clip allows me to carry the light writer with me between classes, through the hallway, and even out-and-about during off days. The crisp FM architect grind does require concentration to ensure a reliable writing experience, which fits well with thoughtful writing sessions: tracking tasks, making notes in moderately paste or slow, moving meetings, and through my own reading notes.

Franklin-Christoph 03 Antique Glass (EF SIG, by Franklin-Christoph). Birmingham Slag Gray. Slag’s dark hue ensures layout structures like separator lines and headings are clearly legible on the page. The disciplined EF nib also accommodates rapid-fire writing sessions: fast moving meetings, phone calls, and while brainstorming tasks for large projects.

Blue/Teal

Sailor 1911L Tangerine (Z Architect, by Custom Nib Studio). Jacques Herbin 1798 Kyanite du Népal. The combination of a wet feed, a well lubricated ink with punctuations of red sheen, and fun shimmer makes the Sailor, without a doubt, my most whimsical pairing this week. Creative tasks — and boring tasks that could use a spark of energy — are outlets for this pairing: journaling, manuscript, drafting, and teaching reflections all come to mind.

Wing Sung 601 Battleship Gray (F). Rohrer & Klingner Verdigris. My students groan when they see me reach for this silver capped pen-and-ink pairing. The quick release slip cap and easily read dark teal Verdigris make this combo well suited to quickly recording my students’ homework completion – in addition to other detailed scribbling like reading notes, common place notes, lesson plan outlines.

Sailor Pro Gear Slate Blue (Z Architect, by Custom Nib Studio). Kyo-no-oto Seiheki. Seiheki’s first tour inside a pen is a pairing with my excellent extra-wide zoom architect. The result is powerful shading in a gentle blue letterforms. The wide lines suggest this pairing is well suited for long form writing, like journaling and writing letters. I also like Seiheki’s light hue as an easily legible contrast to this week’s two gray inks. An excellent counterpoint in lecture notes and lesson outlines.

Earth Tones

Sailor King of Pen Demonstrator (B). Colorverse New Horizons Arrokoth. My go-to marking combo for the week is a wide-sectioned King of Pen. The round B nib and dusty brown ink make for anxiety-safe feedback on a batch of student papers currently sitting on my desk. The wide B lines also fill up lines in my journal quickly, lending a sense of accomplishment while I reflect on my day(s). Lesson plans and lecture notes, too.

Pelikan m805 Stresemann Anthracite (B Architect, by Custom Nib Studio). Wearingeul Oscar Wilde’s The Star-Child. Burnished orange ink with purple-pink shimmer is a party. Black and silver-stripes on the Pelikan is a serious look. Together: a contradictory pairing. Orange is a comfortable color for editing my own manuscripts. And the reverse EF lines suit margin notes. Also: journaling and lecture notes.

Wild Cards

Womp.

All in the family

This post builds on two prior reflections into how I’ve used my Hobonichi planner so far this calendar year: aspects that are working well and ways my habit tracking can be improved.

I have a gross amount of underused, blank notes pages in the rear of my Hobonichi Day-Free planner. The book ships with 171 pages of thoughtfully designed 3.7mm baby-grids. We’re roughly 83% through 2024. And, as of this post, I have used 80 utility pages — or 47% of my fanciest notebook. Under. Used?

What might constructive uses for the remaining blank planner pages look like over the course of November and December? Let’s crack knuckles and think this through.

We can also sub scribbling for cracking

Current uses. I primarily house my currently inked palettes on these open-ended pages. I use them for testing nibs and inks during pen group gatherings. And I also use them for notetaking during phone calls.

These three uses use far fewer pages than my Day-Free has to offer. Then again, perhaps successfully using my Hobonichi shouldn’t be conflated with using every single page. “Success” could also be measured by routinely returning to the pages as needed. The rear notes grids are worthwhile so long as they continue to provide the potential for recording the ephemeral and important. In which case, those pages are ample.

Ample, I tell you

And yet, I suspect there is a middle ground between using every single page and using less than half in a given calendar year. I could embrace the Hobonichi as a space for gratitude tracking, or a brief morning page style priority brainstorm, or handwriting practice. Or some other use? More thinking to come.

This week’s Inked Tines update includes last week’s currently inked writing tools.

Toolset

Pens. The Wing Sung 601 is a sturdy slim fountain pen. The F nib proved last week’s standout combo, bringing out Verdigris’ dark blues and unsaturated greens in even measure. A welcome novelty for an otherwise moody ink. The 601’s grey coloring suited many scenes, from stiff administrative meetings to loose paper feedback one-on-ones with students. The friction-fit cap gave me a rapidly deployed writer while tutoring students scholar-to-scholar. Simply worked.

• Mythic Aeschylus (B) — Empty. Wide and bold lines that suited slow-moving writing tasks like lesson brainstorming and analytic journaling.

• Esterbrook Estie (Scribe) — Empty. A dry pairing that ensured I could feel the texture of each notebook’s paper. Enjoyable to the last letterform. Lesson plans, meeting notes, journaling, and D&D notes.

• TWSBI 580 (F) — 1/6. Psc’s unsaturated green stood out legibly against every other ink this week, from One’s Own’s light grey to Verdigris’ moody teal. An accompaniment apprentice.

• Sailor 1911L (Z Architect) — 1/4. Consistent ink flow is a boon, particularly while inked with high-shimmer ink. Hassle-free writing with fun pops of red sheen. Journaling, lesson plans, creative writing.

• Pilot Custom Heritage 92 (FM Architect) — 1/3. Daily driver. A dry pairing that prevented smearing throughout the week. Pink shimmer was a sleeper hit in my meeting notes, lesson plans, and scratch notes.

Notebooks. Work bujo. Midori MD Grid (A5). The week began on page 56, with a cloud of scribbled notes made while building out lesson webpages in my school’s LMS, Canvas. Two pages of weeklong tasklists, five pages of lesson plan outlines, and three pages of meeting notes brought me through page 66 by the end of Friday’s classes. Ten new pages. Rockin’.

All six of the week’s initial pen-and-ink combinations contributed to lesson planning. The whole penvelope came together. Cool tones for my Queer History course’s lessons and warm tones for my world history course. An easy theme to aid in finding the right lesson outline at the right time.

The Sailor, with its multitasker Zoom nib grind, provided both headings and detailed lecture notes. I like blending wide and narrow lines. Small details — like the minutes I wish to play out of a video — stand out in narrow lines against the outlines otherwise shouty broad letters. I also scribbled two lists of concepts to steer students towards during an activity with the Sailor’s hairline reverse writing. Thank you, Custom Nib Studio.

I also tracked the timing of each activity in grey ink. Easy, unobstrisive time tracking. Students often need far more (and sometimes far less) time than I anticipate prior to delivering the lesson the first time. So I scribble the “true timing” to the left of each activity.

All widths welcome

Journal. Semikolon Fango (A5). Pen touched paper thrice this past week. Three entries, each concluded with a transcribed poem. Twelve pages in all — including two mostly empty pages saving my pen-and-ink combinations for the week’s first two entries. Present and posterity.

Kyanite du Népal is a longtime favorite ink of mine. The Sailor’s Z Architect brings out a balance between blue shading and red sheen. Great ink keeps me anchored to my notebooks. And Népal is an ironclad ink anchor paired with a generous nib.

Shine on, you fancy-pants ribbony stains

Written dry. Two of the week’s largest pens ran ragged this week: the Esterbrook Estie and the Mythic Aeschylus. Both emptied while reflecting on how my lessons went.

Newly inked. My planned sextet lasted but one calendar day intact.

I inked my latest acquisition within 20 minutes of the Sailor King of Pen’s Monday delivery. The King of Pen raised my currently inked from six to seven writers. A number low enough to still allow me even spread across all of my currently inked pens.

The collection

Incoming / new orders. The newest addition to my collection is Sailor’s King of Pen Demonstrator. The delivery arrived on Monday afternoon. I checked the nib with a loupe and spent a few minutes oo-ing and awe-ing.

And then I hunted a much-desired ink for my much-desired new pen. Colorverse’s New Horizons Arrokoth is a muted brown. It’s also a moderate-to-wet fluid. A forgiving pairing to break in the new B nib.

The clear King of Pen is the Emperor’s New Clothes of a colorway

I am also the unskilled (yet eager) owner of my first-ever date stamp. This is my first foray into the world of using stamps. My intention is to date the margins of journal entries so I can flip through filled books to quickly find specific entries. A plan in progress.

Outgoing / trades or sales. No pens or inks made their ways on to new homes last week. But I did pull a Sailor Pro Gear aside to sell in the near future, alongside a TWSBI. Changes are afoot.

Tremble for your time in this case may be limited …

Currently reading and listening

Fiction. I’ve taken up a new project: re-listening to Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive. The goal is to rejoin the forthcoming latest book in the series with my memory of past events refreshed.

Libby is my app of choice for the task — taking over from Apple’s Books. The audio player’s functionality seems similar across the two apps.

I do miss the ability to stop the story and scribble thoughts into the margins. Then again, perhaps this is an opportunity to convert a pocket notebook to the task of housing those thoughts. Potential.

Nonfiction. Taking pencil and highlighter to primary sources is one of the most fun aspects of preparing to teach history.

My trusted Mitsubishi 9852 EW pencil has Benjamin Buttoned itself to a nub by way of its journey across the margins of Deborah Miranda’s excellent 2010 essay on the ways early French and Spanish explorers crushed the Native American third gender folk they found in esteemed positions throughout the First Nations they encountered.

I used color to conceptually arrange my highlighting. Green for usages of weapons against two-spirit folks. Taupe for efforts to give new Spanish names to this third gendered identity. Pink for punishments given to those who continued to wear the clothes associated with this third gender. And brown for the ways the esteemed responsibilities of two-spirit folk were replaced with Catholic religious practices and Spanish authorities.

Using different colors empowers me to skim the article efficiently when organizing my teaching notes within the same categories. Easily skimmed.

Thank you, fun Zebra Mildliner colors.

Music. I took on my first listen of the latest Chillhop Essentials mix this week, weeks after the playlist publically dropped. Fashionably late.

The first track features Molly McPhaul and is, by far, my favorite song on the playlist. The intricate guitar work breathes life into the song, and brings energy to my writing sessions. One of the best lo-fi tracks I’ve heard in months. Definitely worth a listen, if only for McPhaul’s opening track.

I anticipate a week of slow writing and long writing sessions. Windows of time to maintain feeds and floss tines. Space to think and tinker and reflect. A good week ahead.

The kind of good that accommodates attention-intensive pen-and-ink pairings. I’m opting in on using a moderately dry ink with high shimmer for the week’s daily driving — a bold choice in any week. And bolder all the more when relied upon for driving my teaching, lesson planning, and task management. Living dangerously, indeed.

Notably, a respectable 50% of the week’s pens are equipped with architect nib grinds: the Pilot 92’s FM, the Sailor’s Z, and the Esterbrook’s B. Architect grinds require concentration from me to write at proper angles. This is a stellar week for slowing down and thinking about the mechanics of my writing alongside my pedagogical maneuverings.

Dangerously glittery. A-yep.

Grey/Black

Pilot Custom Heritage 92 Transparent Blue (FM Architect, by All in the Nib). Wearingeul Virginia Woolf A Room of One’s Own. Shimmer inks are an exceedingly rare choice for my daily driving combo. In particular, I have a strong preference for no-nonsense grey inks when planning my task management. One’s Own comes recommended to me as a low-labor shimmer ink. Pink shimmery flair for my lesson plans, scratch notes, and meeting notes. Unsold and adventurous.

Blue/Teal

Sailor 1911L Tangerine (Z Architect, by Custom Nib Studio). Jacques Herbin 1798 Kyanite du Népal. Kyanite and Gena’s exceptional Z Architect are well matched. Wet enough to sheen periodically, to carry silver shimmer without clogs, and to shade on even absorbent copy paper. Proud wide lines make teaching notes easily legible for me and for students seated across a small table. And the line variation brings whimsy to creative writing, teaching reflections, and journal entries.

Wing Sung 601 Battleship Gray (F). Rohrer & Klingner Verdigris. The 601 found its ay back into my pen case. The 601’s slip cap and tight clip make this pen an excellent choice for pocket notes — and for checking student homework during class meetings. Verdigris is a gritty teal, easily legible from afar and muted enough for meetings with parents and the squirreliest of students. Also, detailed writing tasks like lesson plans, and reading notes.

Earth Tones

TWSBI 580 Smoke RoseGold II (F). Colorverse α Psc. The calendar year’s longest-inked pairing at seven concurrent active weeks. Psc writes a dry-to-moderate line, shading at the very tips of my letterforms. Fun over short and medium length writing sessions. Quick-drying for smear-free notetaking during rapidly moving meetings and brainstorms.

Esterbrook Estie Back to the Land Quirky Leaf (B Scribe, by J.J. Lax Pen Co.). Taccia Ukiyo-e Sharaku-Koiame. The third and most forgiving of this week’s architect nibs. Lax’s Scribe reminds me of Lamy’s excellent cursive nib — both make for strong opening forays into the world of nib grinds. The pear-shaped nature of the Scribe’s nib shape lends this pair to moderately-paced writing tasks like teaching reflections, lesson planning, and analytic journaling. Boo-ya.

Wild Cards

Mythic Aeschylus Black & Red (B). Birmingham Chrysan Themum. The Jowo B leaves wide, shaded lines that rapidly fill up the lines in my notebooks. Chrysan’s purple-pink hue is easily legible against both dark ink colors like Verdigris and One’s Own’s whisper-light grey. A great counter-point combo for work-related writing — and a fun page-filler for personal creative writing. All inside a pen sized comfortably for medium-length writing sessions. Easy.

All in the family

Three pens write on from last week’s currently inked: the Nahvalur Schuylkill, Mythic Aeschylus, and TWSBI 580. All three pens are inked with colors that compliment their respective pens. Not one pairing sports an ink that matches its accompanying pen. A promising theme.

I considered a spectrum while choosing three new pens for this week. One large, one middling, and one small pen. One somber brown-black, one shouty orange, and a greyscale. An EF nib, a M, and a Zoom Architect.

Tiny, Spicy, and Wookie

The week’s three new inks remain monochromatic with two blues (Extra Dimension and Kyanite du Népal) and a new grey ink (Oyster Grey) for driving my task management. A business blue sans shimmer, and a party blue with ample silver glitter. Life is to be lived.

Grey/Black

Monteverde Giant Sequoia Brown (EF, by FP Nibs). Papier Plume Oyster Grey. The Sequoia is home to a randomly drawn feed and my logo-ed nib. The result is a dry (yet consistent) writing experience which keeps Oyster Grey a purplish graphite on the page. Excellent for jotting quick-dry tasks quickly as they come to mind. The daily driver this week.

Blue/Teal

Pilot Prera Slate Gray (M). Colorverse Extra Dimension. Extra Dimension is strongly and unmistakably blue in this Pilot feed. I often ink Dimension in wet feeds, encouraging stormy dark blues and prominent sheen. This pairing, in contrast, is blue first and red-sheen adjacent. The Prera’s diminutive size and smooth round nib lend a utility to this pocket carry combo: pocket notes, scratch notes, meeting notes, and D&D notes.

Sailor 1911 Large Tangerine (Z Architect, by Custom Nib Studio). Jacques Herbin 1798 Kyanite du Népal. The Zoom Architect grind spotlights Népal’s pomp. Strong haloing outside nearly every letter. Shading and sheen are frequent. And the silver shimmer adorns my letterforms throughout my writing. A wow factor deserving of me-facing tasks: teaching reflections, journaling, creative writing, and lesson plan outlines.

Earth Tones

TWSBI 580 Smoke RoseGold II (F). Colorverse α Psc. Ultra wet feeds breathe life into dry inks. Psc is a readable light green-grey that leaves a trail of shading across the edges of my words. Margin notes are easily legible. The cool green hue is easy on students’ psyches when marking papers. And the pairing writes a pencil-like feedback. Excellent for longform writing tasks like journaling, creative writing, and teaching reflections.

Nahvalur Schuylkill Chromis Teal (EF). Monteverde Sweet Life Pumpkin Cake. The writing lines in this combo have toned up in the fourth week together — the EF nib leaves EF-width lines and remains wet enough to easily keep up with my fastest scrawling tasks. The Schuylkill’s middling-sized section is comfortable for short and medium-duration writing sessions. Tasks like short journal entries, letters, meeting notes, and D&D notes.

Wild Cards

Mythic Aeschylus Black & Red (B). Birmingham Chrysan Themum. The Aeschylus has evolved into my all-purpose pen. It adapts well between narrow-nibbed detail-oriented writing with its easily controlled narrow section, as well as for wide-nibbed longform sessions given the model’s length. Chrysan Themum won my heart in only its second week on my desk. Huskily smoke-pink that I seek out reasons to put to paper. Therefore, this is my “tasks I don’t wanna” pairing: curriculum review, administrative meetings, and parent conferences. Also: journaling.

All in the family

Smudges build character?