What's Your Favorite Pen?

[MJR]

I've been to 2 book-signings of yours, and each time I've noticed a fine collection of pens bristling from your shirt-pocket. Just wondering if you collect pens, and/or have a favorite brand/type of pen to write with? Fountain? Ballpoint? Rollerball? My favorite is a Conway Stewart Amber Dandy Ballpoint which I recently aquired. :cowbell:

[MJR]

Love the "more Cowbell" Emoticon by the way.....Mike, did you see this skit on SNL when Will Ferrell played cowbell with BOC? Awesome!

[Michael Moorcock]

Yeah. Like a lot of writers, I'm a pen freak. I was also a bit of a typewriter freak back before computers. I still have several fine vintage typewriters! My favourite brand of pens is Sheaffer, because they are probably the most efficient of all fountain pens I've ever used. I hate pretentious expensive pens like Mont Blanc, which clog up almost at a touch and I suspect are just prestige items for executives. I'm currently, however, using a Waterman. I do have vintage pens as well as new ones, but not that many any more. I have a very nice Blackbird done before they came with pocket clips. Almost every jacket I have is stained with ink in the inner lining and I got through the pockets of shirts pretty fast, too, particularly when travelling by plane. I AM getting a little better about making sure pens don't explode in my pockets any more...
:)

[lemec]

Mike,

Do your pens have the Calligraphy point?

Have you ever wrote anything with a feather quill?

[Michael Moorcock]

I do have a couple of Osmiroids with calligraphic nibs and some regular calligraphic nibs. I have written with a feather quill. Unfortunately the art of cutting the quills isn't easy to learn and I've only by chance cut one that works reasonably well.

[lemec]

very cool,thanks.

ya,too bad quills are tough to make, I have a nice wild turkey feather that would make a great pen. :D

[Azariel]

I'm a freak about fine print and small print, so I use fine-point artists pens with the points smaller than a nail point. - 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, etc - I like using 0.1 for signatures and drawing those five o'clock shadows of my characters; i like 'em scruffy (and draw every line of hair) - damn my perfectionism :D

[L'Etranger]

The most nauseating Pen is certainly this one: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3658399.stm :down: :down:

[Doc]

The most nauseating Pen is certainly this one: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3658399.stm :down: :down:

:lol:

[Michael Moorcock]

I now use small notebooks, primarily MOLESKINE, which means I now write very small with the finest possible nibs. Initially I did this because I travel so much and it's handy to have a book you can carry in your shirt pocket. The drawings are similarly small!

[Azariel]

I now use small notebooks, primarily MOLESKINE, which means I now write very small with the finest possible nibs. Initially I did this because I travel so much and it's handy to have a book you can carry in your shirt pocket. The drawings are similarly small!

Oh, man, I developed that habit too, a small memo notebook and the finest pen - the smaller you wrote/sketched the better, less you had to carry! I still have all my notebooks dating (yes dated all my notes) to '97 - its fun to see the weird snips you scribbled down and try to make sense outta them years later :D

[johneffay]

I now use small notebooks, primarily MOLESKINE, which means I now write very small with the finest possible nibs.

I find that I can write perfectly adequately in my Moleskine notebooks with the medium nib of my Parker Duofold.

I should also note that, generally, when my obsession with fountain pens and refusal to use cheap notebooks comes up in conversation, people tell me that they think I have a problem :)

[EverKing]

I've always been notorious for writting small. By the end of highschool I was putting three lines of a proof in every line of college ruled paper. Of course, that's numbers...when writting text, I still write very small, but I keep it one line of text per line on the page--if the page has lines. I don't need anything too fancy, just something that writes nice and is comforatable in the hand. My favourite pen is a Micron 001 felt-tip artist's pen; but, for everyday use I usually use a Pilot Pecise V5 Rolling Ball (Extra Fine). I like the way the ink lays with rolling balls more than your standard ball point. It does force me to write larger, though, because of the width of the line and the tendancy to bleed slightly. This isn't so much a bad thing because then people actually have a chance to read my writting without the aid of magnification!

When I'm writting something that has to be nice I usually use a calligrapher's quill of one vareity or another, depending on the requirements. I have an adequate selection to chose from, so it is rarely a problem to find the proper shape/size of nib.

Generally, though, I prefer pencils. My pencil of choice is a Zebra M401 (or the older M301) 0.5mm mechanical. For earaser I always use the high polymer rubbers (soft, white earasers...no streaking, wonderful).

[Michael Moorcock]

I date everything, too. My books have gone from huge ledger-style leather bound books in which I wrote much of the Pyat books, Mother London and so on, decorating them with lots of pictures, collages and so on, to the current small Moleskine's. They are still as full of stuff, but all much smaller. I used to reduce manuscripts on the xerox for carrying, too. I recently came across a draft of Mother London which was tiny, but legible. I also like the Moleskine storyboard books for working out comics, movies and so on -- or just ordinary books. A lot of King of the City, for instance, was done on storyboards, even when the characters were just chatting. I must admit I'm becoming more and more reluctant to get to the keyboard stage and where I used to have dozens of half-finished stories and articles in my computer files, they're now in tiny writing in little notebooks. The writing is generally perfectly legible, but improves when blown up.
Um, well, you know what I mean...
:)

[Miqque]

I find i cannot transcribe myself without editing myself. So whatever goes down first, it's the only Original Genuine Miqque - which is likely a good thing!

As for pens, i used to like the UniBall MicroFine 0.4mm or whatever, but they're either not being made or I can't find them (although I haven't searched very hard). The newer gel pens are pretty cool. Went through a period where nothing but a good fountain pen would do, and got to use many antique ones - although when it comes to names the best I can remember is "pen".

When wealthy some day I'll likely go back to a wide assortment of writing implements. For drawing, BTW, I like a soft lead, or even a mechanical pencil. Nice and dark. What I hate is the standard #2 yellow bite-into-your-fingers-the-blasted-eraser-only-smudges-if-it-doesn't-break pencil. An abomination!

And Mike, I can really see you writing with a quill and an old ink-pot.

Anybody else find that the implement can affect the writing? Like, I cannot write any more on a clickity-clack keyboard (unless it's an actual typewriter). Fountain pens are more poetic, while a Bic is maybe only good for signing checks.

8)