An interview with Janespentopaper blog 2014
One of the fringe benefits of writing a diary for 35 years is an unhealthy obsession with stationery; journals, pens, pencils, labels and glue. The latter may be surprising, but I now know the different adherent properties of different glue stick brands.
But it’s the writing implement that takes most of my attention. I’m not known as a particularly detailed person but when it comes to writing I am unusually obsessive.
At work I only use a mechanical pencil in brown workbooks with a decent grade of lined off-white paper. I only use 0.7 leads as 0.5 leads are too fine and 0.9 (which I have flirted with several times) can smudge. I lose pencils so I don’t have an unnecessarily expensive one but it does need to be reliable, a proper shaft (ooh), a decent rubber and a good grip. On Amazon there are an unhealthy number of reviews of the many options – and they make good reading. All of which had led me to a Faber-Castell Grip Plus with Pentel replacement leads.
My diary is a different matter and I been through different phases over the years. A diary is much more important than work notes so it has to be ink. The key things have been neatness, an easy flow, no blotches and a good solid colour. For years I used a Waterman fountain pen with a medium nib and blue ink. My blue preference is probably down to the ink we had at school. It still seems right. I used to always carry 2 identical Watermans around with replacement ink in a small metal box. I still have them. But ink is inherently messy and pens have developed incredibly from dry old Bic biros that scratched the page. So I moved to a pen around 10 years ago. I have tried just about every make and variant and still do – testing against my 4 criteria. I don’t use a roller ball; they have a false sort of fountain pen look. I prefer a fine tip as this makes me write slower and with more space and hence neater. But many fine tips are made cheaply and break. I recently bought a batch of V5 Hi-tech point 0.5 and for the moment I’m sticking to these.
It does sound rather dull. It’s a good job I’m married
The Drew Diaries 