# pens: a review of the pens i use and like.
i quite like to write on paper. it just feels oddly satisfying to draw letters nicely. if there's no time pressure, then i prefer writing on paper to writing on the computer. sometimes i even write my emails or blog posts in my notebook first. but most of the time i write just to think. simply writing down my thoughts often cuts my mental deadlocks. circular or obsessive thoughts are very easy to spot in writing. and if you spot them, it's much easier to avoid them. so as long as i "think" via writing, my "thinking" is more effective.
anyways, writing requires pens, and i just wanted to note my preferences. maybe the world will make more pens like them thanks to this post, who knows. i didn't give pens much thought for a long time. i just thought all of them are crappy until i learned that there are nice ones too. it was during my 2nd year in university, when a freshman roommate showed me his pen. it was a uniball 0.38 signo dx (um-151). i really liked how thin the writing was. i started using one. the ink was fast drying too, so i had much less smudging, and my hands stopped being all ink all the time. i then ordered a box of 0.28 ones straight from america. that was a very wise decision. those pens lasted my whole university time.
the reason i like fine lines is because i use relatively small letters. i'm quite myopic, about -5d (and worsening). that means i see clearly only up to 20cm. so i keep my head bove the paper about that distance. small letters let me have enough space in a small area. and for small letters i really need a fine pen.
now i live in switzerland and those signo dx pens are hard to come by. so now i'm testing the sakura pigma microns. i only started using them a few weeks ago. it was a bit weird initially since it is a plastic needle tip pen. i didn't use such a pen before. but they feel super nice to write with. they are not super thin though. even the smallest, 0.05 version feels about the same as the 0.38 signo dx. side note: some pens report the nib size, others report the resulting line size. no idea why they can't all use the same measurement to number their pens.
the only annoying thing about the pigma micron is that it is brittle. the problem is that its tip slowly goes back inside its metal frame. perhaps i'm using way too much pressure while writing. after a while it becomes very inconvenient or unable to write, even though there's plenty of ink remaining. and it's not something that can be easily repaired. or at least i'm not skilled enough to repair such a fine instrument. if these pens wouldn't have this flaw, i'd be happy to use them instead of the signo dx pens. but if i have to choose, i think i'd still stick with the 0.28 signo dx pens. another advantage of the signo dx pens is, that you can clearly see the amount of the remaining ink. the pigma microns lack this feature. not that i ever managed to write one dry.
btw, i understand not everyone likes small letters or fine lines. if i were to write something for others to read, i might use bigger letters and thicker pens. i recently tried the uniball eye micro (ub-150). it is quite thick, but also very nice to write with. i'd probably use that one for such writing (or a thicker pigma micron).
as for paper, i use a spiraled a5 graph ruled notebook. the grid is really helpful in nicely aligning my text or sometimes a drawing. i don't really like to use a completely clean paper. i don't think i have a preference about paper weight. if the paper is smooth and the ink doesn't bleed to the other side, i'm happy.
so i like to handwrite. do i like reading other people's handwriting? hell no! most people simply can't write readably. i even seen people who have very "aesthetically" looking writing, but it was still unreadable to me. during school some people did sometimes note that my writing is a bit ugly, but at the same time it was super rare that someone asked for a clarification. so even if my writing is ugly, at least it's somewhat readable. that's the important part. i guess people just don't really care about readability these modern times. handwriting is a lost art. btw, if curious about my handwriting, i took a photo of a page of my writing. it's at @/pens.jpg. this one is quite ugly though. i usually write much nicer if i expect others to read it. i didn't know i'll take a photo back then, so i didn't spend effort on niceness. at least you can see my ugly side. in any case, i wouldn't really want to communicate via handwriting. i prefer reading nicely printed text instead (if short then screen is fine too).
btw, one disclaimer to these preferences: i'm no big pen guru. i haven't tried many pens. so i constructed my preferences from a small sample size. if anyone knows cheap, available pens i'd like, then let me know.
anyways, to summarize, my favorite pens are (in this order, assuming their finest version):
edit: not long after writing this post, i had an idea. i realized that i found it quite uncomfortable to write on the left side of the notebook. my wrist rested on the spiral. and it was really annoying whenever i had to write near the right margin. the spiral was getting in the way of the pen. so i decided that from now on i'll just flip the notebook for the left side. so every time i start a new page, i have to flip the notebook. or more specifically: rotate the notebook 180 degrees. /pens.jpg shows the old style. in the new style i'd have flipped the notebook. the sentences would always start at the spiral, no matter where i write. this would be annoying if i wanted to read the notebook, but for me it's mostly write only. the reading inconvenience of the flipping is worth the writing convenience. i'll totally do this from now and see how it goes.
edit2: i came across the muji 0.38mm gel pens. they are similar to the sigma dx but can be bought here in switzerland in muji. muji is some sort of retailer for random japanese stuff, i think. it's not perfect though. i'm not sure if i got a faulty unit or all of them are like this, but the one i tried needed more pressure to ensure the ball is rolling. if i didn't do that (with micros i use barely any) the ink just skipped. but i could get used to this too. it's a nice pen. but after using the microns for a while, i might like them better than ballpens. the "needle goes back to its cave" is the only thing that annoys me. :(
edit3: i no longer flip my notebook each time i fill a page. what i do instead is that i simply skip the other side of the page. this way i can always easily refer to the previous pages and write at the same time though i don't usually refer back. i only flip the notebook when i filled the right side of the notebook. then i go backwards in the flipped notebook so i still write on the right side. very convenient.
published on 2020-06-08, last modified on 2020-09-24
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