Its All In The Name

You may have wondered why I called my blog as I did (as well as a few of my other social media sites). I'm a writer, as you know, and have kept for a personal journal for most of the last 14 years. Its always been hand written and often in an ordinary plain, lined notebook (preferably a notebook from Moleskine or Paperchase, due to quality and durability). Its a habit I can't live without (despite occasionally going days, or even up to a week, between entries). This notebook goes everywhere with me and carries the same importance as my Kindle Paperwhite and my Samsung smartphone (entries on both of these topics to follow soon). Writing for me, keeps me sane and helps me process what's happening in my day to day life. I'll be honest, I'm going through a pretty rough patch in my life right now, what with being unemployed and trying to plan a wedding, and writing in my journal is one of the biggest factors that is helping me make sense of all that's happening in and around me.

For almost everyone who keeps a journal, it is a private object that contains many secrets and if it falls into the wrong hands it can cause a lot of damage. I know mine would if the wrong people read it. Its why I don't let anyone read it. I think my fiancé, Andy, is the only one who has an open invitation to reading any of my journals. Hr is aware that each entry's contents are only relevant to the date the entry was written on, not to what I think today. He hasn't taken me up on this offer, and to be fair, I'm not sure he would, not without me sitting next to him, or reading them to him, which I have done before. He's the only person who's read my journals since I was about fifteen or sixteen.

Now moving onto the other part of keeping a journal. The pen. The biggest thing for me is using a pen I feel comfortable using. I tend to use a fountain pen with disposable cartridges, because of how they write. Often my fountain pen of choice is a Parker Pen (Andy bought me one for Christmas) and I have two on the side. This is down to a quality thing. Parker Pens write better than any other fountain pen I've used, and they last ages. The big disadvantage with fountain pens is that they can be quite messy, especially when changing the ink cartridge (thus the name of this blog). Over the years I have tried other pens but I've always gone back to using Parker Pens due to how smoothly the ink flows out the pen. Many of the left handed pens I've seen and used seem to be bulky, ugly or too expensive (the Parker pens I've bought have always been massively reduced as I'm pretty good at finding these discounts or sales).