As you can imagine, Santa had quite a few letters to read. He was quite taken by the number of handwritten letters that came in this year. It was a welcome sight for his old eyes.
Thank you to everyone who sent us a letter to forward to Santa. The jolly old elf was overjoyed at reading your notes.
Santa said it was difficult to choose just one letter as the winner of the giveaway. So many of you wrote such lovely letters! After much contemplation, he gave us the one letter that was picked as the winner.
We also picked our 5 runner ups that will receive a Goldspot Prize Pack, which includes the one prize pack we set aside for the Rafflecopter giveaway we were running on social media. The winners are :
Karen J.
Susan J.
Ken A.
Alec P.
Jeff L. (our Rafflecopter winner)
These winners will be receiving the items pictured below :
If you're curious to know what all the good little boys and girls asked for as their top Christmas wish pen, here are some observations :
Most boys and girls wished for a Visconti pen over all other brands. The #1 most wished-for pen was a Visconti Homo Sapiens fountain pen.
Pelikan came in a close second, OMAS third & fourth place shared by Pilot & Sailor.
Other notable pens that were asked for :
OMAS Arco Brown Celluloid - in the Ogiva & Arte Italiana styles
Pelikan M1000
Visconti Divina Elegance
Pilot Vanishing Point Raden
Pelikan M805 Stresemann
Namiki Yukari Moonlight
Thank you again to everyone who wrote in. This was quite an enjoyable giveaway that we most likely will be running next year as well.
We hope everyone will be enjoying family & friends this holiday season. Our office will be closed early on Christmas Eve, December 24th. We will be closed on Friday, Christmas Day, and will resume business on Monday, December 28th. We will also be closed on Friday, January 1st.
Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa & Happy New Year! Best of health, happiness and fortune to you all!
Sailor Pen of Japan hand-crafts a wide array of specialty fountain pen nibs. Only a small set, including standard writing points like fine, medium and broad, are distributed to the USA. Part of this core nib offering is the Zoom nib. Whereas the other writing nibs could be matched with a Western counterpart, the Zoom has no familiar analog.
Think of the Zoom nib like the zoom tool, it can either thicken or thin the line width by the angle that the nib meets the paper. For a double-broad, wet line, keep the nib at an acute angle to the paper. For a medium thickness, change the pen angle to about 45 degrees to the writing surface. To get a dry, thin line, flip the nib upside down.
In our short video demonstration, we show how the Zoom nib works simply by changing the way you hold the pen. It's like having 3 different point sizes with one pen!
The Sailor Zoom nib is offered in both the 14kt or 21kt style, depending on the model of Sailor pen you choose. The pen in the demonstration is the 21kt Sailor 1911 Large nib. The regular Pro Gear model also has the 21kt gold nib while both the 1911 Standard and Pro Gear Slim sport the 14kt gold.
If you have any questions regarding this nib, or with Sailor pens in general, please feel free to leave us a comment below.
This week, lets open up a bit. We're betting that quite a few of our followers keep a journal, or a log of events and goings on that you keep track of regularly. This week, our #WriteitWednesday challenge is to share your journal writing with the world. Take a pic of one of the pages, preferably with your pen of choice and post it on twitter or instagram with the appropriate hashtag. Be as personal and intimate as you want to. Dance like no one's watching.
Visconti Van Gogh Portrait Blu with a Rhodiarama Notebook
Share the pic of your entry on Instagram or Twitter with the hashtag #writeitwednesday and mention @goldspotpens to make sure we see it! You may also opt to e-mail us the picture at social@goldspot.com.
Deadline for entries will be Friday at 10:00am Eastern US Time. We will randomly select a winner on Friday at 12 Noon.
This Week's Prize
This week, our giveaway isn't a pen, its a journal. More specifically, the "Wreck This Journal" book by Keri Smith. We're giving away a free copy to someone who loves journaling and will find Keri's prompts fun and challenging.
About #WriteitWednesday
Each Wednesday, we run a new social giveaway challenge with a different giveaway prize every week. Anyone around the world with an Instagram, Twitter, Facebook or E-mail account can enter. Once the entries have been collected and the deadline has passed, we randomly select one of the entries as the winner of the giveaway and send the prize accordingly.
No purchase is necessary to enter the #writeitwednesday giveaway. Those who enter the contest via social media may have their images shared by Goldspot on this blog or on Goldspot's Social media accounts. The winner will have 1 week to contact us by e-mail to claim their prize. If the prize is unclaimed, it will be used in a future giveaway.
Today, we're kicking off the first #writeitwednesday giveaway.
What is #WriteitWednesday?
Every Wednesday, Goldspot Pens is running a social giveaway that aims to inspire minds around the world to write and share their creativity online.
Every Wednesday morning, we will issue a new #writeitwednesday challenge and share it across our social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Follow the writing prompt of the week and take a photo of your entry.
Share the pic of your written entry on Instagram or Twitter with the hashtag #writeitwednesday and mention @goldspotpens to make sure we see it! You may also opt to e-mail us the picture at social@goldspot.com.
Deadline for entries will be Thursday at 10:00am Eastern US Time. We will randomly select a winner on Thursday at 12 Noon.
The giveaway prize each week will be a different pen, ink, notebook or anything related to fine writing that we may have available at the shop to give away.
This Week's Prize
A Waterman Hemisphere Blue Obsession Fountain Pen in Medium Point with a pack of Waterman fountain pen ink cartridges ($100 retail value).
Your First #WriteitWednesday Challenge - Pangrams
Pangrams are sentences that include every letter of the alphabet at least once. The most popular being "The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over the Lazy Dog." However, there are a number of sentences that pen enthusiasts like to use when sampling new inks and pens. This #writeitwednesday is all about sharing your favorite Pangram. Get writing!
Fine Print No purchase is necessary to enter the #writeitwednesday giveaway. Those who enter the contest via social media may have their images shared by Goldspot on this blog or on Goldspot's Social media accounts. The winner will have 1 week to contact us by e-mail to claim their prize. If the prize is unclaimed, it will be used in a future giveaway.
February has already begun and so has InCoWriMo 2015. Before you jump to Google to find out what the heck I'm talking about, InCoWriMo is short for International Correspondence Writing Month. In the same vein as November's NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), InCoWriMo is a month dedicated to letter writing every day of February. That means writing and sending 28 letters during the month.
We'd love to get the word out to get more folks writing and sending letters. So, Goldspot Fine Writing will be sponsoring an InCoWriMo month-long giveaway.
For those of you who follow our blog and giveaways, we offered up this rare ebonite Neponset a couple months ago for our Pen Revolution Giveaway. Sadly, the winner never reached out to give us their address, so we're doubling up the prize for this giveaway.
How to Enter the InCoWriMo Giveaway
Step 1 : Get a pen. Any writing implement will do. Ballpoint, rollerball or fountain pen.
Step 2 : Grab a piece of paper or other writing surface, like a post card.
Step 3 : Write us a letter. Topic can be completely of your choosing. Write about your favorite pens. What you like to write, or just simply show off your penmanship (or lack thereof). Be sure to include at least your name and e-mail address so we can get in touch with you if you are the winner.
All entries must be postmarked by February 28th to qualify. We will randomly select a winner on March 10th.
Legal Fine Print
All entries for the InCoWriMo giveaway must be post-marked by February 28, 2015. By participating in the InCoWriMo Giveaway, you are giving us permission to share your name and images of your mailed-in submission on social media (your address and email will not be shared). Entries will not be returned to you and will become the property of Goldspot Pens.
No purchase is required to participate in the InCoWriMo Giveaway. Giveaway winners have 30 days to contact us to claim their prize. If Goldspot Pens is not contacted within 30 days, prize will be offered up in subsequent giveaway.
When I see a notebook, I think of the stories that have yet to be told.
The notes that have yet to become ideas fully manifest.
An unrequited love, a terrible shame to bear.
Loops, swoops and curls. Writing for writing's sake.
Some thoughts that barely make it out of the pen, only to be erased.
Proud moments in our lives that remind ourselves the struggle is worthy.
I see the quiet, contemplative thoughts that surface after a day of turmoil.
The to-do's, plans well laid that never go as planned.
The cursing, dark thoughts that have their place on pages instead of the internet.
A roller coaster with peaks of optimism, followed by troughs of pessimism.
An appreciation of beauty in all of its amorphousness.
It's life as a human being, inside of a human being.
--This ode to the notebook has been brought to you by the wonderfully colorful Rhodiarama notebooks, which just arrived at the office this afternoon. I can't help myself when I see such a beautiful cover, full of silky smooth ivory paper.
Last week, we were discussing Writing Resolutions to start the new year. At this point in January, everyone is still bright-eyed, optimistic and hungry to follow through on their resolutions. But what happens when reality sets in? You know, when "life" gets in the way and torpedoes your efforts, forcing you to skip a day of journaling, not posting on your blog for a month, making no progress on the novel, etc. During any worthwhile venture, there's always going to be a setback or that threatens the survival of your goal. The biggest issue for most people will be the lack of time. But, we're here to talk about that and offer some tips on how to "make" time for writing.
While scientists somewhere are working on a way to warp back in time, we've all got to face the reality of the 24 hour day, of which we selfishly squander 8 hours (if you're lucky) laying unconscious. Writing takes time. The simple pleasure of putting pen to paper, journaling your thoughts and ideas, recapping your day or drafting the next section of your novel all take time. Depending on how fast you write / type, it can take quite a length of time. If you are looking to fit more writing into your schedule this year, chances are you didn't originally have a large block of time that you spent twiddling your fingers. We've all got a lot going on in life. Kids, job, social life, sports, entertainment, you name it. Here are some tips that I've found helpful in wedging time intensive activities in an already busy schedule.
Prioritize - Take an inventory of the time you spend on activities during the week. Catching up on Game of Thrones? Lower your usage of Netflix or the DVR to add quiet time for writing. Kids running wild around the house until late at night? Have a cup of coffee (or tea) an hour before they nod off so you can have energy to stay up and write. Work and commuting taking up most of the day? Take a bag lunch and write on your break or on the bus/train ride home. If this goal is important to you, prioritize it above other activities. Just make sure it doesn't trump basic necessities like sleeping, eating or going to work in the first place.
Make it a Habit - It usually takes 2 to 3 weeks to start a habit. Really work through the kinks that first month and your brain should be set on autopilot to the point that it will feel odd if/when you miss a day of writing. The beauty about writing is that it doesn't take a whole lot to accomplish the act - just a pen and paper will do in most occasions. Keep a small notebook around with you to catch ideas, capture inspiration or jot notes when you have downtime to further cement the writing mindset.
Accountability - Tell others about your resolution to write more. Tell them what you plan on doing with your writing. The more we make our intentions public, the more we feel obliged to stick with the plan. We're more apt to let ourselves down if it is only one person we are disappointing. If others are observing, we take it into consideration when times get tough and usually press onward. This is your safety net for when you feel like giving up. Having a friend that also likes to write or has a similar resolution would definitely help.
Make Smaller, Short-Term Goals - A whole novel is not going to be finished in one day. Depending on the scope of your writing resolution, it may take the whole year to complete. Break apart your goal in to smaller and smaller chunks until you are left with milestones that mark progress every few weeks or so. This will act as a flexible timeline to make sure you are on-target with your goal and not falling behind.
When December comes to a close and you look back at all the goals accomplished and resolutions resolved, a wave of awesomeness will wash over you.
..And it all starts with a list.
"Resolutions," you may call them. I call them "goals." Saying to yourself, "I'm going to write more this year!" just doesn't cut it in my book. There needs to be a set objective that measures your efforts, thus creating a pass/fail point. One of my resolutions is going to be writing 8 posts per month for the Goldspot Blog (with this one counting as the first, yay!). They don't have to be long reviews or highfalutin diatribes about which fountain pen filling system is best (*piston*), but I do have to sit down, pen in-hand or laptop on lap, write and publish these posts on a regular basis now.
Writing should be a big part of many 2013 resolutions. Think of how many professions depend on quality written ideas : Copy-writing for sales & marketing, e-mail writing to clients, writing persuasive presentations, writing business plans, etc. Every time thoughts need to be transferred to words on paper (or screen), you want to put your best foot forward to appear smart, considerate and respectable for your intended audience. Hopefully, this would impress your boss enough to get you that raise!
So, what are your 2013 Writing Resolutions? Looking to complete the 1st draft of that book idea you've had for years? Write once a day in a journal? Practice your penmanship for an hour a week? We're looking for some great suggestions in the comments below to get others inspired to write this year. In fact, we're so jazzed up about this that we're holding a giveaway to encourage participation.
The Giveaway Prize:
A Rhodia Webnotebook! (your choice of lined, grid, plain or dot grid) + a $10 Goldspot Gift Card, good for any future purchase of fine pens and inks at Goldspot.com.
Giveaway Rules
Each person will be able to enter the contest by writing a comment below, sharing their 2013 Writing Resolution(s).
Contest is open to US residents only.
You will have until 11:50 AM Eastern on Tuesday, January 8th to complete your entry.
Winner will be selected by using the random nubmer generator at Random.org
Winner will be announced here on the site (nowhere else) on Tuesday, January 8th
Winner will have one week from the time of the announcement to claim their prize
The crowd was wildly untamed that late March afternoon. Preparations were made earlier that day for a celebration that would be remembered through the ages. Balloons were netted, confetti corked, the champagne put on ice. The police could hardly hold the barricades up as the climax of the event was about to take place.
I was about to write my final words in this God-forsaken Moleskine journal.
It was an event that was over two years in the making. You could blame a lack of daily writing for the sluggish pace. When I bought the Moleskine back in January of 2010, I didn't know any better, I swear. I was convinced, as many of the uninitiated are, that if Picasso, Chopin and other famous artistic minds had used this journal, then I should have one as well.
I was very wrong.
As a nearly-exclusive fountain pen user, I found out pretty quickly that the "1-ply" paper quality that Moleskine affords (don't you have another square to spare?) just doesn't cut it for most pen & ink combinations. Part of the fun in owning fountain pens is to write with the entire gamut of the visible spectrum, and the journal I chose to write in is color-blind. It would only "accept" lighter, less saturated colors. All other inks had a fair amount of bleed-through to the other side of the page. I'm not a wasteful person, so only using one side of the page was not an agreeable solution.
Making sure that there was always a pen loaded with Moleskine-friendly ink around, I drudged on through the journal. It wasn't until after doing some homework on the internet that I found many like-minded FP users to be complaining of the same issues with the paper. The ultimate solution - we started carrying Rhodia!
After my pen tasted the promise land of 90 gsm, French-milled, ivory silkiness that is the Webbie, the Moleskine's days became numbered. There was much unrest about how long it would take to finish the last 30 or 40 pages that remain in that wretched Mole, but it had to be done. There were principles to uphold.
Sensing the imminent transition, the citizens ordered the new Rhodia Webnotebook into the presence of the writer to push him to write more and faster. The new journal, wrapped in its thin layer of clear plastic and packaging, taunted him, made his hand quiver in regret as the last few pages were being written. The crowd became cross, frustrated and impatient.
5 sheets to go. 7 pages left. 2 pages. 1 more entry.
As the last word was laid to rest, the crowd erupted into relief and jubilation. The writer collapsed in tears and raised his arms to embrace the sky. It was done. That chapter is over.
Here are the pages that were used to catalog the ink & pen combinations that were used over the 2+ years. They are in order from the very last page of the journal going inward (in reverse).
Take my life lesson seriously folks - if you are an avid fountain pen user, you would be doing yourself a disservice by using a Moleskine journal. Go Rhodia and never look back.
We've all heard (or read) it before... After long periods of hiatus, blogwriters casually excuse themselves for not keeping up with their writing. Somewhere along the line, life gets in the way of this expression. Depending on how high up the priority list blog-writing is, the more dire the circumstances would be to pull the writer away from their blog. We all have our reasons excuses not to write, but life's events should offer all the more impetus to write.
If you're a follower of this blog, you would already know that I, too am guilty of letting a bit of dust get on the Goldspot Pens Blog lately. I won't offer any explanations, but I will say that this is still an important venue for us to connect with our customers and prospects. We simply tried the best we could to keep up with it, given the resources and manpower. In the end, it comes down to, "Should I answer that customer's important e-mail about their next-day engraving order or should I write a new review for the blog." Our customers depend on our customer service above all, so the blog is given a lower priority for when there is free time.
However, there is never any "free time." It is simply an illusion. An oasis in a sea of desert. And if there was any shimmer of hope in that grey lining, the Black Friday cloud comes rolling in and the craziness of the Holidays consumes every last tick & tok. As I've openly moaned to several friends and family in regards to possibly doing NaNoWriMo this year, "Who has the time?" Like I can suddenly afford to shirk my duties as Dad, attending social commitments, Birthdays and the like, all to write some junky first draft of a novel for my own self-indulgence?
No, ultimately I decided that it doesn't need to be that extreme for me to get back into writing. However, I did want to re-commit to regularly writing here on the blog, even if that means the sacrifice of an hour of sleep here or there. I would encourage all of you writers that may be facing the same issue to let go of the excuses and just write for the sake of it. Make the sacrifice to keep up with it. I'm right there with you.
No doubt that Apple has already sold well over a million of their new iPad 2 since its debut last Friday. The latest and greatest from Steve Jobs has many consumers reaching for a cool $500-$800 to get their fingers on the touchscreen of this gadget. As a purveyor of fountain pens and other luxury writing instruments, one can't help but feel that traditional pen and paper is fading away, along with Presidential portrait paper. But we've talked about that on this blog already. But lets assume we haven't already been brainwashed by Apple's slick advertising and the ubiquitous need for electronic gizmos. Lets imagine, if you will, that you are considering a $600 purchase in either a fountain pen or an iPad.
This could be either for yourself or for a gift, but you are buying this for pleasure, not business. In terms of usefulness, it's like comparing Apples to...um.. you know. The iPad allows you to play movies, listen to music, check e-mail, surf the web, play games, take photos, shoot video, shop, get directions so on and so forth.
The fountain pen writes.
Sure, on paper (pun intended) the iPad looks to be a dominant choice, an unequivocal multi-tasker capable of miracles. But how much of that is actually useful to you? Would you be more distracted by the bells and whistles: stalking on facebook while in the bath, playing Angry Birds instead of baseball with your friends, listening to iTunes instead of having a genuine dinner conversation? The fountain pen is the exact opposite - it eliminates distraction instead of inviting it.
First, you have to fill your pen, which either requires a pop-in cartridge or using a bottle of ink to fill. The time and concentration invested in getting your pen inked already forces you to focus in on the experience. Then, comes the writing. A buttery nib lays down a beautifully-shading ink on smooth, crisp, ruled paper. What to write? Does it really matter at this point? You would practice writing the letter "A" over and over again if you ran out of things to think of and put on paper. The world sometimes shuts off, the phone stops ringing, Twitter stops tweeting and you can actually focus on the thoughts and feelings going on in that beleaguered head of yours.
Lets consider the long run, which may not be far ahead if you're willing to spend $900 for just a spot at the front of the line to buy the iPad 2. Having owned consumer electronics since childhood, I can tell you that the life expectancy of computers and gadgets have certainly increased, but are still rapidly eclipsed by newer, better technology within a few short years of introduction. From pager to CD Walkman to Mini Disc player to cellphone to iPod, tech is in constant revolution. Fountain pens are actually more desirable when they are vintage and, in many cases, the design of contemporary fountain pens haven't changed much at all in the last 50 years. They are built to last, to be passed down and enjoyed, not just for years, but decades.
The scheduled obsolescence of current technology is also indicative of the device's future market value. Try selling a Nintendo or Atari game system for the original price tag you bought it for years ago. With the rapid increase in precious material costs, fountain pens are a safe bet to increase in value over time. Since fountain pen technology won't drastically change in the foreseeable future, you can imagine that people 20 years from now will be using the fountain the same way as they do now. Who knows when touch screen is replaced by gesture or brainwave interfacing a la Minority Report.
One final consideration would be maintenance. The iPad requires electricity. That so-called 10-hour battery needs to be recharged before taking it on a weekend trip. The warranty lasts for a year on hardware. The extended warranty, which is additional in cost, only extends out for another year. After two years, when the headphone jack is worn out from constant use and the screen is scratched, you're on your own, looking at a costly repair upward of $200. Some fine pen brands offer a 3-year, 5-year or lifetime mechanical warranty. Even if you've destroyed your nib by dropping it uncapped on the floor, you can contact a variety of specialists who specifically work on fountain pens (a.k.a. nibmeisters) to repair or replace your nib for a fraction of an iPad repair cost.
Instead of summarizing the argument with a conclusion favoring one side versus the other, I will leave it up to you - the people of the internet who also enjoy writing with nice pens. Like the Starburst commercials declare, you are a delicious contradiction. I won't make a statement saying that pens are the right way to go, that would be too much like all the tech hype that we've had crammed down our throats. I'm merely putting all of the flashy claims in perspective. Take it for what it's worth. I'll keep on writing ;-)
I was never big on New Year's Resolutions. A simple wish list of pie-in-the-sky, maybe-someday tasks usually end up being unresolved, compromised or forgotten. Even if you write down the list, how are you to measure the completion of your resolutions? Are they too vague or even lack a clear outcome (for example, "Be a better person.") Chris Guillebeau's Art of Non-Conformity takes a "Getting Things Done" approach to objectively looking at your past year and making a very earnest estimation on your aims for the upcoming year.
The idea of looking back at 2010 to plan a successful 2011 bases itself on the idiom, "know where you've been to know where you're going." According to Chris, the important task to start your "review" is to write a list of things that went well and things that did not go so well in the last year. Time to take out the pen and paper!
The other important idea that I took away from the article is the importance of having measurable goals that can provide you the metrics to determine the success or failure of your goals during the year. Saying, "I am going to lose some weight and get in shape this year," lacks the specificity of, "I am going to lose 20 pounds and decrease my body fat by 10% this year."
We've officially hit summer, folks! Time for trips to large bodies of water, squeezing into a car, train or plane to get there and enjoying the extended amount of daylight we get from Earth's current revolution around the blessed Sun. To really "soak it in" and record our fondest memories of the summer season, we grab our cameras and our notebooks to capture the fleeting joy and peace that can be found while basking in summer's glow.
We record because we don't want to forget and we want the images and the pages of memory to remind us of the good times, especially when you're trapped behind cubicle walls 50 weeks out of the year. We journal, diary and scrapbook to make our lives tangible, leaving breadcrumbs for our future selves to track backwards through time and space.
What if someone else has found your breadcrumbs and leads to some personal thoughts that you would rather no one else read? Notebook Stories comments on the topic of significant others reading your journal.
When packing for a trip, you may have a hard time selecting the lucky pens that accompany you on your travels. Inkophile talks about "Thinning the Pen Herd," and offers a solid set of criteria to decide whether a pen is worth keeping or removing from your collection.
For visual people who like to illustrate instead of narrate, Leigh Reyes writes (and draws) her 10 tips for dooders.
Go forth, doodle, journal and enjoy the great weather!
The freshly-cut grass. The majestic thoroughbreds thundering down the stretch as the crowd cheers. The smell of fired-up charcoal and Grandpa's cigar. It's racing season.
While the kids can enjoy the ponies and ice cream, the adults indulge in a bet or two...or three or four. To make an "educated" decision, we buy a racing program that shows all the participating horses on the slate, the jockeys riding them, their colors, numbers, weight, age, parents and prior racing history, etc. With so many attributes to evaluate your pick, how can one make any sense of it?
Instead of forking over the additional 50 cents to buy the half-size pencil along with the program, bring along a multi-function pen. I picked my Parker Executive to assist me with picking the winners. The black ballpoint can be for jotting down possible picks, exacta and trifecta combinations. The blue ballpoint can be for correcting ill-advised picks or marking down what your significant other picked. The hi-liter can mark the handicapper's picks or cross out the scratches for later races. Finally, the mechanical pencil, well... can be the pencil. Make notes, erase them or draw pictures of horsies while you're waiting for the next race to start.
How did I do? Not very good. Lost every race. I know, not a shining endorsement my system, but it did work for some of the friends we went with.
Same great taste on a different day, we've moved the weekly pen spotlight from Saturday to Wednesday. Without further adieu, please enjoy the following assortment of writing and pen-related links.
Exaclair, Inc. had started a new segment on their blog called "The Writer's Project," which interviews writers around the world, getting them to talk about their process, inspiration and, most importantly, pens!
Okami has a recap of the Suncoast Fountain Pen Fanatics Meetup, complete with pen-filled slideshow. Meetups are definitely hard to find, but sound like a lot of fun.
Loved the hot/cold torture that OfficeSupplyGeek put his Uniball Power Tank Smart pen through. Not many people will test the manufacturer's claims and hold them to their word. Don't try it at home!
Although it is only available for Windows, Pelikan offers a beautiful screen saver through their main corporate website.
Now, the general consensus may be that the era of the handwritten, pen-and-paper affair is over. But you're reading a blog about fancy pens, and our job at Goldspot.com is to sell these archaic writing instruments, so you can assume that we would argue the opposite case. Not today.
It is over.
Everyone can shelf their Pelikans, Parkers and Mont Blancs. Steve Jobs is going to send everyone iPads for Christmas this year. Your pens will make a great addition to our museums to show how primitive our lives were before everything evaporated into a digital "cloud." Schools will replace lessons on handwriting with typing and computer literacy. We send our "signatures" through biometric scans of our thumbprint. Even grocery checklists are automated with bar code scanners and your Stop&Shop card.
The luminaries of silicon valley will tout, "We're saving thousands of acres of rainforest to re-build our thin ozone layer. And our wallets have never been thicker!" Actually, they won't say this in person, but in a text message that you receive as a Tweet. And America will say, "Well, it has to be true if @million_$dollar$_CEO said it." Meanwhile, my daughter is going to be more concerned if the boy she's dating changed his relationship status on Facebook from "single" to "in a relationship" than waiting for any love letters to come in the mail. And after she bugs me to check her Facebook one last time as she goes to bed, I'll be up writing a blog post about how people are losing touch with reality the more they "connect" online.
As I tap away at my keyboard, I think about all those nice pens that are now collecting dust in the closet. It was nice to look at people's handwriting and get a sense of their personality and the emotions they have in the moment they are putting the pen to paper. What's that word again, "SUBTLETY?" Emoticons can only express so much, even if you copy and paste the same one over and over again. It was far less frustrating to write notes in my notebook than it is to type notes in my tiny iPhone screen with the battery dying from looking up YouTube videos on my way to work. And gee, although the computer wizards claim they're saving the forests, they make up for it by creating massive amounts of environmentally unfriendly batteries and draining our already-tapped electrical power grid. I hear the chanting of "Drill, Baby, Drill" in the distance.
Then, there was the one day that an internet prankster in South Korea decided it would be LOLZ to wipe out every hard drive on every server, notebook, netbook, iPod, smartphone and personal computer (even your Nintendo DS isn't safe) in the entire world. Since we went paperless, everything was lost. To Doctors, patients have no more medical history. That amount you owe to the credit card company - gone. Your savings account, however, is also history. And the best thing about this phenomena is that no one can Tweet about it, no one can "like" it on Facebook and you will actually have to step out of your cave and strike up a conversation with your neighbor, "hey, my internet is out, do you have a phone book so I can call up the cable company to complain?"
This is what the digital "cloud" has to offer : a veiled, distant form of reality that is even more fragile and difficult to maintain than our real lives. One day, we can wake up, and our lives are hijacked from us by a hacker who managed to crack our foolproof password : "12345" (...and change the combination on my luggage!) What do we hope to pass down from generation to generation? When we click OK to accept the terms of a Last Will and Testament, does that mean we have to upkeep Uncle Larry's MySpace page for all eternity? What value does any of this have in the long run? If pen and paper dies, does our humanity go along with it?
Ever say to yourself, "one day, I would love to write a novel?" Sunday is your day to start.
November 1st begins National Novel Writing Month. For the entire duration of November, your objective is to crank out at least 50,000 words (about 175 pages total) of fiction. The "upcoming month of literary abandon," to put it in the words of the folks over at NaNoWriMo.org, will be your chance to join the motivated masses that share the same goal. They have been organizing the event since 1999, which started as a noveling binge between 21 friends in the San Francisco Bay area. In 2008, the number of participants blew up to over 119,000, with more than 21,000 crossing the 50k word mark.
So, you have what it takes to commit to writing 1,667 words per day for an entire month? Sign up for a FREE account at NaNoWriMo.org where you will be able to update and track your progress as the month goes by. I won't go into the details of how the tracking works, but you may find the nitty-gritty details here.
I realize that since this is a blog about fine-writing, there will be a few Luddites out there who would opt to do this on pen and paper. There is a less-technologically advanced way of verifying your word count. According to NaNoWriMo's frequently asked questions page :
What you do is write your 50,000 words, then have someone you trust verify that it is, indeed, 50,000 words. Then using something like the Lorem Ipsum generator, submit a file of the exact number of words of your handwritten manuscript to our word count validator.
For people who prefer doing a little bit of both, load up a trusty fountain pen and write several pages and then transpose them into your word processor of choice. Not only will you get the satisfaction of putting pen to paper to write your novel, but you will also sharpen those typing skills. If you don't have the portability of a laptop at your disposal, this would be a good solution when you are away from the desk.
Besides the online social aspect of writing with others around the globe, there also local "regions" that you can join which can hold local "write-ins" where you can meet and write with other WriMo's.
If you would like to join and have a bit of friendly camaraderie, Tom @goldspotpens will be participating in the NaNoWriMo. Note: he will not be writing about fountain pens, although they may make a cameo appearance. If you would like to be his writing buddy, visit his profile here.
Happy Halloween!
This weekend, I was having a discussion with the family over breakfast regarding handwriting, specifically signatures, and I thought the topic would be very appropriate for the readers of this blog.
The conversation started when my wife, who is a school teacher, mentioned that the modern-day curriculum included less and less cursive writing instruction for younger children. I chime in to say that the kids are getting in front of the computer earlier and learning to type efficiently is actually more important in the modern-day workplace, and will become even more significant in the future. My wife and Mom champion for the importance of learning sound handwriting technique. "You still have to sign legal or business documents," my Mother reasoned.
"People sometimes write an X or an undulating line for all they care," I argued. My Mother works at a doctors office, so she has seen her share of illegible signatures. My Father, the token skeptic, blurts out that the doctors purposely have poor handwriting to prevent against possible forgery of prescription orders. Then, we get to the subject of John Hancock.
Possibly the most recognized signature of all-time, a "Hancock" stands for boldness, artful expression and individuality.
This leads me to imagine the broad spectrum of signatures that are out there, and about the people who create them. I broke the signature spectrum into several parts:
The Symbol - an "X", wavy line or a simple check-mark. You wonder if the person invented the font "Wingdings."
The Squiggle - Maybe one letter is recognizable, but the rest looks like an erratic EKG readout or like the person was trying to get the ink flowing out of their ballpoint pen again. Example (Louis XIV's signature):The Somewhat Legible - Sloppy, but the overall shape of their handwriting gives you a clue as to the author's real identity. It's like a 3-d Magic Eye poster; some people get it right away while others are staring aimlessly. Example (guess who):
The Somewhat Good - Most letters are well-defined and legible. Many signatures fall in this range, especially if you have good handwriting but are in a rush. Example (Gerald Ford) :
The Exquisite (a.k.a. the John Hancock) - This type of signature wears its flair proudly. You feel the need to crop everything else out of the document and present this person's signature to an art gallery. Maybe they are a part-time calligrapher? Or maybe they had their knuckles rapped with Sister Mary's ruler every time they didn't do their cursive lowercase "z" correctly (The "Phil Rirruto" part from Billy Madison comes to mind).
I would love to hear from our readers on this topic. Talk about your own handwriting and how your signature has developed into its current state. Which of the above signature types do you fall into? At what age did you develop your "signature" style? Have you noticed its change over time? Does your signature vary depending on what you're signing? Do you hate electronic signature pads because they ALWAYS distort your signature? Do you think we should be spending more time practicing our cursive and our signatures?
Feel free to send pics of your signature, but be aware that anyone can be on this blog watching, so upload with caution.
Signature graphics are courtesy of Anna Koren's Graphology Center website.
With the economic situation being a real downer on our moods and our pocketbooks, there is a call to go back to simpler times. This Valentine's Day, you can expect less diamond jewelry and more sincere, handmade gifts. And what better gift to give than a love letter straight from the heart?
For those of you who have been hitting the wallet every V-day for romantic dinners, furs, Belgian chocolates, or sexy undergarments, a thoughtful and romantic love letter may seem impossible to comprehend, let alone write. Here are a few helpful suggestions if you are planning on setting pen to paper to set your lover's heart afire:
Be YOU - We often get caught up in all the sentimental jargon, "candy heart" phrases, or try to write like Shakespeare to express ourselves. The whole point of a love letter is to express YOUR love. Use your own words. Unless you are a poet or novelist, s/he is not going to expect you to write in iambic pentameter. In fact, the letter will seem more genuine if it has a few of your patented grammar gaffes.
Actually WRITE IT - Your grammar school teachers didn't preach penmanship so you can just give it up in favor of tapping away at a keyboard for every note, grocery list and letter you will ever write again in your lifetime! Handwriting expresses more than just the words and sentences that are written. There are subtleties in the lines and strokes that give another dimension to the words on the paper. But what about the occasional spelng mistke that spellcheck usually picks up? Type it out on the computer first, print it out and then write it on a nice crisp sheet of paper. If you are writing it with a fountain pen, add a nice flair to the letter by writing it with Noodler's Ottoman Rose.
Ask yourself a few questions - If you get writer's block and can't seem to get past the first sentence, ask yourself a few questions and answer them on a separate piece of paper to brainstorm. For example, what plans do you have in the future with that person? How do you feel whenever s/he is away for long periods of time? What is your favorite characteristic about her/him? If you're already married, think about your wedding day or the engagement proposal. If you have recently overcome a difficult struggle in your life, think of how that person had played a role in your well-being. Sometimes a love letter can be very hypothetical and far-fetched. Feel free to share your hopes and dreams with the other person.
The Closing - Ending the letter could possibly be the hardest part. You really have to go out on a bang and avoid any cliche expressions. Also, try not to be too impersonal by simply saying "Sincerely," or "Regards,." A simple "Love" can suffice if you have plenty of loving sentiment in the body of the letter. Try to avoid using "PS." It is WAY too overused! Post Script is a novelty from the old days when we couldn't go back into the handwritten letter and insert a sentence that you forgot earlier. Now we have white-out and Word to do our dirty work. A nice way to use PS is if you want to lead them to a cleverly hidden gift. For example, "PS. Look in the driveway."
For more tips on writing a love letter, check out the wikihow article. If you need any advice or are looking for a nice pen to write the letter, feel free to comment on this post.
PS. There is no car with a red bow in the driveway. It's a bicycle. That's all I can afford.
