Delight in Cacography

Hi Pen Fans! I’m throwing my two bits on fountain pens, inks, paper, and related sundries. Hopefully, someone will find my comments interesting, perhaps amusing, and hopefully, at times, helpful.

The short bio: I’ve always been a fan of fountain pens. I grew up in Germany, where fountain pens remain a primary writing device. However, my handwriting has always been.. cacographic.  well, hence the name of this blog. So I occasionally flirted with fountain pens, but it never fully stuck.

I remained an outside observer until about two years ago when the interest in fountain pens kicked in with a vengeance. Since then, I’ve acquired too many pens and far too many inks (and many types of paper), all while having a great time.

Over the next few months, I hope to participate and share – really, to give something back to the pen community, even though it’ll only be a fraction of what I’ve gotten out of the great collection of people out there, public and private, who share the same passion for FPIP (Fountain Pens, Inks, and Papers – Just made that up. No doubt there’s a better acronym.)

My first bottles. Now I’m up to three boxes of bottles alone. Don’t get me started on how many sample vials I have.

Here’s a few peculiarities about me and pens:

• With few exceptions, I only acquire purple pens (this includes lilac, violet, lavender, and other related colors & shades)
• With more exceptions, it’s the same with inks
• I don’t draw, color, do calligraphy, or do anything visually artistic with fountain pens. I write down words.
• I test a lot of papers (not anywhere as many as John @ Fountain Pen Love, though. He’s the fountain pen paper guru.) So I hope to tell you more about that soon.

And because we’re all into lists (thanks a lot Bullet Journal and Buzzfeed! /s), here’s a short one to start off with.

• Favorite nib size: Medium
• Favorite nib grind: Architect
• Favorite type of ink: Shimmer
• Favorite paper size: A5

Yes, I’ll make this site look a bit better, even if that does cut into my fountain pen time.

Oh, and I’m left-handed. More soon!