0/100 — Downy Dandelions
December 29th 2024
I recently discovered the blogging challenge, #100DaystoOffload. I figured it'd make for a lovely pairing with giving a purpose behind my blog, and providing a digital component to my handwrittne novel, which I happily finally cracked into the start of last night. Thinking of silly little pretentious titles to go alongside these blog entries will also be amusing, I imagine.
My loadout is much of the same as ever- Diamine Hope Pink mixed with Diamine Pink Ice and the barest edging of Diamine Enchanted Ocean to bruise the pink, a hardcover LEUCHTTURM1917 hardcover in the A5 sizing, and whatever music I happen to be looping on in the background. I write best with my notebook at an angle, weirdly crunched into my chair. I can write with either silence or vocals in the background, including a few memorable occasions in the chemistry lab, so I'm not especially picky. Most of my writing happens at night, though, it tends to make me sleepy and sedate when I write. I've been favouring my Lamy Safari in a matte Cream colorway as of late, though the shiny Spring Pink Lamy Safari has also been getting some of my attention.
I love fountain pens- I'm a fanatic, or as some might put it, a devotee to the hobby. I've got a pretty curated aesthetic- all pinks and whites, extra fine or fine nibs. I haven't flirted as much with trying on different papers and inks on for size- I've been fairly loyal to the Diamine brand, and I try not to accumulate too much clutter with the hobby: a tall task. I have a warm and cool version of pink and blue respectively, from which I mix up all the purples and pinks I could dream of- though after a few years of using gel pens in brown, green, and grey, I finally bit the bullet and ordered in some substantial bottles of those. They're still caught up in postage hell at the moment, but hopefully when they'll arrive I'll also put them to good use! After that addition, I'm cutting myself off from purchasing more ink until I polish off a bottle- one in for every one used, but I am quite good at clipping through ink at a decent pace, and have an adorable metal fairy tin to place them all into.
Writing by hand always feels like something that's wildly inefficient, at first, as I'm incredibly begrudging about the process of transcription. My handwriting has improved substantially thanks to the ergonomic use of fountain pens, but I still find it annoying, since I'm very much so a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants writer. But I actually write so damn much more, in a far more compressed timeline while writing by hand- so you'd think that fact would have sunk in by now! At any rate, I've already been surprised by Evelyn making a surprise appearance. The story is already pretty off of the rails from the summary- but that's fine, I'm loving seeing where the story takes me so far.