I love to write with fountain pens.

my trusty-yet-finicky fountain pen

Have you ever owned a fountain pen?

I always had a fascination with them since I love anything that harkens toward the past, and two years ago, I used Christmas money to buy myself one. It’s as wonderful as I thought it would be. It writes smoothly, it refills easily, and there are endless colors to choose from (and the ink pots! I use them as desk decor). 

However.

(Nothing’s ever flawless, is it?)

There is one thing that I struggle to get used to: you have to use your pen regularly. And, I mean regularly. At least weekly, if not several times a week.

I would need to journal consistently again, but it just don’t. 

I didn’t know that the nibs would dry up so quickly and prevent the ink from flowing, and as of yet, I have yet to find the perfect way to get it quickly flowing again, especially if it’s been several weeks (or, ahem, months). The last time it clogged, I just gave up and it sat for nearly a year before I needed to eventually fully disassemble it and flush it and clean it, and, well, if you’ve ever had to do that with a fountain pen, you know that it can be a process.

I still love it though.

cosmos does NOT grow native in the Coastal Range

I’m finding that drafting is like my fountain pen.

I haven’t participated in the active drafting phase of a book in five or six years now. I’ve mostly been editing and reworking things and adding new scenes here or there for the rest of the time.

Which, I’m finding out, means my creativity is pretty much dried up. The nib is clogged and the.ink.ain’t.flowing (excuse the slang, the circumstances warranted it).

I’ve done a host of things to procrastinate/brainstorm: I talked it out on Instagram stories (and bored my poor story watchers to tears), I spent a good time researching…flowers from the WRONG mountain range in Oregon (I’ve only lived here my whole life), I sketched a very rough picture of an image from the book that I can’t get out of my head, and I’ve started making rough (very, very rough) preliminary character sketches (the written sketches, this time) of the small town characters who might show up. 

I sometimes sketch scenes from my books.

quick scene sketch

It’s all semi-productive.

I did write a page and a half…of words I’ll probably toss.

But, it’s a start.

And I’m hoping that the more I try to flush out this creativity, the faster and easier it will start flowing again.

I just need to remember that I can’t let it languish for so long because, like my pen, it’s a beast to get to work again.

 

P.S. I realized that I never have shared much with you about WHERE THE MEMORIES LIVE, which is the book I worked on for so long. This post is about the next book I’m working on. I’ll fill you in on both, in time.