I don’t bullet journal. I don’t track. I don’t write poetry. I don’t write prose. I sort of journal, mindlessly. Only to feel the ink pouring on paper. I don’t collect pens. I don’t collect notebooks. Inks, too. Though this part is harder.

From the day I discovered fountain pens, inks have been absolutely fascinating. It was not long ago, not even two months, that I got myself a Pilot Custom 74 (medium nib, converter con-70), and a bottle of Teranishi Guitar Melancholic Blue. Now I have four inks and primarily write with Iroshizuku Shin-Kai. Love both of them, but for now I’m mesmerized with the shin-kai flow and the shades between blue, grey and black. The shading, the variety (infinity) of colors, the spectrum of properties.

Paper matters too now. Midori MD or Tomoe River (like in Hobonichi, in my case, which was an earlier discovery of this year). Everything suddenly starts to matter. It is both finicky and simple. Learning to operate —- ink, clean, maintain —- is a process. But then there is the simplicity of the setup. You have a container for ink, an ink of choice, and a nib to deliver ink to paper.