From Pen to Paper

Until the missing story of ourselves is told, nothing besides "told" can suffice us.  We shall go on quietly craving it.   - L. Riding

     There are choices to make when writing those stories, and as a writer, I cannot deny the speed and efficiency of working on my laptop. But there are times when I crave the feeling of a pen in my hand, and I have recently re-discovered the delights of writing with my own, almost forgotten, fountain pen. From pen to paper, the flow of the ink, the texture of the paper beneath my hand, this connects me to the words with an intimacy that a keyboard lacks. 

 

     A few favorite quotes and illustrations, clipped from the pages of "Pieces of Us," my recent memoir. . . . I decided to turn some of them into notecards, my words on the outside, the inside left blank for someone else's.

     As I worked on my recent book, a beautiful green fountain pen sat on my desk. Like a silent muse, it was with me as the words flowed onto the paper. The pen belonged to my father, one small piece of the inventory returned to my mother following his death in WW II, 75 years ago. The nib is rusted, and it's no longer able to write, but it retains a tangible power to remind me of the many letters that he wrote with it.  

     The navigator and single survivor on my father's B-24 crew, wrote these words to me in his letter twenty years ago, speaking about my father . . . 

      "When others of his crew went out for a good time, he would smile and decline.  Instead, he would settle in with his pipe and write letters home."

  
       There's a personal relationship that develops between a fountain pen and its user. The pen needs to be fed and pampered, stored in a safe spot when not in use, checked for ink supply, and most importantly, it needs to be used. And as it is used, the nib of the pen adapts to the writer, to the speed, the cadence, and the pressure from the hand. 

     When I visited the home of Emily Dickenson a few years ago, I was struck by the simplicity of the space where she wrote her poetry. Her writing desk was a small wooden table in her bedroom. Emily wrote many of her poems on small scraps of found paper.

     Watching the recent "Little Women"  movie was a revelation and reminder to me of the difficult process of writing and publishing a novel that authors, especially women, endured in the past. I especially loved the sound effect of the scratching noise of Jo's pen on paper, and her ink-stained fingers.  From dipping the nib into the ink well over and over, to spreading pages over her attic floor to organize the chapters, I marveled at the work, the dedication, the frustration! 

      It's good to be reminded by those writers and poets of the past. The tools may have changed, but writing will always include work, dedication and of course frustration.

















     My father's pen remains a personal, tactile connection to him. In that spirit, I like to think of my own fountain pen as a connection to other writers everywhere.

     Write your heart out, and make your mark!