Becoming a Lefty - Part Two

About three years ago now, during the 2020 "end times", I decided I wanted to challenge myself to switch to my left hand for writing. You can read about that here, but the whole thing could adequately be distilled down into a few sentences. For a few months I wrote a page a day, then I stepped back for a bit, before trying to psychologically trick myself with nicer equipment. Suffice to say, given the title of this post, it kind of worked.

Shortly after buying that first fountain pen, and going through all six ink cartridges I bought with it, I decided there had to be a better way. As someone trying to exist somewhat sustainably, it just didn't seem sensible to be throwing away a small plastic cartridge every time I needed to refill the pen. So, being aware converters were a thing, I started to do some research and came up rather annoyed. Despite buying a pen from a relatively well known brand, marketed primarily at students, the pen did not take standard converters, and instead required a proprietary one.

As expected, I started looking around for a pen that could take a standard converter, so that I no longer had to even buy plastic cartridges. Instead, I could buy myself a bottle of ink, and simply refill the converter; it would also open up the ability to use any colour of ink I wanted. After a small amount of research, not at all biased by the 1959 slide-ruler I kept in my drawer, this resulted in me purchasing a Faber Castell Ondorro, in black resin.

At the same time I also bought two bottles of ink, one black and purple, both from Sailor - and I think it was that decision that totally changed things. Although my writing itself was, and still is, fairly poor, this didn't matter - I now had a nice pen, with interesting ink, and the incentive to use it. And use it I did, writing a page or more each day, but still copying from already written text, not yet freely.

Until recently, when I decided that the time had come to attempt to keep a journal, something that demands free writing. And if anything I have to report it's definitely more difficult than simply copying text down, or re-writing a given text. Because I am having to think about, and remember the words I want to write, as I am writing them, I am finding myself make more mistakes due to how much focus I am still having to apply, just keeping the pen under control.

As a result of that decision, for most of the last year, when available, I have much preferred to use a fountain pen than any other kind of pen. Moreover, recently I've also gone to the expense of purchasing myself an "everyday fountain pen", a TWSBI Diamond 580 (in Prussian blue), with the intention of it being a pen I could carry with me. However, soon after using it for the first time I realised just how much more comfortable this pen was to use than my previous pen, and it has subsequently become my go-to - oops.

I attribute this comfort to both the chunkiness of the pen, which prevents it from feeling like I'm writing with a toothpick. And the longer grip section, relative to the Ondorro, as this both allows, and incentivises, me to hold it further away from the nib. I'm still holding it with a bit of a death-grip however; somewhere between a dynamic and lateral quadrupod grip, apparently.

Even more recently I've also started to investigate different kinds of paper, and different ink colours. I now have five different colours of ink in my store, and another sixteen small 12ml bottles in a variety of colours that came as a set. Paper wise I am currently using Khadda paper in my primary notebook-journal, and I am investigating both Rhodia and Midori MD notebooks for potential future options.