Addicted to Ink

Today’s Flyover People column as seen in the Emporia Gazette:

ADDICTED TO INK

IN THE SHOWER one morning, I saw a note that I had inked onto my left forearm.

The jagged letters looked like those of a first grader, one with penmanship issues.

The short note read “wild card.” Now what was I thinking?

This note had been written the night before, moments before I drifted off to sleep. It took a second to recall what I meant by those words (the sky, of course).

I keep a special pen on my nightstand just for these in-the-dark revelations. That particular pen writes well on skin. Not all pens do. Some ballpoints merely leave temporary red marks – meaning you can wake up with no ink on your skin and your moment of brilliance is lost forever.

Now I can hear you saying, “Get a notepad.”

Paper rustles and I don’t want to wake Dave. Skin doesn’t rustle.

As you might guess, when writing in the dark, one is prone to the overlapping of letters. Despite best efforts, my words are often illegible in the morning – and sometimes unintelligible as well.

Another downfall to these late night notes is that what seems like a magical phrase in the sleepy realm sometimes turns out to be much less shiny in the light of day.

Nevertheless, a writer jots down ideas when they come because that which is not committed to paper (or skin) is easily forgotten.

I love ink. It comes in various forms, but ballpoint pens are my favorite instruments of ink distribution.

At one time I was doing nearly all of my writing on the computer, but lately I’ve switched back to the pen-and-paper method of writing.

Dave is a major source of ballpoint pens for me. When he goes forth into the world, to technology seminars and conventions, he stops at vendor tables and picks up an ink pen with the vendor’s name on it. Advertising for them, free ink for me.

The technology field has creative people and so their pens often come in pretty colors and artsy designs, with squiggly pen clips or cushions that soften your finger’s grip.

Sometimes Dave brings home the type of pen I like best – motel pens. Because the most reliable source for a smooth write are the slender Bic Stic pens, the kind with advertising on them that you acquire from motels and banks, etc. (You can buy Bic Stic pens in stores, and as odd as it sounds, my experience is that the store-bought pens come with inferior ball points.)

So for scrawling words in my spiral notebooks, I prefer motel pens because they write smooth and they write fast.

You certainly don’t want a sticky ballpoint, one that catches on paper and makes you fight for each word. Writing is difficult enough without wrestling with a pen or having one that leaves globs of ink on the page.

And after a couple decades of slipping pens into my back jeans pocket, I can tell you that stick pens are designed particularly well for back-pocket use. The pen bends slightly when you sit, but doesn’t break like the screw-together pens can.

Several years ago, The Gazette’s Ashley Walker wrote a column about her own search for finding the pen that writes just right.

After reading her essay, one of my friends remarked, “A column about pens? Ashley must have run out of things to write about.”

“Oh no, no, no, no, no,” I told my friend. “There’s nothing a writer loves more than a good pen!”

When writers find one that works well, we cherish that ink-filled instrument. And sometimes we share with the world exactly how glorious a fine pen can be, just as I am doing now. (You’re welcome.)

Writers are in the business of spreading ink. Most of that ink lands on paper, but occasionally some finds its way onto skin.

Ancient Chinese proverb says, “The palest ink is better than the sharpest memory.”

Copyright 2009 ~ Cheryl Unruh