Pilot G2 Limited Metallic Body Pen Review

(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Twitter. And check out her latest book, Out of Water, now available where books are sold!)

The Pilot G2 doesn't exactly need an introduction. Most of the people I know who have pen preferences, though they may not yet be pen addicts, say it's one of their favorites. The reason for this, generally, is the refill. The G2 refill is great. It's smooth, reliable, saturated, and accessible. Nearly anyone who writes has encountered one and had a good experience. I've often bought the refills to put in other pen bodies, so I was excited to try this Limited Metallic Pen Body that Pilot designed just for the G2 line.

This pen has a lightweight metal body with a matte finish and chrome accents. The grip is firm rubber with added texture to prevent slipping. The nosecone unscrews to replace the refill. The spring is fixed inside the nosecone, so it doesn't go flying and get lost--a feature I appreciate greatly. It has a strong, satisfying click mechanism and the clip is firm but flexible enough to function well. This pen body is overall a bit bigger and longer than the standard plastic G2 body, but it's light enough that it's still comfortable to hold and write with.

It comes with a black refill inside that is acid free, archival, and waterproof. It does smear a little when still wet, but dries fairly quickly and is then permanent.

I'm a magpie, so I went for the purple body, but it is also available in grey, blue, red, gold, and silver—so they have the whole spectrum from fun to professional covered, though I'm hoping for more fun colors in the future. G2 ink refills also come in a variety of fun colors, but you're not limited to G2 refills with this pen body, either. It also fits popular refills like the Pentel EnerGel and Uni Jetstream, among others.

I think this pen is very well priced at $11.75. Maybe even a little underpriced. It's perfect for an everyday purse pen, and sturdy enough to survive in a pocket or backpack. Ideal for students or use in the office--though you'd have to guard it against wandering pen syndrome. It's a nice pen, but it doesn't look so fancy that it might not be mistaken for a communal or disposable pen to someone who doesn't understand that some pens are special.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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Sharpie Pen S-Gel 0.7 mm Pen Review

Back to School season often brings new pens to the store shelf. While Sharpie’s newest entrant, the S-Gel, has been around for months, only over the summer did we seem them infiltrate the stationery world at scale.

I grabbed a 4-pack of 0.7 mm pens from Amazon (two black gel, one each of blue and red,) to test, but if my grocery store shelves are any indication, you should be able to easily find them in the 0.5 mm and 1.0 mm tip sizes as well. Sharpie’s new Roller is also available as part of the big push we are seeing from the brand.

As many of us pen addicts already know, and as Sharpie is about to find out, the long-time stalwarts of the gel pen section of the store occupy that space for a reason. The Pilot G2, Uni-ball Signo, and Pentel EnerGel are household names, so Sharpie has their work cut out if they want to displace any or all of that trio.

So how does the Sharpie S-Gel stack up against some of the best gel ink pens of the past decade? Not very well.

The worst thing a pen can be is inconsistent, and that is what I am getting from this batch of pens. The black 0.7 mm is especially poor, with a nose cone I can feel scratching the page as the tip rolls across it. This makes for a scratchy, wide line, and a poor experience.

The blue gel pen is the antithesis of the black. In fact it is quite good and reminds me of the Pilot G2, which is a good experience to shoot for. The red gel pen is close to the blue - a little more scratchy, but nowhere as bad as the black.

With the variance I am seeing between the three colors and how they feel on the page, I would be hesitant to recommend these over any of the three excellent choices I mentioned above.

Being under the Sharpie umbrella gives these pens a leg up in marketing, but the performance isn’t there. I think the style is lacking a bit as well. I understand that making a great $2 gel ink pen at scale is difficult, but how about letting loose a little bit?

Sharpie doesn’t hesitate to do that with their permanent marker lineup. How about bringing some of that aesthetic into the gel pen world, instead of designing a pen that looks like every other pen it is competing against? Or maybe design something completely different and off the wall. We already have what they are trying to sell us, and better versions at that.

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Enjoy reading The Pen Addict? Then consider becoming a member to receive additional weekly content, giveaways, and discounts in The Pen Addict shop. Plus, you support me and the site directly, for which I am very grateful.

Membership starts at just $5/month, with a discounted annual option available. To find out more about membership click here and join us!

The Five Best Tools for Outlining Your Next Novel

(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Twitter. And check out her latest book, Out of Water, now available where books are sold!)

Not every writer outlines, but many do--especially if there's a deadline involved. Outlining is very much a discovery process and employs just as much creativity as the writing itself. Sometimes the brainstorms involved can be messy. So what's the best way to keep those ideas roped into a useable order? Some proper stationery tools can help. Everyone's process is a bit different, so ymmv.

A good notebook. For my outlining, I usually use a slim book that becomes my planning, research, outlining, and editing guide for the whole project. That's a tall order, so it must be durable. It needs to last for years! My current one has been in use for two years and five months. Grid rule is ideal, if not essential. It allows you to easily level your indents for different sub headers. I prefer fountain pen friendly books, even though not every page will have fountain pen ink. My favorites so far have been the Graphilo and the Midori MD. Both have just enough pages for their purpose, while still being easily portable. I can slip the notebook in behind the back cover of the journal I'm writing the book in and carry them as a set.

A set of color-coding pens. It's very handy, when outlining, to be able to color code your notes. Whether it's by setting, character, timeline--all of these in conjunction... You may need only a few colors or a LOT of them, depending on the scope of your project. I would suggest a basic set of black, blue, red, and green at the very minimum. You can find those colors within many brands. But if you're penning an epic legend that spans generations of warring houses, you're probably going to need a set with more variety. I prefer gel pens, as it's easier to find large and varied sets with that ink type. My favorite ones to use are the Pilot Maica because of their bright colors, excellent flow, and fine tips that allow me to add notes to margins easily without cluttering the pages too much. Pilot Juice, Uni-Ball Signo, and Zebra Sarasa Clip are also excellent choices. You could use an array of fountain pens all inked with different colors of ink, also, but I found that the difference in line width between pens added some confusion to my notes. For example, pens that wrote more boldly seemed to be emphasized in the text when that information didn't necessarily need to be emphasized. Consistency of line width can be an important factor in keeping outlines tidy. Which brings me to my next point.

A bold pen for headers. When you're scanning your outline for important information, it can be very handy to have important key words and headers written boldly, so they're easy to find at a glance. Character names, places, themes, or scene headers might be good candidates for this. I use either a thick-tipped fineliner in black, like the Sakura Pigma Micron, or a fountain pen with a stub nib to add a bold emphasis to those notes. Either works, but try to stick to the same tool and color throughout, for ease of scanning.

Notecards. Writers love to follow outlines, but characters rarely do. Sometimes seeing the structure of your book on paper isn't enough. Sometimes whole scenes need to move or the plot structure needs to be adjusted. To do that, I recommend making a brief additional outline on notecards (sticky notes work, too) and spreading them out where you can rearrange and shuffle them as needed. Any scrap of paper will work, but my favorite tool for the job are the Nock DotDash note cards. They're fountain pen friendly and have a grid pattern on them, so they work great for mini scene outlines.

Highlighters. Even with color coding and bolding, you're likely going to need another level of emphasis. Maybe to highlight (literally) plot twists or foreshadowing, themes or critical character development. Highlighters are the classic best tool for the job. I don't care much for the typical marker-style chisel-tip highlighters. They do work, but too often I dislike the way they bleed through paper or smear ink. Neon colored pencils are good, but aren't as quick, since it takes some scribbling to cover an area, instead of one swoop. My favorite tool for the job are the Staedtler Textsurfer Gel highlighters, which are basically super-soft gel crayons. You can highlight in a smooth swoop, and the soft wax doesn't bleed through paper or smear ink. One downside, though, as the wax makes it impossible to write over that area again at all.

And of course, the non-stationery ingredient to this list is flexibility. Outlines are the best example of the "guidelines not rules" adage. You're in charge of your story and you can change your mind anytime. Make your story work for you. And if your outline isn't fitting, change the outline! I have three outlines for my current novel, where the story trajectory changed and I needed to re-route things. Maybe add some scissors and scotch tape to this list, too. And a glass of wine.

Tell me your favorite tools for planning your writing projects! Everyone's method is a little different, and I find them all fascinating.

(JetPens provided these products at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)