Posts filed under Writing

Stationery On the Go, Train Edition

(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!)

On Thursday, June 8th, I drove two hours to Milwaukee, got on a train for two hours to Chicago, got on another train for eleven hours to Pittsburgh, then got on another train to Altoona for three hours. It was a long night. Then I spent the next five days packing up and clearing out my grandmother's house and loading a few treasured items into a shipping container. Then I got back on the Altoona train to Pittsburgh, and spent five days at the Horror Writers Convention, StokerCon. Then I got on the Pittsburgh train to Chicago and the Chicago train to Milwaukee, and then home again. Ten days on the road that included everything from sitting in the mud in a graveyard to attending a formal awards banquet. And throughout that process, I needed to write. A lot. And without carrying too many heavy things, because train hopping is tough, and there would also be times when I needed to walk 1-2 miles with all my gear on my back. This was the most minimal packing I've ever done, and it worked well for me.

I just got back yesterday as I write this, and I'm still lost in the fog of exhaustion, but here's a list of Pen Addict-relevant thoughts and encounters from my trip.

Trains are perfect for writers. The whole travel mode is less frantic and hassled than flying. If your tray table isn't roomy enough, head to the dining car for unlimited coffee and a table to spread your work out. While most of my long train rides were at night, while I tried (unsuccessfully) to sleep, a daytime train ride of eleven hours sounds almost like a writing retreat in itself. Overall, I found this mode of travel to be my favorite over driving or flying.

No matter how much I write, or plan to write, I really just need one notebook and pen. I brought the Pebble Stationery Cosmo Air Light notebook, my Schon DSGN pocket fountain pen, and the CW&T Pen Type-B as my travel stationery, along with my Mini Plotter with the Kaweco Lilliput in the loop. I used the Pebble Stationery and the Schon for story writing, and I used the Pen Type B for signing receipts. I used one sheet of Plotter paper to leave a nice note for my B&B innkeeper. And I used the Plotter itself to press flowers. It works quite well for that. I pressed clover and morning glories from my grandparents' graves, and two roses from my grandmother's garden. An unconventional use case, but one I am very grateful for. The plastic dividers and elastic closure band make it perfect for collecting small, meaningful blooms. And the day after I collected these flowers, I found flowers that my grandmother had pressed in her own books, from her own parents' funerals. We were always very much alike.

Write letters. Lots of letters. Write them to the people you love, and when you receive letters, keep them somewhere where your granddaughter will find them someday and see how much you loved and were loved. My grandmother saved hundreds of letters that my grandfather sent to her when he was in the Navy. Of all the treasures I found in the house, these were the very best.

When you have to plan a difficult thing, plan a very fun thing for right after. Recovering from an emotional week by surrounding myself with writer friends was the perfect antidote to grief. With readings, and panels, and signings, and talks, and banquets, and bar closings, there's both plenty of time to talk and process, and plenty of distraction. And lots of hugs.

If you go to painstaking measures to pack minimally for a difficult journey, maybe don't acquire 18 new books to carry home. Just some advice for future me.

The best thing you can possibly do before getting on a train for uncountable hours is to chill at a friend's house, especially if that friend has goats. And Smores.

This journey was strange and not linear, much like this post. In two days the pod with my grandmother's things will arrive at my house, and I will literally and metaphorically unpack the artifacts of her life and take these objects soaked in memory into my home. My grandmother gave me my love of reading and writing and sentimentality--all of which are essential ingredients to who I am in general, and are also the things that led me to my love for pens and paper.

I didn't write as much as I needed to on this trip; there wasn't as much downtime as I'd hoped as I moved quickly from task to task. But now that I'm home, it's me and the pages for miles, and I just have to stay on track.

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Posted on June 22, 2023 by Sarah Read and filed under Writing, Travel.

Writing for Memory’s Sake

(Kimberly (she/her) took the express train down the fountain pen/stationery rabbit hole and doesn't want to be rescued. She can be found on Instagram @allthehobbies because there really are many, many hobbies!.)

(Content warning: Memory loss, dementia.)

When things get rough and I’m having a tough time processing what life is throwing at me, I often retreat to my desk and plunge myself into pens, writing, swatching, etc. It wasn’t intentional, but I actually wrote about taking solace in pens one year ago this week. This year, the trigger was seeing family this past weekend and finding out how badly some of their memory skills had deteriorated since I last saw them.

In the past year, my older sister was diagnosed with early-onset dementia. She struggles to get through the day because she is constantly forgetting things. She still knows people and has memories from the past but her short-term memory isn’t really there. Cooking is now a danger because she would step away and forget that she was cooking and just leave the stove on. She has to write everything down, but (1) often forgets what she’s trying to say while she’s still writing, (2) she doesn’t remember where she puts her notebook, and (3) then forgets to check it regularly.

And then there’s my mom who is in her mid-80s so memory loss is somewhat expected, though I know folks who were well into their 90s and still sharp as a tack. During the 45 minute drive to my niece’s wedding, every few minutes my mom asked me about a dozen times how many kids I have, what grade he’s in, and whether he’s in high school. And even though we kept telling her, she wasn’t able to remember that she was going to my niece’s wedding and that we would be staying at the hotel. Because of this faulty memory, she kept “escaping” to find a way home because she didn’t know where she was. In fact, she actually left her room when everyone was still asleep and was missing for a while (thankfully, we found her in the lobby where she was hoping she could ask someone she recognized to take her home).

Why am I telling you all this?

Because this whole experience has really shaken me to my core. It is a glimpse into my potential future. Will I also suffer such significant memory loss? Will my family have to deal with the repetitious questions from me? And yes, I even wonder if I will remember what my favorite pens are. Honestly, I don’t know. But a quick Google search brings up articles and studies that show the positive effects that writing things down has on memory and brain function, and that gives me a glimmer of hope.

This time, it’s more than just taking comfort in my pens. I feel a sense of urgency, a bit of desperation but also renewed energy to write more. Things I want to remember about the mundane and exciting things in life, about baseball games, travel, food and yes, pens too. New Italian words and grammar concepts (while shaking a fist at past imperfect tense!) or places I want to visit. Favorite song lyrics, transcribing books, quotes, letters to pen pals - there’s never a shortage of things to write.

*Short daily notes in my Traveler’s Notebook coupled with weekly highlights/stories.*

*I update my Plotter before I travel (to SoCal this weekend) so I can check out new places.*

Despite only being 43% done, transcribing Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations has been and continues to be a source of relaxation and calm (which are also important for healthy brain function) as I practice writing in typewriter font.

*Copying an Italian grammar book a few weeks after I’ve learned a concept helps me understand and retain the information better than just reading the book or rote memorization.*

I don’t know what my future holds, but I will continue to write as much as possible, so I can strengthen my memory via my writing habit, so even if I become forgetful some day, I’ll still be able to read and remember. Whether or not you are going through a similar struggle, I hope writing with your pens brings you a little peace and comfort in your life. Take care of yourself, hang in there, and hug your loved ones just a little bit tighter.

Posted on June 2, 2023 by Kimberly Lau and filed under Writing.

Another Writing Retreat in the Books (Literally)

Memorial Day weekend is always my busiest writing time. As a horror writer, everything is scheduled to come out around Halloween, which means everything is due by June. Sometimes I spend the weekend hiding at the lake and writing, and sometimes I spend it at a convention in Madison. This year I attended the convention, though I hid and wrote most of the time.

I usually set myself a minimalistic travel goal. But when you're running on four deadlines, maximalism rules. There was no thoughtful process about which pen to bring. Is it inked? Bring it! Oh, you're writing stories in three different notebooks? Bring them all! And you have to type them and turn them in??? Better bring the computer! I usually travel with a backpack only for any amount of time, but this trip took three bags, and it was only three days. Granted, I had to have a ballgown and heels with me, but still. I also adopted a small cactus on the first day of my trip, which added an interesting daily carry challenge that I did not anticipate.

My clothes and toiletries traveled in my Tom Bihn Tri-Star; my computer, tech, and heels were in the Tom Bihn Swift; and my daily carry, including all writing gear, was the Tom Bihn Parental Unit. The Tri-Star is usually all I need, with the addition of a sling to use as a purse. But the Parental Unit is 99.99% the perfect bag for me. If it had an external grab handle, it would be unbeatable. The internal organization makes my heart sing, and it never fails to amaze me how much I can fit into it while not feeling overburdened. It's the most carried bag I own. For daily use, I just don't zip it, and make use of the inexplicably placed interior grab handles. I need it zipped when I travel, though, so it drove me a little nuts on this trip.

For my most-used writing gear, I defaulted to my Hobonichi Cousin. I'm terrible at using the daily pages for daily things, so I use the unused daily pages as rough draft pages. It works out to be the perfect system for me, as I have the monthly and weekly planner pages that I use all the time, and then the rest is essentially a regular notebook, which I always need to have with me anyway. The pen I reached for most was my Hardy Penwrights that I got at the Chicago Pen Show a few weeks ago. Granted, it was so pretty it distracted me and inspired a whole pen glamour-shot photoshoot for later blog use, and it even distracted some nearby writers who have now been penabled. It happens.

I also spent a good amount of time drafting in my Seven Seas Writer, and for that I used my Sailor 4am that I reviewed last week. Most of the rest of my writing was done on the computer. Alas.

To carry my precious pens safely, I used a Rickshaw Bagworks case I got from Carolina Pen Company--their Unicorn Autopsy design. Inside that I have a three-pen Rickshaw sleeve, a two-pen Rickshaw sleeve, and two single-pen Rickshaw sleeves. I'm a fan.

Overall, it was a lot to carry, and I didn't use it all, because I didn't hit all my deadlines. I'm still working on it! I hit the road again in a week, for another author conference. I'm going more minimal this time--though I still need the ballgown and heels. And I'm taking a train halfway across the country, so I'm hoping for some chill writing time. I'm bringing two fountain pens (a Schon DSGN pocket pen and a Kaweco Liliput), two non-fountain pens (a Spoke Roady and a Pen Type-B), and two notebooks (my Hobonichi and the Plotter Mini). That doesn't sound too minimal when I list it all out, but who needs clothes when you can pack stationery? I'll just wear the gown every day.

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