Fountain Pens and I have had an "on-off" relationship for many years, largely due to my former habit of not giving wet ink the respect it deserved and always being in a rush. I also tended to go for really cheap fountain pens, and not knowing better, an extra fine nib.
Result, inky smears on pages, blots and inky fingers, and a scratchy nib... I loved writing with a fountain pen though, but ended up going off it in short order. Then I'd lose the cheap pen I had been using somewhere and buy another cheap one to replace it, and we'd go round again!
So, I found myself giving up on fountain pens, and just using a gel ink rollerball for the last few years. Yes it works, but it has no soul.
Then a couple of years ago, my Wife bought me a silver anodised Lamy AL-Star with a medium nib and a converter as a surprise present.
WOW. A non scratchy fountain pen! And I could choose what ink colour I wanted from a huge range, and not just what was available in cartridges.
I was hooked again, and a fountain pen quickly became my preferred means of writing things down. That Al-Star (now rather scratched and battered) is still in my daily pen rotation, although I still carry a gel rollerball in case someone wants to borrow a pen. (They aren't getting their hands on my fountain pens!)
And then, towards the end of last year, I decided to start to keep a journal. I don't know why, (because I'd never bothered keeping one before), but I found putting fountain pen to paper rather cathartic and pleasurable.
However, the Moleskine I was using was not very fountain pen friendly at all... And my Wife (another keen fountain pen user, bless her) pointed me at the Fountain Pen Network forum due to the reviews of paper, inks and papers over there.
So began my slippery slope to fountain pen addiction, and my search for a NICE journal and nice writing papers.
I now use a Rhodia Webnotebook as my daily "pocket size" journal, and own several fountain pens, but I still search for a "favourite" large sized journal...
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