Like many people who enjoy writing, over the years I’ve gradually realised that I prefer writing with certain pens and notebooks. They’re often ones which work more smoothly and without reminding you of the physical act of writing, so like the ideal tools, they’re at their best when they’re unnoticed.
There is, and I’ve certainly seen it in myself, a tendency to get a bit carried away when it comes to writing implements; “if I only had a nicer pen [or notebook or computer or whatever], then I’d find the writing more easy, and thus I’d write better stuff”… or so the theory goes.
I don’t know if it’s necessarily the case at all – for me, a lot of it is just procrastination combined with my inbred Western craving to be a good consumer – because I’ve done some of my better writing when using just a biro and sheets of A4 paper. But it’s horses for courses and all that, I suppose.
Anyway, that was a typically lengthy and digression-riddled lead in to the following, which is a link to what is claimed are the Top 10 Most Expensive Pens In The World.
Quite a few of them are obviously the results of great craftsmanship, but given some of the price tags, you probably wouldn’t be likely to use them – indeed, some of them look as if they wouldn’t be very comfy to use. And what was it I was saying a few paragraphs ago about tools being at their best when they don’t impinge or make themselves the focus of the task at hand..?
