Pen And Paper

The traditional tools of the trade, pen and paper. You sit down and just write, but why use pen and paper when you can use a computer? Especially as you'll need to type it up anyway? Well it's to get away from the glare of your screen, maybe to avoid some of those annoying distractions or simply because it feels more natural. I find just using pen and paper can be one of the greatest ways to explore ideas and rapidly get down that first part of your writing - or even adding new material when you're editing. Also, the biggy, you're less inclined to go back and edit what you've written on a piece of paper because you don't have that luxury, unlike on a computer you can go, "well that sentence was awkward, lets change that", at least not without rewriting the whole thing, it's something I'm certainly guilty of and it's a real pain because it can impede on progress.

Pen, Paper and Most Importantly, a Cup of Tea

There's this trouble, however, I seem to have a thing for using nice pens. I refuse to write with a cheap biro or anything like that - somebody actually bought me a box of biros as a present because they thought, "Writer? Hmm, they'll like pens," and whilst it's true enough and I appreciate the thought, if I have to use a pen it HAS to be nice and believe it or not, paper too - I remember writing on cheap Woolworths value paper, then bought more expensive Oxford paper and now I use one of the Oxford 'Black n' Red' books and they're bloody nice to write in. It seems like something silly to spend money on - I mean that £7.99 Parker pen (see I had restraint enough to buy the cheapest) could have been spend on something more useful. But what can I say? I'm a bloody idiot. Saying that, I bought the parket because the £11 pen I bought broke, it was nice, but actually, this Parker is a lot nicer. I know, a pen is a pen, but sometimes you have to appreciate the finer things in life, like that cup of tea in the picture, it's not Yorkshire Tea or Tetley tea, oh no, it doesn't even come in a tea bag, no it's a special cup of Rooibos imported all the way from Nottingham! This is perhaps a sign that not only am I clearly a sad bastard, but an English one (even if I was born in Wales).