Editing The Pen Addict 658/transcript (section)

== Personal Connection to Stationery and Writing ==

* Why pens?
* Why do you like them? Um, so I, the honest thing is, Brad, I don't think I, I've ever not been into stationery. Like, I can't think of a time when I wasn't into notebooks and pens and just, like, enamored by paper and, you know, just, so growing up, I was always into writing. I loved writing. Um, and so I was naturally into, you know, the nicest notebooks and using really nice pens with, you know, the coolest gel in colors. Um, and so, yeah, for me, I feel like stationery has always been a part of my life in some way. Yeah. Did you have any, like, standout products, uh, like, when you were younger, either, like, really young or, like, high school, high school age that, that you use for particular things? Like, were you a note-taking person in school? Did you keep a diary in school? Did you have, like, any particular favorite things that you were using? All the things. Yeah. I had, I had a dear diary in school. Okay. Um, and so I wrote about, you know, crushes and things like that, as one does. Um, and in school, they also gave us a planner every year. Okay. Um, the paper was iffy, but, um, that kind of started me on the road of using planners and, um, organizing my time. And with that came, you know, having different, um, types of pens. And so I love the multi-use pens because then I can sort of attribute, like, blue to a certain category. Um, and then, like, red and black.
* Um, and I was also really into stickers. Okay. So the aesthetic part of planning and journaling for me is sort of secondary because, um, I do just love the act of writing. Um, and adding aesthetics such as, you know, um, stickers and washi tape and stuff is kind of just like an additional, um, it just makes me enjoy, um, that page so much more. Yeah. I, I just call it like, I, when I finish a page and I add a sticker or some type of embellishment, that's not my writing, you know, a washi. Like, it just makes me smile and just, I like it that much better. Right. Like, yeah, it's a, it's a feeling, it's different. Um, it's something that, you know, people who listen to this podcast, like understand, but like, you know, if you said this out loud, you know, you might be, you know, people might be looking for an intervention or something. You know, about this, but like, this is our, this is our normal. And I was a lot like you growing up, you know, use just using all the things. And I got to thinking, I don't think I've ever really asked anyone this question, but I see it in my history of stationery. Did you ever have a gap where you really didn't use the stationery? Cause I was thinking probably like around like my college age, like my early twenties and, you know, late twenties. Like I, I didn't get away from it, but I use less stuff. Did you ever have a gap in, in like stationery, like love and passion? Yeah. You know what? I think it was around my college days too. Yeah. Yeah. I think we just get so busy thinking about like, oh, I go into school, studying hard. I have no clue what I'm doing. I have no clue. Oh, I have to get a job after this. Like you start like, okay. Yeah. I had my good notebook and my favorite pen, but like I had stopped using stickers and, you know, maybe didn't use like the markers I was using before or the mechanical pencils, like all the little things. Certainly did not keep a journal during that time or do any kind of extracurricular writing. And I don't know why, like in all the years I've thought about this, I just kind of thought about this now and thinking about that and talking with you. So at some point it picks back up though, right? Like, you know, in the current version of your stationery love, when did it kind of, you know, pick back up? When did you get into fountain pens and things like that? So the funny thing is I think during like college, I did have a journal, but I used like a moleskine and just like a regular gel pen. And I feel like maybe it was just, you know, not boredom, but yeah, you kind of get into a routine of like other priorities, jobs, you know, studying and stuff. That stationery kind of like, even if you're using it in some way, maybe it's not at the forefront of, you know, your passions or something you're kind of focusing on. And I feel like for me, I probably picked it back up after I had kids. And I sort of had a little bit of time, like, you know, during naps and things like that, where I was kind of like, okay, well, what do I want to do with my time, right? Like this is precious time for me.
* And so I think that's when I kind of turned back to art and stationery and just like spending that time creatively. Because I think sometimes we go through events or, you know, milestones in our lives where we need a creative outlet. And as creative people, we kind of look for, you know, that time to do something for ourselves. Yeah. So what were you, you've kind of answered this question, but I think I want to explore it a little bit more. So your creativity, like surge, kind of came about when you had a life change. But then, you know, like you're very, like obviously you're very committed to your kids and your family. And like a lot of us who are parents, you do feel like, oh, well, I need to scratch a creative itch sometime, even if I only have 30 minutes, you know, on Wednesday afternoon to do this. What can I do? And was that a little bit of the aspect of getting back into this creativity and just being like very direct and using like what limited time you had? Yeah, I think so. So going back in time a little bit, I first got into fountain pens in 2012 because that's when I got my first two fountain pens. So I got a Lamy Safari and I got a Parker, I think it's called a City Urban, like it's a smaller sort of Parker pen. Okay. And I started using them and I did that until probably around 2019, 2020. And so, you know, when the world shut down, I think a lot of us threw ourselves into hobbies, whether they were new hobbies or hobbies that we had, just because we had more time, we're at home, you know, exploring. And so I think it's 2020 when I really fell down the rabbit hole of like all the different types of fountain pens I can now own. And of course, you have to get bottles of ink and, you know, you have to get rainbow colors and then there's shimmers. And so that's kind of when I think that's also when I started listening to your podcast, Brad. Uh-oh. Yeah, yeah. And kind of listened to back episodes and caught up on, you know, what it is about fountain pens that people are really into, like what it is about the writing experience and all the different pieces to it. So like the pen, the paper, the ink, and then bringing them all together and really enjoying it. And so I think that it's kind of like that in those years where I explored more about using inks in more of a creative way than just like filling up pens, which, you know, I love doing because I love writing. But also, I'm never going to use up all my inks, right? So I kind of had to find a different way of exploring them. Um, so around the same time too, um, because I'm, you know, I love writing and hand lettering is a big part of my life. That was my next question. So yes, let's talk about this. Let's get into the hand lettering. So that's how I started my Instagram account is I was sharing hand lettering pieces that I was creating using Tombow dual brush pens. And basically just, you know, hand lettering quotes and things that really stood out for me. Um, and just sharing that on my Instagram.