Editing The Pen Addict 415/transcript (section)

== Handwritten Advocacy Letters ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. This question comes from Sarah. Is there a pen addict recommendation or recommended resource for effective handwritten letter writing when writing letters to leaders and officials to advocate for change? Things like best handwriting style, format, length, size, ink color. The goal is to show time when intergenerating it because it's handwritten, but also make sure it's digested and makes an impact. I would like to make a recommendation just straight off the bat. Use blue or black ink.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You think? Yeah, don't use a colored ink because I don't think it looks serious.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Then I think maybe blue. Mm-hmm. And the reason I put this question in here is because it's an amazing question. It's something we should all be considering right now and that I have no answer for it, right? Is there a resource that says if you're going to handwrite to, let's say, just say public officials, you know, you're not, you know, writing your aunt and talking about your garden. Like, you want to make an impact and focus on change that you should believe is taking place. Is there a best practice for that? And I don't know. Like, I'm putting this out to the chat. I don't know that I would have gone directly to the answer that you said, but it kind of makes sense. But I would definitely not choose black because I think blue stands out a little bit more. If you're not going to allow color, I won't discount that, right? Like, if I'm dropping orange in my letter to my congressman, that might not be taken seriously. I do get that. But I think I would go with blue at least for some type of impact where black I'm not sure would have as much of an impact even though it'll still be handwritten and make a difference. I mean, let's be clear. Anything you write and produce and send to any public official is awesome. But what's the best? I love this question because I don't know. And hopefully we can get some feedback on this and figure it out. I think, you know, I like, I'm just picturing this in my head. Blue ink, no more than a single page, A4 or A5. You know, no front back, no two page, no multi-page letter. Very direct single sheet.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Glenn in the Discord, our friend Glenn from Hong Kong.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Mm-hmm. Who just sent me like, he just sent me like five postcards that were all awesome. I haven't thanked him yet. So I'll publicly thank him now.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But, you know, like Hong Kong, obviously there's a lot of reasons to write to politicians there. Glenn went with the color inks tribute to neon to stand out, which is, so here's my thing. You will definitely stand out. But personally, I would say to do it in a more traditional color so it will be taken seriously. That's how I would, that's my personal view on this. But in the same vein, I would suggest only handwriting if you are confident that your handwriting is very clear and legible. If it isn't, then your letter may be ignored, right? Then you might be better typing something out.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, like Myke should type.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I should type. I mean, you're making a joke, but that's true though. Like my handwriting is not completely legible by everybody, especially if I'm writing something long. I can make it much more legible, but it's only if I was writing something short, which it probably wouldn't be. So, yeah, I don't know.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I love this question. So maybe we can explore it more. We'll see if we get some feedback on this. But I think the size, the length of the letter, I think we could probably all agree on the shorter the better. Like single page, if at all possible. No flipping, no second page. And then just as clear as possible. But then for color and, you know, envelope even, like, you know, I'm racking my brain. I think this is a wonderful question. All right, next one.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Next question comes from Mendel. Newbie fountain pen owner here with a question for you. I'm doing longer form writing a handful of pages at a time, and I've noticed the ink that I'm using starts out as a dark or deeper cube, but by the time I've reached the end, it's much lighter and sometimes doesn't flow as well, almost as if the pen starts to dry out a little. Let's take a break for a few minutes. It will start up again darker. In short, is this making any sense? Is this usual and expected? Is there something that I can do to change it? I'm using Lamy Blue Black in a TWSBI Eco, though I've noticed a similar occurrence with the Pilot Metropolitan.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' This is a great question. And I had a second email in my inbox this week, which is why I put this one in because I already answered the other one directly because they didn't tag it as TPA, so I emailed them back. That had the exact opposite experience of this and wanted to know, does this make sense? Is this usual to happen? Is there something I can do with it? The longer they write, the more saturated the line got and the more ink flowed. So this just goes to show you that it's very setup dependent, right? Obviously, we all expect consistency. I think what Mendel is experiencing in this question is more common than the other way around. What Mendel's experiencing is the pen sitting, the ink collecting in the feed, which that's the feed's job, the plastic bit behind the nib. The feed is there to hold the ink so it is ready to go onto the page when you are ready to write. So the more the pen sits, the more likely the feed gets oversaturated and the ink could be darker when you start up your writing, even if you pause, right? So the more you write, the lighter it should be, but it shouldn't be drastic, right? You might notice a change in your first few words from the sentence five sentences down the page. That's to be expected. You don't want it to be like outrageously dark light. Then something I'd worry if like something is not seated right, something's not flowing right in the pen, maybe clean it, try it up again. What I wouldn't expect is it to get darker over the time like the other email I got. That seems like more of an outlier where it starts dry and then turns into a darker, more saturated line. But that could just be a flow issue to, you know, maybe once the ink gets flowing and the feed is not managing the ink flow as well. So these are kind of, I won't say common things with fountain pens, but there's definitely a variance in line color that's inherent with fountain pens that you're not going to get with like a gel ink pen. For example, like the gel ink with a ball tip roller is designed to be perfectly consistent all the time. And you notice it when it's not fountain pens. There's a little bit of leeway, both directions. So I think what you're experiencing is normal. Mendel Lamy blue black is notoriously dry ink, right? So when it's saturated, it probably, when you first started to write, it probably looks good, feels good. The more you write with it, there's a little bit less ink flow, which exacerbates the dryness of the ink, which is probably what you're seeing. And I'd have to say that's pretty normal. And it's probably setup dependent. Like I said, you know, this nib with this ink is going to behave this way. If you tried this nib with a different ink, say a diamine, you might have more consistency in it. So it's one of those areas in fountain pens where you have to be okay with a little bit of variance in performance based on nib size, ink, and paper. And this one is somewhat usual.