Editing The Pen Addict 503/transcript (section)

== Fountain Pens ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' Papers, Pens, and Ink asks, I've been collecting fountain pens for about two years now. I have some that are expensive and some that are inexpensive. But I find that I am enjoying my inexpensive pens, like my Safaris and Twisbees, more than my expensive ones, my sales and platinums. Is this normal or am I an outlier?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So if you hear me talk on a regular basis, you will see that you're very normal. While I have several very outrageously expensive pens, the pens I use the most are the basics, right? And it's because you can get really great quality and performance at a reasonable price from a ton of pens that give you just so much enjoyment, so much confidence in your writing and how the pen feels and how the ink works with your notebook and how the nib flows. And when you get into buying a more expensive pen, there's not often a lot of performance difference in those products with the lower tier pens, the more expensive entry-level type pens. But you're paying for the extras, gold nibs, barrel finishes, arushi, things like that. That change maybe the feel of the pen or the perception of the pen, but it very rarely changes the performance of the pen and how the pen makes you feel when the nib hits the page. That's my experience. That's why I tend to, like, hey, I love my Nakayas and I love my Namiki Pilot. Like, those are some of my, like, you know, if the house is burning down, those are the pens I'm grabbing. But let me tell you, I thoroughly enjoy, like we were talking about the TWSBI swipe earlier, I grab that pen and use it all the time and I smile when I use it. Like, I don't know what more I can ask for than that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The balance is important. I would say one thing to consider is that maybe you are, like, treating your expensive pens with kid gloves, you know, and maybe being more precious over them because they're expensive, which is perfectly fine to do. But you might be kind of, like, holding yourself off from letting yourself have fun with them. And my typical thing is to just enjoy it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I had to learn how to not hold them precious. Yep. And then I enjoyed them more. Yep. Right. So that's another reason is that I don't really place that specialness. Like, I have to have a special use to use this pen. I was like, you know, I'll just use it anytime, anywhere, which makes, you know, from a writing perspective, all the pens I like equivalent. Right. It's just, hey, have I missed using this Nakaya because, man, it is a piece of art and I love using it and I love how it feels. But I can grab this Twisby swipe and just, like, put a huge smile on my face just as easily.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. If you would like to send in a question for us to answer on a future episode of the Pen Addict, you can just send out a tweet with the hashtag AskTPA. You can use question mark AskTPA in the RelayFM members Discord or you can send by email to hello at penaddict.com. And penaddict.com is where you'll find the work of Brad and his many wonderful contributors writing articles and reviews of all the greatest products that are appearing. In the stationary world, you can find Brad online. He's at dowdyism, at penaddict, and streams three times a week at twitch.tv slash penaddict. I am at imike, I-M-Y-K-E. Thank you to Topofolio and Uni for the support of this episode. But as always, and most of all, thank you for listening. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]