Day	What	How Much	Pen	Ink
15 October 16 October 17 October 18 October	First draft of “Johnson’s Folly.” Second draft, now “Palmer’s Folly”	18 manuscript pages. 846 typed words.	Pelikan 120 Pelikan M30 Pelikan 25 Pelikan P1	Pelikan Brilliant Brown Diamine Bilberry Waterman Florida Blue Herbin Bleu Nuit

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Day	What	How Much	Pen	Ink
8 October 9 October 10 October 11 October	First draft of “Johnson’s Folly.”	17 manuscript pages.	Pelikan P1 Pelikan M600 Parker 75 Montblanc 32	Herbin Bleu Nuit Edelstein Olivine Diamine Oxford Blue Montblanc Racing Green

Contrary to usual policy, I’m being specific about what was done on the holiday Monday, which was Thanksgiving here in Canada and thus an actual lounging-around type of day. It’s… possible… that the installment of the writing was done on Sunday, while sitting in the stands at son’s gymnastics class (which, now that I think on it, is where the initial work of my “serious phase” of writing began).

Alas, I lost a day this week to a variety of family health issues– running the cat into the vet, and taking over as the Collector of Son from School office which my mother-in-law has been filling while we wait for my wife’s leg to be see to… because my father-in-law was told to come to a neighbouring city to get a new kidney. Alas, kidney proved non-viable when it and he got into the same place, so it was an excursion to no benefit.

The cat, because I know everyone is vitally interested, has been experiencing Horner’s Syndrome thanks to an ear infection. The ear infection is cleared up, but the eye is still somewhat occluded (doesn’t worry the vet) and his balance is off (worries the vet); we may, if we’re interested, spend half a month’s income on having his head scanned. I’m hoping he’ll improve without imagine, so this decision is being extemporized. We’ve already spent vast sums this month on plumbing and other unexpected unavoidables.

Day	What	How Much	Pen	Ink
17 September 18 September 19 September 20 September	Second draft of “Kick a Cat…”	2815 typed words	Parker 75 Pilot L-150MS Sheaffer Imperial Triumph TWSBI Classic	Diamine Oxford Blue Herbin Vert Empire Jentle blue-black Diamine Marine Blue

Those who were paying attention for about four hours yesterday will have seen a gestational version of this post– apparently somebody hit POST rather than SAVE yesterday. I will put this down to mental exhaustion– the rowers are all present on their benches now, but the guy in the jerkin keeps banging away on his drum.

Tonight is going to be full of powerful mental activity: choosing and inking pens for tomorrow’s Pelikan Hub! The New Classic is definitely coming along. I think one of the P1s will, too, and some of the less-known (at least around here) cheap moderns– I know the local hubmaster is bringing a plentiful selection of Souveräns for other attendees to ogle, and my thing has always been breadth of collection rather than depth.  Still, I’ll likely bring my own M600 along, because it would be mean to not take it to a party meant for it.

I may also bring some not-Pelikans, too, just to keep accusations of favouritism down a little.

Feeling Very Confined

I’m alone at The Regular Job today, which is a constraint on my spirit. A compression, even.   And since this…

…gives a sense of the work-load but suggests there’s others helping, I’m going to go with an educational film this week, about working in confinement.

 

Back to work, then. Row, row, row…

Today’s frantic pen: Pilot L-150MS
Today’s hectic ink: Herbin Vert Empire

Day	What	How Much	Pen	Ink
3 September 4 September 5 September 6 September	Third Draft of “A Legion of Candles.” Third Draft of “The Third Frame.” First draft of “Kick a Cat…”	The grinding, faceting and polishing of a gem of deathless prose! Um… ditto. 13 manuscript pages.	Pelikan New Classic Parker Moderne Sheaffer Imperial Triumph Pilot L-150MS	Pelikan Black Herbin Lie de Thé Jentle blue-black Herbin Vert Empire

I hope you all enjoyed Labour Day. I marked it by labouring to keep the Lego glaciers of my son’s making from engulfing the living room, which kept me from the Choose Your Own project.

If you missed it in the sidebar– there’s a new story on the writing site, the genesis of which I explain in this post.

Lupine Nostalgia

I was listening to a presentation of “Peter and the Wolf” while driving back from lunch just now, and it felt like Fate suggesting today’s film. So, sure.

I also spent much of that insubstantial drive trying to imagine the story from the wolf’s point of view– even listening to this very version as a kid, I did find my sympathies leaning toward the wolf, and now, aware of habitat encroachment and the vital role of apex predators in every ecosystem, that inclination grows.

Today’s pen: Parker Moderne (which is, coincidentally, about the same age as the piece of music)
Today’s ink: Herbin Lie de Thé

Day	What	How Much	Pen	Ink
27 August 28 August 29 August 30 August	First draft of “The Third Frame.” First draft of “Kick a Cat…” Second raft of “The Third Frame.”	Fourteen manuscript pages. Seven manuscript pages. 1106 typed words	Sheaffer Imperial Triumph Pilot L-150MS TWSBI Classic Pelikan New Classic	Jentle blue-black Herbin Vert Empire Diamine Marine Blue Pelikan Black

The little bit of “Kick a Cat…” was actually done on Tuesday, in interstice produced by a dental appointment keeping me from The Regular Job in the morning, and I was not inclined to step into the office until just before Mr. Slate yanks on the birdasaurus’s tail to indicate the end of lunch. But why lose a day of writing, even though I’m away from the current project? A stop at a dollar store on my way to a post-dental lunch produced a notebook with shockingly good paper (seriously, it’s somewhere between Rhodia and Tomoe River), and I used my lunch stop to write publicly like a damned hipster.

French onion soup, a chicken breast pretending to be a burger by hiding under bacon, and a pen that’s a little too fine for the job at hand; how I enjoyed some free time on Tuesday.

Day	What	How Much	Pen	Ink
20 August 21 August 22 August 23 August	Second draft† of “A Legion of Candles.” Third (Threcond? Secird?) draft of the same. Third draft of “When Regrets Replace Dreams.”	56 words typed.‡ 6,250 words all together, many pre-typed. So many typos. So many.	Pelikan New Classic Parker Moderne TWSBI Classic Sheaffer Imperial Triumph	Pelikan Black Herbin Lie de Thé Diamine Marine Blue Jentle blue-black

 

†Usually my path is hand-written first, typed second, and then off for comment by readers before third. This story got a complete POV change and I didn’t feel like restarting the process, so because I’m the boss of me! we might consider this second draft more of a v.1.1.

‡ After vast struggle to push the narrative forward on Monday, I realized belatedly that it wasn’t moving because it had fetched up against the buffers at the last station on the line. Those 56 words are vanishing as I smack around the current version into the usual “second draft” shape, so what this really records is the waste of a whole writing session.

Trembling Anticipation

It’s just over a month away, and I’m already getting anxious. How will I ever sleep the night before?

What is “it?”

Why, the Pelikan Hub, of course! Is anything else important happening before Hallowe’en? To either placate or stoke my internal fire of pen-driven desire, I’m going to watch this video of the last year’s Hong Kong hub:

So many pens… (I now make a noise like Homer Simpson seeing a pile of hamburgers). The one in Regina isn’t going to be so big, but the venue is a little smaller, too.

Today’s strangely non-Pelikan pen: Faber-Castell e-motion
Today’s ink: Herbin Pousièrre de Lune

Day	What	How Much	Pen	Ink
6 August 7 August 8 August 9 August	Second Draft of the choose-your-own project.† Second draft of “A Legion of Candles.”	About 1,500 words typed. 1,487 words typed.‡	Pelikan New Classic Faber-Castell e-motion Parker 65 TWSBI Classic	Pelikan Black Herbin Pousièrre de Lune Montblanc Royal Blue Diamine Marine Blue

 

†Monday was a holiday, and since the grass is too parched to need mowing, I had time to work on the thing.

‡Monday was a holiday, so I lost a day on this thing.