Author: writingatlarge

Writer of things

Organising My Thoughts

Organising my thoughts and processes during these trying and turbulent times. Here are some calming photos to pass the time while I’m processing.

Black Lives Matter

Black lives matter.

If you break into an apartment and shoot a woman in her sleep, you are a murderer.

If you kneel on a man’s neck for 9 minutes, you are a murderer.

There are no circumstances that make this OK:

If you’re going to comment that he only aiming a flash bang, or that he wasn’t aiming at them but at a protestor standing next to them, f*ck off.

To my friends who say that the US police are scared for their lives because every traffic stop could end in a shootout I say: why aren’t these cops protesting the NRA? Why aren’t these cops pushing for gun control? Why did these cops have zero problems when a bunch of red necks with guns charged state capitals demanding that the state reopen so they can get a haircut? Exactly how threatened are these cops who shoot and mace and hit peaceful protesters?

I donated money to the Equal Justice Initiative, Black Lives Matter, and Black Girls Code. I’m actively working to educate myself and follow more black voices on social media. I strongly urge that you do the same at the very least.

Black Lives Matter.

Tiny, tiny, insignificant us

Our D&D group found itself next to a colossal sleeping white dragon, and one of the characters suggested that we could take it on. I grabbed my Blackwing (811) and created a quick illustration of relative sizes to emphasise just how crazy that idea was.

We didn’t attack the dragon.

Morning Run in the Park

I haven’t run in the park for a while, at first because I wanted to distance myself from other runners, later on because it wasn’t allowed, and recently because I wanted to distance myself from other people. But I’ve gained some confidence that things with the Coronavirus have chilled sufficiently for me to indulge in a quick morning run in the least popular place in the park.

How I missed this.

I saw a pair of graceful prinias, some of my favourite birds. They’re shy and skittish but you can catch a glimpse of them here:

My favourite moment was catching sight of a flock of sleeping Egyptian geese and their two faithful watch-geese:

It was fun to see some of my old haunts, even if they have changed slightly:

Mask and winky face are a recent addition to this logo.

Caran d’Ache Nespresso India Green

When Caran d’Ache came out with this year’s limited edition Nespresso capsule 849 pen I breathed out a sigh of relief. I’m not a fan of their India capsules, and their olive green colour doesn’t speak to me, so I thought that it would be an easy pen to skip. Their previous collaboration, the Darkhan, was an excellent pen overall, especially as a gift purchase to the Nespresso or pen lover in your life, and I also loved the capsules and loved their colour.

Well Cult Pens celebrated their 15th anniversary, and I needed some refills, and somehow or other the India 849 found itself in my basket. I thought I would gift it away, but once it arrived I knew that this pen is staying with me.

As with the previous edition, the packaging on this pen is genius. It shows off the pen and what it is beautifully, and it’s so well made and well considered. On the front there’s the “This was a Nespresso capsule” label, and a sketch of the pen that fits perfectly with the way the pen is presented in the box (that’s not left to chance. The box is designed so the pen will stay put in semi profile and show off the subtle “Caran d’Ache” logo underneath the clip).

Limited Edition, Caran d’Ache 849, Series No 02.

On the back there’s a short explanation about what makes this pen special:

Inside the pen is securely slotted in its superbly designed cardboard housing, and here you can catch the first glimpse of why I decided to keep this pen: its colour.

This is a beautiful pen that doesn’t photograph well. Its colour is wild, if subtle could be wild. It’s a cool grey with a slightly green hue. I’ve never had a pen like it, and the result is very, very cool.

Unlike most 849’s and just like the Darkhan edition, this pen has writing on it beyond the hidden Caran d’Ache and the “Swiss Made”:

Made with recycled Nespresso capsules.
849 Caran d’Ache and Swiss Made, standard imprints on 849 pens.

The 849 is a ballpoint and has an excellent out of the box Goliath Caran d’Ache refill. I’m not a fan of ballpoints, so I switched my refill out with the 0.7 Parker gel refill in black, and now I can’t put this pen down. This pen weighs more than the featherweight 849, and it has a textured finish. The result is the 849 pen, only better.

The writing on the top of the page is with the original Goliath refill, and below it the writing is with the Parker gel refill.

I highly recommend this pen to anyone who is even slightly interested in the Caran d’Ache 849, as it’s a significant improvement over an already great pen design. It makes for a great gift, and a great pen to carry around with you (just make sure nobody tries to nick it from you). I hope that Caran d’Ache and Nespresso continue this collaboration, and I can’t wait to see which capsule colour they select next.

Going Old-School

I am working on a script for a podcast, and I was utterly failing at it. I was writing too much, not focusing on what was important, getting lost in the text that I was working on. After trying to write the script in Google docs and failing, and trying to record without a set script and failing, I tried a trick that helped me before when I was stuck with a writers block.

I used a typewriter.

For me typewriters are magical machines that on the one hand force me to slow down and consider every word, and on the other hand let me get into a writing rhythm that other writing instruments just don’t allow for. There’s a beat to writing with a typewriter. It makes you earn every word.

If you’re a writer, get thee a typewriter, and earn every word.

Kaweco AL Sport Blue Stonewashed Review

I’m not a fan of pocket pens, mostly because women’s pants usually don’t have room for them. Couple that with my fear of forgetting a pen in my pocket and then putting the pants through the wash, and you can see why I have so few of them. However, in 2014 Kaweco came out with the AL Sport Stonewashed and I just couldn’t resist.

This is such a cool look for a pocket pen.

The Kawecon AL Sport Stonewashed is the classic Kaweco Sport pen, in aluminum, stonewashed to give it a worn denim look (especially in the blue version of this pen). The pen really has been worn down, so each pen is unique, and the chips and dings have been smoothed over so it still feels great to write with.

You can see the finish best on the various edges of the pen, and they just work so well with the Kaweco Sport design. This is a pen that’s meant to bash around in your pocket or bag, and the stonewashed finish just highlights that.

Caran d’Ache 849 Tropical on top, Kaweco AL Sport Stonewashed on the bottom.

The AL Sport is ridiculously small when uncapped to the point where it’s unusable, but this is a pen that never was designed to be used uncapped.

Capped it becomes a standard length pen with a pretty wide barrel, which makes it surprisingly comfortable to write with even on longer writing sessions.

The only flaw in this pen is the way that the refill tip clicks when you lift it off the page. There’s some play at the tip end, so while it won’t affect your writing style, you will hear it when you write. This is the case with the original refill and the Parker 0.7 gel refill that I replaced it with.

If you can live with that minor annoyance, then the Kaweco AL Sport Stonewashed is a marvellous pen to buy. As someone who uses mechanical keyboards, I like objects that add sound effects to my writing progress, so the little clicks this pen makes only make it more charming to me.