El Rancho Cafe, Minneapolis, Minnesota, March 2008, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
Writers love pens. And paper products. Those are our tools of the trade. When I was younger, there weren’t that many choices: Sharpies (1964), BICs (1950), and Flairs (1966). I used them all. My current pen of choice for Writing Practice is the Sharpie Ultra Fine Point (1979), in a spectrum of 24 colors. (Since 2007, they come in a 4 inch size with a carabiner clip.)
Sharpies don’t smell as toxic as they did in the 1960’s (though the odor is still noticeable). They aren’t what some would call a fast writing pen. But for me, the rough, porous tip slows down my writing so I can read what’s on the page at the end of a practice.
In grade school, I wrote letters with a Schaeffer fountain pen, complete with robin’s egg stationery. After a thousand years of using quill-pens, the fountain pen was invented in 1884 by an insurance broker named Lewis Edson Waterman. In 1901, at the time of his death, Waterman was selling 1,000 pens every day. In 2008, Schaeffer and Parker dominate the fountain pen market.
What kind of pen do you use? Have you ever used a Ring-Pen? Do you prefer a ballpoint? What about paper products? I can’t walk by an old fashioned stationery store (hard to find) or an art materials store without ducking inside.
Tell me about your tools of the trade. If you are an artist, list all of your materials: canvas, brushes, paints, charcoal, watercolors. Do you use high-end papers like Arches, Canson or Bienfang?
If you are not a writer or an artist, what are the tools of your profession? Are you a cosmetologist, dental tool sharpener (yes, I used to be one), doctor, butcher, baker, ski bum.
Make a detailed list of all the pens, pencils, art materials, drawing papers in your home or studio. Sinclair Lewis was a master list maker. Here are a few random snippets from Main Street (1920):
Dyer’s Drug Store, a corner building of regular and unreal blocks of artificial stone. Inside the store, a greasy marble soda-fountain with an electric lamp of red and green and curdled-yellow mosaic shade. Pawed over heaps of toothbrushes and combs and packages of shaving soap. Shelves of soap-cartons, teething-rings, garden-seeds, and patent medicines in yellow packages — nostrums for consumption, for “women’s diseases” — notorious mixtures of opium and alcohol, in the very shop to which her husband sent patients for the filling of prescriptions.
Howland & Gould’s Grocery. In the display window, black, overripe bananas and lettuce on which a cat was sleeping. Shelves lined with red crepe paper which was now faded and torn and concentrically spotted. Flat against the wall of the second story, the signs of lodges — the Knights of Pythias, the Maccabees, the Woodmen, the Masons.
Axel Egge’s General Store, frequented by Scandinavian farmers. In the shallow dark window-space, heaps of sleazy sateens, badly woven galateas, canvas shoes designed for women with bulging ankles, steel and red glass buttons upon cards with broken edges, a cottony blanket, a granite-ware frying-pan reposing on a sun-faded crepe blouse.
She rose to a radiance of sun on snow. Snug in her furs she trotted up-town. Frosted shingles smoked against a sky colored like flax-blossoms, sleigh-bells clinked, shouts of greeting were loud in the thin, bright air, and everywhere was a rhythmic sound of wood-sawing. It was Saturday, and the neighbors’ sons were getting up the winter fuel. Behind walls of corded wood in back yards their sawbucks stood in depressions scattered with canary-yellow flakes of sawdust. The frames of their buck-saws were cherry-red, the blades blued steel, and the fresh cut ends of the sticks — poplar, maple, iron-wood, birch — were marked with engraved rings of growth. The boys wore shoe-packs, blue flannel shirts with enormous pearl buttons, and mackinaws of crimson, lemon yellow, and foxy brown.
No ones save Axel himself could find anything. A part of the assortment of children’s stockings was under a blanket on a shelf, a part in a tin ginger-snap box, the rest heaped like a nest of black-cotton snakes upon a flour-barrel which was surrounded by brooms, Norwegian Bibles, dried cod or ludfisk, boxes of apricots, and a pair and a half of lumbermen’s rubber-footed boots. The place was crowded with Scandinavian farmwives, standing aloof in shawls and ancient fawn-colored leg o’ mutton jackets awaiting the return of their lords.
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Make a list of all of the tools of your trade.
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Do a 10 minute Writing Practice after you make your list. Start the practice with What’s in front of me….
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Be as detailed as you can: name brand, color, size, shape, smell, memory associations.
How are 21st century tools the same or different than when you were growing up. What are your favorite tools for writing, drawing, gardening, farming, painting, working. Start out with the details of the objects — see where they lead you.
-posted on red Ravine, Wednesday, March 26th 2008
This post made me smile. I knew I was not alone in my love of the stationary store. I’m hooked on PaperMate and cheap, spiral notebooks. Purple ink is good, red is okay, green (dark) is nice. The paper has to be smooth and the ink slick and the mind wet. All is heaven then.
Jamie Lee
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So true, we love our implements.
Hi, QM. Made it to Spring Break destination. Have some good plane shots to post, maybe Fri. Thanks for holding down the fort.
I like the cheapie spirals, too, Jamie Lee, and these days I am liking the gel pen. I like Sharpies, too, but the gels seem to be ubiquitious and, thus, easier to grab on the run.
This will be a rich topic, no doubt. I love art supply stores as much as I love bookstores.
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Jamie Lee, so happy to have another paper product/pen lover visit red Ravine. I like that you mentioned the color of the inks. I forgot about that. I like the dark Sharpie inks to do my practices (purple, blue, red, green). I found the lighter inks were hard to read aloud. There are so many ink colors now in pens. It’s hard to believe! When I used fountain pens, I liked the green ink.
ybonesy, so happy you made it safely. I hope you have a great relaxing time away. No problem with the Ravine. Hey, maybe you’ll find a collectible pen on your vacation, something you can do a sketch of.
Also, glad you got some good plane shots. I’ll check in by email about Friday posting. Happy vacation!
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It has taken me a while to figure out my writing tools. After trying lots of options and pens that other people insisted were *must haves* I’ve found my own.
I write with Bic Ultra Round Stic Grip, the ones with the barber shop swirl where you hold on. They are the fastest writing pens I have ever used, and I can get a whole pack for $1.99. I’ll be very sad if Bic decides to abandon their production.
I use cheap spirals (always wide-rule), and I have color-coded them for different uses:
Blue: writing workshops
Yellow: 10-minutes writing practices
Red: assigned writing projects
Green: novel, anything fictional
Black: 10-minute writes about classics I read
I wish they sold orange spirals (they don’t), and if another category develops I still have purple as an option. I hope this doesn’t happen. I don’t like purple.
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Sinclair, I LOVE how detailed and specific you are about your pens and especially your notebook colors and what you write in each one. Seems so structured and organized. It makes me want to try using your color system of spiral notebooks.
I tend to end up with scattered pieces of paper and Post-it’s everywhere. And my handwritten practices (I do many Writing Practices online) are scattered in different notebooks right now. I need a better system for the handwritten ones.
What brand of spiral notebook do you buy that have all those colors? I wish they had orange. It’s my favorite color right now (it changes over time).
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When I landed on the colored notebook idea, I experienced such relief–like a whole writing organizational piece had been taken care of for the rest of my life. The brand of notebook varies for me, but the hue of the cover must be perfect. Some look like they’ve had dirt mixed in with them. Depressing. I only buy bright blue, bright red, etc.
I’ve got the same idea going on for my writing business. I use those smaller-sized composition books with hardish, speckled covers. You know the ones?
Pink: mileage
Aqua: leads
Yellow: submissions
Lime: money
I’m hoping for more catgories, as they have a sensational red, glorious orange, inviting blue, and classic black. They do have purple, too. Not interested.
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Sinclair, if you get a chance, can you plop the name brands of both of your sets of notebooks into the Comments? And do you order them online or buy at an office supply store?
I think I might try your system. It might add some organization to the different facets of writing memoir, too. I’m still in process.
I read that Anne Lamott uses index cards and a clothesline she strings up in front of her computer when she writes her books. To track her characters and ideas. I kind of like the idea of that. I think it resonated with me because of all the memories of Mom hanging out the laundry. Each piece of clothing, a bit of memory. And then they are sewn into quilts. 8)
BTW, I don’t think the BIC pen is going away. When I was in grade school, there was a white BIC fine point with a navy cap that came out (BIC didn’t always have fine points) and I loved those. I think they still make them. But today, I tend to need a broader point to do my Writing Practices. And I use Sharpies. The thinner ballpoints eat into the paper. I like a broader ballpoint tip, like the Crystal BIC.
Hey, what’s your aversion to purple?
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QM – I loved it when felts came out in the sixties. The main problem was that the tips lost their point and became sguishy. There was a period of time when I did most of my writing with fountain-pens with callligraphic tips, but when I discovered rapidographs I loved to have them on hand for drawing. The part in looking after them that was a pain was soaking the nibs. But a good tool is worth looking after well; it gives great, repeatable service. These days I use a ball point with a broad point – the fine ones rip through paper when i’m in the throes of vigorous writing. For journals, the cheap Chinese black with red binding are the ones I have used for years they open up flat ( have sewn binding) and the paper, though not of high quality is smooth and suits me fine.
I love art supply stores, stationers, book stores and hardware stores as I love tools of all kinds. G
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QM,
The brand of my color-coded spirals is Apego AdvantEDGE.
The composition books are Mead.
I got them at Target. If you go in August (Back-to-School) you can get the notebooks for a dime, and the composition books for 99 cents.
Purple? I don’t know the aversion. Something. I used to dislike orange, and now it grabs me. Go figure.
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In the passage you included from Main Street, I love the phrase “foxy brown.” Truman Capote called Alvin Dewey (KBI Investigator from Kansas) “Foxy,” though he wasn’t referring to the color of his mackinaw.
Foxy is one of those words I want to use someday in my writing. I have two other phrases I’ve been hanging onto for two years looking for a place I could insert them: “the village idiot” and “the smoking gun.”
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Does my laptop count?
I have yet to find a pen I really enjoy . . .
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I wish I had something interesting to add to this great post. I use pencils: Cheap Chinese ones. After learning not to write on paper but directly on the computer (during journalism school) I’ve never been able to go back to pen-on-paper composition.
I use pencils for notes at work and brainstorming sessions. I like the feel of the lead/graphite and the sound it makes on the page.
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I think if I would have learned to write on the keyboard directly, I’d probably not write so much in my spiral notebook either. I need to learn how to write more fluidly directly onto my computer myself. Something about the computer puts me into editor mode.
Stevo, I like that sound (graphite to paper) too.
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BTW, G, I LOVE rapidographs. I got a set of them years and years ago (I still have the set, something about them seems permanent, not to be thrown away). Problem for me always was the technicality of having to buy new cartridges, how to change them, etc. I honestly don’t think I ever used my rapidographs very much. They were almost like a piece of furniture or art, something to study and admire.
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Sinclair, thanks for adding the brand names of your notebooks. I’m inspired by color. I hope I follow through!
Teri, I noticed that, too, “foxy brown.” There are a lot of phrases like that in the book from the 1920’s, things we might not say today or things that have evolved. I love that about reading the old literature. It also takes more time. No, I’m sure Truman wasn’t referring to Alvin’s foxy mackinaw. 8)
I like that you have a list of favorite words or phrases. I just finished listening to Anne Lamott again (which is why I keep bringing her up in the comments) and she also mentions making a list of our favorite words. I’ve only thought about that in terms of words I like to say because of the way they roll off the tongue – but not words I want to use in writing. I have no idea what those might be for me.
brian, yep, laptop always counts. It’s a vibrant tool of the trade. Though somedays I just want to run from the room screaming and away from the computer.
Stevo, I wondered if anyone would mention a pencil. I rarely use them anymore. But I know some who love to write with them. They do make a distinct sound on the page. A writer would notice that.
G., I never got the hang of rapidographs. But like ybonesy, I loved to look at them like pieces of art. They sure were messy though. Or maybe I’m messy.
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In honor of these words you included from Sinclair Lewis’ famous book, I am checking in from the Palmer Hotel in Sauk Centre, MN. Lewis was born in this town in 1885, and the lobby where I now sit is where he worked as a night clerk. The current night clerk told me he had to dust, vacuum, and do laundry on his shift.
I walked to his boyhood home (about 3 blocks away), and enjoyed sitting on his porch in the sunshine. I suspect he sat there many times, too. On the plaque outside his home it spoke of his struggles. His failures. His desires to write and how he continued despite great obstacles.
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“I wondered if anyone would mention a pencil.”
QM: I did a writing workshop with Terry Tempest Williams last weekend. She said that she does all her writing practice and rough drafts in pencil now. She said that she likes the feel and the fact that it IS less permanent. Somehow, it feels right to the naturalist in her, that eventually everything of organic nature fades away.
Williams said that she signed a person’s book in pencil once and they said, “Oh, that’s not good. It’s not worth anything.”
To us, she shrugged and said, “Well, there you have it.”
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breathepeace, I was just about to comment back to Teri when I saw your great comment on the pencil. And Terry Tempest Williams. Two of her books, Pieces of White Shell: A Journey to Navajoland and Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place, are on my all time favorites list. I saw her speak in Minneapolis once. But it has been quite a while.
How great that you got to study with her. Anything else you’d like to share about what you learned, I’m all ears. 8)
About the pencil, I do love them. I have boxes of them that I collected over the years and don’t know what to do with. And I have a book on the history of the pencil – Thoreau plays a big part in that. But I rarely use a pencil anymore. I like the way they sound and feel on the page — but I hate to stop and sharpen them so I can keep writing.
It’s interesting about the reaction to signing a book in pencil. I wonder how it would feel to do a writing practice with a good old fashioned wooden pencil again. Something I will ponder. Thanks for your thoughtful comment.
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Teri, thank you for checking in from Sauk Centre, Minnesota, once home to Sinclair Lewis. I can imagine you there, much the way we are when we visit Taos, sleep in the room that was once Mabel Dodge’s, and head over the Kit Carson Memorial to visit her grave.
I’m so glad you made Sauk Centre a part of your writing pilgrimage as you are out profiling the next six days. Hey, do you know if Main Street is based on the town of Sauk Centre? I’m about half way through the book. He captures the Midwest temperament beautifully. And Main Street came out about the time Mabel would have been in Taos. The 1920’s were a boomtime for writers and artists.
It sounds like Sinclair struggled and failed and kept going like so many writers we admire. Here, here. Don’t be tossed away!
I’m heading off the blog for the night pretty soon. All the snow has nearly melted. Liz took photos this morning with a foot of snow on the cedars. By the time we got home, they were completely bare. The joys of a March snowstorm. Sleep tight in the Palmer Hotel. 8)
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Sinclair always maintained that Main Street was not based on Sauk Centre. He stuck with that until he died, but no one here believed him. They hated him when Main Street first came out; they felt wickedly betrayed and he wasn’t welcome here for ages.
But then came the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer (which he refused), and…well…they softened to him. In good time he was their Prized Son, and pretty soon every street and park was named after him.
I’m alone in the lobby now, surrounded by stained-glass windows, pressed tin ceiling, and just enough light coming in from the street lamps. I like knowing Sinclair was in just this spot, with this ceiling and these windows. He was in this room, thinking about becoming a writer.
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Did he ever say what town Main Street was based on? I’d love to re-read something by Sinclair Lewis. What do you recommend? I think it’s cool that you weave into your travels visits to birth places of authors or places where books were set (like Holcomb, KS). Very cool. Too often we travel through a spot without looking up what writers might have passed through there.
On the topic of pencils, I don’t think I could do writing practice with a pencil. I think the scratchy noise of the graphite on paper would start to get to me. I like the noise, but not continuously and not when it’s intense. Sometimes when I’m writing fast, I start to press hard with my hand. Doing that with a pencil over time would be like nails on a chalkboard. But I do love what Terry Tempest Williams had to say about autographs in pencil.l
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Sinclair said he was trying to flip conventional wisdom upside-down. At the time Main Street came out, standard thought was that if someone left a small town for a big city, they would be corrupted, destroyed, demoralized. In his book, he took a city girl out of Minneapolis and brought her to a small town. And, you’ve guessed it, it destroyed her (or nearly so). He said Gopher Prairie (the town in the book) wasn’t any town in particular. Just an American town. However, in the book the route the train takes to get the girl to the small town and the length of the train ride would land her exactly in Sauk Centre. That’s why no one ever believed him.
Recommendations? Well, Main Street put him on the map, and is still he best-known. Elmer Gantry is great if you’ve had a run-in with bad religion. Arrowsmith won the Pulitzer. So…take your pick, you can’t go wrong.
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I’ll try to read all three. Were they hard to get through? I’ve struggled with some of the literary greats of the past, trying to read them now.
Yeah, his alibi (re Sauk Centre) sounds suspect. I wonder if he got too much heat for his depiction that he finally decided to say it wasn’t the same place. Or, maybe it wasn’t. Maybe he just relied on distances and other details he knew yet a different town. I’ve done that before — based a character on someone I knew, but then the character takes on a life of his own and evolves into someone else. But then many of the details are the same as the person I was basing it on.
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ybonesy,
No, the books aren’t hardships to plow through. Start with Main Street.
I’ve been hearing a lot about Ayn Rand lately. When I read Atlas Shrugged I felt like I needed a cold compress on my head to keep going. That was a painful literary great for me. Lewis doesn’t write like that. Maybe if I read Ayn now I’d like her work; it was years ago.
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It did take a bit of patience to get through Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, didn’t it? It’s been a while since I read it. But I remember.
ybonesy, Sinclair’s writing is more grounded than Ayn Rand. He is good at details. But Main Street was written in the 1920’s and has many of the nuances of the language at that time. Women’s roles were very different then, too. And his female characters are strong. I like that. I also get into it because it’s set in the Midwest and I know the places he is writing about. I’ll be curious to see what you think.
Great literature takes a lot more work to read than other work (I remember Natalie talking about how important it is to finish reading books that we find hard to read or that we don’t necessarily like. We can learn just as much from books we don’t like, as books we do). It always takes me longer to get through a book of literature. And I have to concentrate more (but maybe that’s just me). I usually have another book going at the same time, something a little easier to read. Just something I’ve noticed about myself. And sometimes I do hunger to just pick up a newsstand mystery and get lost in the story. So I do. 8)
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ybonesy, I just reread your comment #24 and that’s a good point – about how you started a story basing a certain character on someone you knew – then they evolved into their own fictional character as the story progressed – but kept the details of the original person you were basing it on. I had not thought of it that way before. But I bet that happens a lot in fiction writing. Hmmm.
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