Some Tools of the Trade

These are some of the items I use in the course of my letter-writing and such. Yes, I really do use bottled ink, and yes, I really do use the rocking blotter, such as was typical desk accoutrement in Disney and Warner Bros. cartoons in the '60s.

This ink in particular is called Noodler's, and it's an excellent item. It comes in many vibrant colors, holds a rich hue, dries well, and is fairly resistant to environmental damage. When I know I'm going to use a fountain pen quite often, I'll go ahead and fill it up with this stuff. Otherwise, there's something about the richness of this ink that makes me think it shouldn't sit around in a pen cartridge for months, unused. It should be a fine dipping ink, too, but I've never used it for that.

The blotter is something I'd never need with Noodler's, but in the past I've used weaker, more insubstantial inks that take forever to dry. Sometimes that's the fault of the paper I'm using but mainly it's due to the chemical composition of the ink. Before I can fold that page up or set anything else on top of it, I've got to rock this blotter over my writing and sop up the extra juice. And I've learned it's no good to rapidly rock it back and forth over a sentence, unless I want to replicate ghost-prints of that sentence in the area surrounding the original print. One slow, firm tilt from side to side should be enough to dry up the page or remove enough excess that it can dry itself.

I took these pictures, and many others like them, for a Facebook game in which people could set up little stores with items of their own design. You could sell these items to people for in-game credits or you could gift them to lucky recipients. Needless to say, the stationery items in my store did not exactly move like hotcakes, not when other people were taking pictures of expensive cars, celebrities, and lingerie.