And just like that, it’s the 23rd issue! If you like reading the Fountain Pen Weekly, do share it with your other fountain pen enthusiast friends. The more of us here, the merrier!

Today we look at planners for 2024 and talk about architect nibs and using all sorts of inks in our fountain pens!

As we are preparing to go into 2024, the great big question facing a lot of us is what planners are we getting for the new year? Last year, I had two - an Endless Planner with Regalia paper for work and a Hobonichi Weeks Mega for all other things. This worked brilliantly - the Endless Planner was big enough to take all my everyday work notes, to dos, planning and meeting notes, and it lived on my desk. The Rgalia paper was really good for fountain pen use. and really showed off the properties of all the inks I used on it. The Week’s Mega was slim and easy to carry around - and the TR52 paper was a joy to write in with my fountain pens.

For 2024, my choice of non-work planner is the Hobonichi Techo 2024 English Planner Book (January Start) - that’s quite a mouthful for the compact planner! I am still figuring out what my on-desk work planner is going to be. The obvious choice is the Endless Planner like last year, especially as it’s being sold at a nice discount right now. However, I have been looking at a variety of others, but have not settled on one yet.

We were talking about planners on one of the groups the other day, and some of our fellow enthusiasts shared some really interesting takes.

Tarun shared how he has been looking in vain for a planner that suites him, and not finding one, came up with his own layout. In his own words, his layout brings “order with room for chaos, serendipity and flexibility.” Check out his layout as well as his reasons for making it in his Instagram post.

Sriyansa said he “tried the endless one last year. Ultimately half of the pages went unfilled. Really couldn’t find anything to fill in everyday without it feeling like too much of a burden. So no planner this year :-)”

2023 is the year I learned to make my peace with empty pages within my planner. I used them as overflow pages for notes, scribbled in them or just let them be. But then, it does seem to be a waste of good fountain pen friendly paper.

Hari succinctly put into words what a lot us hate about dated planners - having random unnecessary stuff and having to leave many empty pages in between: “There are two major problems that I face with planners in the market. Firstly, they fill the pages with all sorts of rubbish, things that someone just thought up for no reason. Secondly, the pages are dated, and there are several days in my work life where I am just sitting and writing or editing, with nothing to enter in a diary.”

Tarun summed it up nicely when he said, “Yeah... I don't want to track my mood, water in-take, force myself to feel grateful or track January habits that'll get abandoned in February. And that nonsense about - Be Yourself and other pop-psychology stuff that expects you to list out whimsical brouhaha (10 ways to be a better human) as an excuse to fill up a gloriously unproductive day with non-busy work.”

While I am very tempted to use a nice notebook as this year’s work planner - something I did in both 2021 and 2022 with the TR68 Endless Recorders - I am also not really ready to stop looking. I liked the order imposed by the Endless Planner this year. And so, the search goes on!

What are your 2024 planner plans?

This is the first set of Art for Xmas options - comprises of the 10 most popular prints from my collection. Each of these are 10 inch in height + 1.5 inch margin all around and placed in a minimalist black or brown frame. The print + frame costs 3000/-. Check out all the artworks available and DM me to order.

I’ve been curious about architect nibs - the clever design that produces fine downstrokes and broad sidestrokes had me fascinated. But somehow I had never got a chance to try it out. So I asked my compatriots if they had any I could try out and ended up with two - one an architect grind by a well-known nibmeister and the other a factory architect grind from Kanwrite. Having previously experienced quite a thrill by the flair added to my none-too-neat handwriting when I used a stub nib, I was quite excited to try out the architects.

To my surprise, I found them completely unenjoyable. In fact, one of them was downright unusable. I had been adequately warned that they were not for cursive, and I did not expect to use them for that. All I wanted to do was print with them, and that was quite the chore. The nibs had a very small sweet spot, if that, and Even when I was staying within that, it was quite a rough experience. I have chalked it down to my inexperience in using architect as the major contributor to my experience, and will try it again when I have someone who can guide me into doing it properly.

~*~

A ship is safe in the harbour, but that is not what ships are built for. We spoke about this saying when we were talking about what inks to use in what pens. My rather hot take is that if you are bothered about keeping your fountain pens safe, just stick to the same brand of inks as your pens. If, on the other hand, you’d like to sail in your ships and discover beautiful new worlds, you can use pretty much any modern ink in any modern pen - as long as you follow reasonable pen hygiene and use the pens for their intended purposes only. Of course, all sorts of caveats apply: All bets are off when it comes to vintage pens; Don’t mix inks in your pen - mix them elsewhere and leave them for a while and then put them in your pen only if they have not exploded or become gunk; Wash your pens every now and then; Don’t let inks dry out in pens - always empty and wash your pend before storing them. And so on.

~*~

I have been figuring out which of these inks I will put in my new pen - a deliciously beautiful Leonardo Momento Magico Pithecusa in rose gold trim and a B nib.

All of these inks seem to be appropriate, and I am not able to pick one. In a conversation with fellow conspirators Harish and Shreyas, we had agreed that the only ink that can do justice to the beauty of the pen is Baystate Blue, and I agreed with them, but that was before I had considered how well suited the other two inks are as well.

Which one do you think I should use?

Share your take on fountain pens and related things in one (or more!) of our upcoming issues.

Any and all content you share will belong to you and will be credited to your name (or a pen name of your choice) and linked to any of your online profiles. Ideal content would be a write-up between 200 and 400 words with 1 to 5 images.

Here are a few things that can go in the Fountain Pen Weekly:

• Pen / ink / paper ownership experience

• Favorites in FP, ink, paper etc.

• Your social handles with your FP content - Insta, FB, Twitter, Reddit

• Any FP-related content you want to call out - articles, podcasts, videos.

If you have any other ideas as well, do share, and I will be happy to think about it.

That’s all from me this week.

Questions? Feedback? Just hit reply on this email or write in at [email protected]