The Gift of the Written Word

"You have it easily in your power to increase the sum total of this world's happiness now. How? By giving a few words of sincere appreciation to someone who is lonely or discouraged. Perhaps you will forget tomorrow the kind words you say today, but the recipient may cherish them over a lifetime."  Dale Carnegie (1888-1955) American writer.

Take the time this Christmas to give a little of yourself….. 

Remember this Christmas that the present is not the only gift you can give.  There are two other, more meaningful gifts you can and should give - your time and a personalized, hand written card.

The Christmas card often only receives a brief, quickly scrawled cliché line about enjoying the day.  The whole card buying and giving routine often becomes as impersonal as the wrapping paper.  Relegated to the indignant status of gift accessory.  We buy it quickly, scrawl on it even more quickly, tape it to a gift where it receives a cursory glance before being unceremoniously dumped onto a table alongside dozens of other similarly mass scrawled cards.  A mere token of measurement of our popularity (how many cards we received) rather than a medium by which our family and friends sought to express how they felt about us; to convey how special we are to them.  Well don’t fall into the trap of the masses this Christmas!  Say no to the thirty second scrawled message and take time to write how you feel about the person receiving the card.

Come on... try it...this year take some time to write a meaningful, heart felt and original message in the card.  Take the time to write more than the two or three lines churned out with the mass production precision of the card manufacturing plant.  Better still hand deliver it to the people you care for and spend a little quality time with them.  Hand the card to them and reinforce exactly how important it is having them in your life.  After all, now is the time of year where we remind those closest to us (and ourselves) how much they genuinely mean to us? 

For something a little more nostalgic to match the traditional Christmas spirit, use a fountain pen.  In keeping with the Christmas seasonal colour, try some Iroshizuku yama-budo or Mont Blanc winter glow ink and write a sincere and caring message to those closest to you. 

Yama-budo Ink - Photo by Eclectic Psyche

In this day of sms, email, mobiles and the like, we forget to stop and actually write something meaningful and lasting to those we care for.  So resist the fast lane trend and stop to smell the roses, or rather write about the roses in your life!  You will probably find you have more roses than you realize and soon discover those roses are ever-lasting as a result of the time you take to ink your feelings.

This season - Ink it!  Write it!  In doing so you will reconnect important relationships and perhaps also rediscover yourself at a time of year when reflection is key to our growth in the New Year.  Take time for a little introspection and to contemplate who is important to you, then communicate your thoughts to those you value.   And if you handwrite those thoughts with a fountain pen the message becomes even more personal, meaningful and special. Well it does for me.

And for the more creative, try rewriting an old Christmas carol to fit the message you want to convey.  Music written before 1923 is not bound by copyright restrictions.  Just two to try are: I heard the bells on Christmas Day and Joy to the World! See what you can rework those into as a personalised christmas message.

If you are a little stuck with getting started with which songs to use, click on this link  http://www.christmas-carol-music.org to get some ideas on music/songs that can be used.

Remember to make it personal, meaningful and from the heart.

Ink it!  Write it!

Have a safe, happy and special Christmas!  Hope Santa brings you that new fountain pen and ink you have wanted all year!  See you in 2013!  May it be a peaceful year for this global village we share!  

Ku-Jaku (Peacock) Ink - Photo by Eclectic Psyche

Pilot's New Iroshizuku Ink: take-sumi & two others

take-sumi  shin-kai  ama-iro

Pilot have been making fantastic inks for a while now.  The Iroshizuku range are a marketing success - beautiful and practical bottle design, bright and interesting colour range along with quality inks that flow smoothly from the nib.  Recently Pilot released three new Iroshizuku inks to add to its range; just in time for the Christmas stocking. 

The three new inks released are:

take-sumi – bamboo charcoal black

shin-kai – deep sea blue

ama-iro – sky blue

The three inks are available for purchase now from most stores selling Iroshizuku or from Ebay.  I bought mine from Engeika store  http://wancher.ocnk.biz/diary .  I have bought many items from Engeika and each time his service has impressed me immensely.  However I recently bought a Wancher pen from him and I would never do that again.  The pen was the worst pen I have ever bought.  Its not Japanese made at all.  I'll post a review on it soon.  Suffice to say for now, the Wancher fountain pen is not something I would recommend.  However, the Iroshizuku inks are fantastic, I can recommend them. 

Image courtesy of Engeika - http://wancher.ocnk.biz/diary

The three Iroshizuku colours are brand new and I have to say they are just the thing for those keenly waiting for a new choice of Iroshizuku inks. 

I like all three of these inks, especially the take-sumi - so much so I'm going to order another bottle of it as well.  As you can see below its a definate charcoal black.

Take-sumi ink & Sunshine Sailor Sapporo - photo by Eclectic Psyche

The take-sumi is a smooth ink, flows easily from the pen nib and gives a good saturated and smooth ink output. Its a decent shade of black not a full bodied black (like Sailor Kiwaguru or Noodler's Black) but its a black that can look a darkish grey at times and black at others depending on your paper, pen and the light. I really like its flow rate and colour variation. Interestingly, while it is a wet ink it dries quickly.

I now have the take-sumi on a pedastal as a new favourite.

Take-sumi ink - photo by Eclectic Psyche

A brief review of the bamboo charcoal colour is below.  The colour is actually better (deeper) than it appears in the sample test below.  I'll try to upload a better image shortly.  I've tried the take-sumi in four of my fountain pens: my Sailor 1911 large, Sailor Sapporo, Pilot Custom 74 and a Noodler's Ahab Flex - all of them are writing smoothly with the take-sumi ink. The colour is black but in each pen the grey shading shows up slightly differently (due to the different nib sizes and flex) but mostly its a matt black.  It all adds up to make the ink even more intriguing to use.

Sample of ink - by Eclectic Psyche

The take-sumi is a nice shading of black that compliments my Noodler's Zhivago quite nicely.  The Zhivago is a great black with its green tinge, the amount of green evident depends on the nib size and paper absorption rate.  The two inks, take-sumi and Zhivago, will be filling two of my favourite pens and travelling side by side in my pen pouch in future.  I can see a daily use for both of them.

Get in quick and get yourself a bottle of the take-sumi (just don't get the Wancher pen).  As mentioned I have the other two inks from this release and will post a review of them shortly.

Happy Iroshizuku writing!