The instrument matters.

Or, at least, it matters to me.

I confess to doing a most of my final drafts on a PC – usually in Microsoft Word (I’m too cheap to buy a Mac). But the first drafts and the sudden onset of inspiration needs something more visceral.

For more than ten years, I used a fountain pen that was given to me to by two friends in Spain – Nico and Jose. The pen was compatible with Waterman cartridges and I only wrote with black ink.

Sadly, it died in December of 2009 – the section (as it is called) broke at a point that made repair impossible. I still carry the pieces with me in a black shoulder bag given to me by my Uncle Buddy and Aunt Anna on my graduation from college, but is no longer useful as a writing instrument.

These days, I use a Cross Century II with a medium point (I still use only black ink). I chose it because it was of conservative, rather than flashy design, with a relatively narrow build for a fountain pen (my old pen was unusually narrow – contrary to the recent trend towards fatter pens), and also because the part of the section that broke on my old pen is made of metal and not plastic.

I am hardly alone is having affection for particular instruments.

Ted Joans, in Honey Spoon wrote about using a “black warrior pencil.” I am far from clear what exactly that is, but to me, the idea of commitment to an obscure instrument rings true to me – like a tennis player who insists on using a type of racket no longer produced. The instrument may have been surpassed, in the technological sense, by latter innovations, but carries with it certain resonances that make it the best instrument for the job.

I also have an old fashioned manual typewriter with the classic “suitcase” carrying case. I confess, it is more for show than for use (though I would like to point out that Hemingway used to conspicuously keep a typewriter in  his Key West writing room, despite writing most of his works in longhand and having it transcribed later.

A manual typewriter is a demanding instrument (in this, the movie Naked Lunch was spot on). The keys do not respond if you are tentative. It forces you to write forcefully and to consider carefully what you are writing, because each letter must be addressed individually (particularly if, like me, you remain a two fingered typist) and aggressively.