The Strange and Wonderful Comfort of Writing Rituals
Why fountain pens, rotten apples, and even coffins can convince our brains it’s time to write
Right now, there’s a coffee cup on my desk holding seven different fountain pens with seven different inks. I have a selection of pens that I use in the same order every week. Monday is always Intense Black. Wednesday belongs to Writer’s Blood. By Friday, I’m using Yama-budo. Could I write an essay with the wrong pen? Of course. But it would feel like putting my left shoe on my right foot. For everyday writing (notes and work), I carry two disposable fountain pens—but for essays, fiction, and free-writes, I use a different ink a day. My notebook looks like a bag of Skittles exploded on the pages. It’s my writing ritual.
If Jo and I go on vacation and I forget my good pens, I have a hard time writing. Oh, I’ll still write, but I feel like a little of the magic is gone. I remind Jo, when I get cranky about forgetting my pens or my project notebooks, that it could always be worse.
Friedrich Schiller, considered by some to be Germany’s most important playwright, kept rotten apples in his desk drawer because he claimed the smell stimulated his creativity.
