One of my favourite writers - Kipling - wrote an idiosyncratic autobiography Something of myself in which he describes, at length and with great fondness, the act of setting himself up to write - the pen, the ink (ground India ink, if I remember rightly), and so on. Most enlightening is his description of his editing process. He let the dæmon take him and wrote whatever came, and then, over a period of time, he would sit with the draft, and his pen, and black out words. As he tells it, he never added a word, but always, over three or so revisions, deleted words. Some critics feel that this may be the reaon for the increasingly elliptical nature of his stories in the latter half of his life ("Mrs Bathurst" being so elliptical and enigmatic that even today most critics disagree on what the story is 'about').
Just thought I'd throw that in...
(And yes, my favourite ever pen was my Mont Blanc - pressie from my dad for my BA exams. Like most of my other stuff, lost a few years ago. I know have a few cheaper, but still rather nice, pens - a Pelikan and a couple of Lamys. Have never been able to get used to pens with balls in the tip, they slide over the page to promiscuously to allow for decent control. Only necessary for writing through copies, and shunned for all other purposes. I also affect a mechanical pencil - I love their versatility, even though the writing line doesn't have the density of ink.)
cheer
the sunshine warrior
