PENCILS PENS AND QUILLS

A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought; as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the morning or evening without their colors, or the heavens without their azure.

Henry David Thoreau

I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent rewriter.

James Michener

Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.

Author Unknown

By ML Squier

 

 

I like pens, but I usually write with a .9mm mechanical pencil.

When my students borrow pens from me, I also ask them if they have any pigs.

I know that this is a lame attempt at being funny, but I always ask them this question when they need to borrow a pen.

I’ve noticed that my students this year are getting better at bringing their own pens and pencils.

Maybe my “pep” talk about making what you write with your friend did the trick.

(I don’t give detentions when my students forget to bring pens.)

I tell my students that I like different colors, and so I let them use all colors…except for yellow or light green.

They’re too difficult for me to see.

I used fountain pens in college.

I guess I wanted to emulate writers who once used fountain pens and quills.

I no longer use fountain pens, but I’ve got some very old ink, and some very old fountain pens stored away.

I want to go back to something that I mentioned earlier, and that’s what I use to write with.

(As you can see, I also use a preposition at the end of a sentence.)

I use a mechanical pencil to write my poems, but I use a computer to type my political/social letters.

I guess the reason is that I take more time with my poems, and I don’t like to sit in front of a computer screen when I’m composing them.

I want to be able to make quick changes---strike out words---add new ones---and let my words fertilize during the day and night---sometimes longer.

(However, right at this moment, I am wondering what would be a better word for fertilize in the above sentence.

It doesn’t sound just right.)

There is also that feeling of just holding a pencil or pen in my hand, rather than using my fingers to poke the keyboard.

I can’t imagine typing on those first typewriters

---Those fifty-pound monsters whose keys weighed a ton.

Before there was anything called carpal-tunnel syndrome, there must have been cramped-finger syndrome.

Incidentally, this is the fourth time that I’ve turned on my computer to edit what I’ve written here.

There is something significant and useful about being able to turn off the electrons, put to bed the thoughts that I have typed----for an hour, a day, or longer---and then return and turn the electrons back on, and read what I’ve written.

I suppose writers do the same thing when they write or type on paper…but there is a difference that I can’t exactly explain.

Maybe I will know after I turn my computer back on.

Or maybe not.

I think I’m finished.

IT'S THE OIL STUPID!