Write Now - Ep.023: Using Fountain Pens as a Leftie with Lydia
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 ก.ย. 2024
- On Episode 023 of Write Now, Brian is joined by Lydia, our community coordinator on Facebook & our blog. She's our only leftie as well, so she gives us tips on using fountain pens.
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Fountain Pen 101 - Lefties:
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Brian dabbing on camera has to be the peak of Write Now.
Hoping to get a GIF to send around the office! - Colin
I had never heard of dabbing before this video.
Tim Bailey Neither had I!
ive got you imgur.com/a/CTBGU
Please cover all lefty writing styles with the associated challenges. I am a hooked overwriter and have had difficulty adapting to any other style. Fine and extra-fine nibs for me and cheaper paper to quicken dry times have been my solutions. My writing is naturally very small....so fine nibs are my preference anyway. But flex nibs are very challenging. Looking forward to the series.
OMG, how can you not know who Ed Sheeran is?!?! LOL...great video this morning. I like Lydia!
Unless Ed Sheeran is the next great nibmeister, not sure he'll get on Brian's radar! :) - Colin
I don't even particularly like Ed Sheeran, but he's like one of THE biggest pop stars of recent years. I'm actually envious of how tuned out Brian is. :p
As a left-handed fountain pen writer (my mom is too) I’m so excited about fountain pen content for lefties. Thank you!!!
So glad to hear more videos targeted to lefties are coming! But please, I beg you, remember those of us who are overwriters as well. Italic and oblique nibs fascinate me but the terminology used to describe them, much less figuring out which fits my writing style, makes me crazy. And I am almost certainly going to purchase a Duraflex when they are back in stock but am already wondering how best to use a flex nib as an overwriter.
Definitely looking to cover flex nib writing for lefties, and overwriters! Hope these will be helpful for others. - Colin
Great news!
I have three writing styles as a lefty. Normal pens i go straight over my writing with my hand. With fountain pens i'm an overwriter, which helps with some inks but super wet, slow-drying inks are the bane of my existence. And flex pens I adapt to underwriting to get those beautiful line variations. It is super tough! my handwriting looks like chicken scratch if i underwrite normally with my pens. Maybe i need to practice more?
I am SO LOOKING FORWARD to lefty vids!!! WOOT WOOT!!
I am a teacher of young children and I always tell them they look ridiculous when they dab! I absolutely agree that it looks like a sneeze.
Yay lefties! Being one myself I often struggled with the smearing (being an over / side writer). But the neat thing was discovering Brian's videos on different kinds of ink (wet / dry) which helped loads. The fact that you then add paper to the mix makes writing so much nicer.
Love the idea of a lefties video series, would certainly be super helpful.
Once again these videos are really a lot of fun, keep up the good work.
These interviews are so much fun to watch.
My dad was left-handed. He did most things with his left hand. But, he wrote with his right hand. He grew up in the culture which disciplined children by swatting their left hand if they were caught writing with it.
My dad, too, was forced to learn to write right-handed. I can't confirm that swatting was part of the process, but I do know that he wrote with a very heavy hand, slowly, as if he labored over forming letters.
My first grade teacher put me and my desk in the hall outside the classroom because I am left handed & said I was evil, a young child mind you. Well by the time my mother was done with her she never called me evil again, nor anything else for that matter.☺📝
Thanks so much for bringing on the resident leftie. I'm a lefty as well and people are always surprised when they see that I use fountain pens. Look forward to the leftie videos
Lydia is fabulous!!! Boston!!! (I'm from Boston), Red Sox (Go Sox!!!), Ed Sheeran (I love him and I'm almost 60!). Now that you have a lefty on the team, it sure is a great idea to have lefty videos from a lefty's point of view. Thanks for a great introduction to Lydia. PS. I love these videos!!!!
So excited about the Lefty videos, my son wants fountain pens and I think they'll really help him!
The left hand must always know what the right hand is doing.... Nice to meet another member of the team, from a Yankees fan!
Great video! So nice to meet Lydia! She’s awesome and a great community coordinator, and I always enjoy her! Thanks for featuring her finally! Also great to have a lefty perspective. I’m looking forward to the lefty videos.
Thank you, Brian and Lydia. Yes, left-handed videos will be useful for many people.
Excellent! Leftie fountain pen users have been under represented for ever, great to see Goulet Pens finally recognise the minority within the fountain pen community!
I’m an over-writer and abandoned fountain pens at a young age due to unavoidably smudging we writing. But similar to Lidia, I’ve adapted my handwriting after rediscovering fountain pens about a year ago and I can now avoid smudging for the most part although I still over-write. People say I have nice handwriting too! Fountain pens are for everyone!
SOOO excited to hear you have lefty-geared videos in the near future! I learned to be an underwriter very young *because* we used fountain pens in school. It can certainly a bit more than a challenge but it definitely not an impossible feat. Happy to see a fellow Lefty on the team.... and that she is rocking it!
Lydia that's awesome that you reprogrammed your brain so that you could underwrite , i'm not a leftie but i can imagine how hard that is to do . Hats off to you !
I am enjoying “meeting” the Goulet team on these Write Now videos. Everyone is really fun and interesting. Now I’m off to google dabbing because I have no clue what it is!
Thank you so much for this! As someone who's a lefty and uses Fountain pens, this was awesome!
My wife is a left handed writer, with tiny print. She is definitely an oddball in that she writes in a perfectly vertical position. We have learned that she: 1) Needs a firm/hard nib. 2) Must use a Japanese fine. 3) Prefers inks on the dry side. Success was found in the Platinum 3776 Century and the Sailor 1911, however, she really wants a snap-cap because uncapping at work becomes a task in itself. Could you recommend a snap-cap variant that would meet her goals? Before it gets suggested, the Pilot Vanishing Point pens she loved have been an awesome addition to my collection. :) Thank you for bringing up a topic close to home.
Since you didn't specific a gold nib, have you tried a Pilot Metropolitan? Checks all your boxes with a very quick snap cap. Beyond that, the Platinum Balance could work as well! - Colin
The Goulet Pen Company Yes, on the metropolitan. Looks like I'm ordering a balance.
Lydia, I have the exact same grip as you with both pencil and pen as with fountain pens! I also retrained myself to be an underwriter and it took a lot of discipline.
I'm REALLY looking forward to the lefty videos. I've recently started to enjoy fountain pens, and find I can write well with them, surprisingly. I think I'm an over writer so no problems there, although I can't manage calligraphy well: all my marks are 'opposite' what they should be, so no stubs for me yet,,, unless you have some hints.
I also overwrite and use a flex pen as a lefty. The pull up and to the right is the bold part of my lettering. It’s just a little different!
Yay for leftie videos! Can't wait for more! *waves with my ink smeared left hand*
I'm an overwriter and have used fountain pens for a while, but tried a flex nib for the first time last week. Writing underhand seems to work better for me to get flex, but it certainly feels awkward at this stage. I'm also trying other things like rotating the page differently. With time, practice, experimenting and patience I'm sure I'll find a workable solution..
Yeah, that ticks a lot of the boxes we're hoping to cover in these videos! Flexing, rotating the paper, etc. - Colin
Brian dabbing on a video made my life complete.
Yeah Lydia! Can't wait for left-handed videos, so I can send a link to my left-handed sister.
I'm a lefty. Just got my first fountain pen as an anniversary gift from my wife, a Lamy Studio medium steel nib. I'm using Midway Blue from Noodler's. I'm an underwriter, but having trouble with the pen. I get lots of skips when I'm writing. I write mostly on engineering graph paper and notebook paper. Guess I've just got to write enough to learn how to write with it.
Interesting, I was a lefty side writer as a child (in the early 60s) & failed printing for 3 years due to the smudging issue. The school refused to let me use a harder pencil and were not understanding. (At least they didn't force me to switch like my dad & father-in-law). Eventually I switched to underwriting on my own & the smudging problem disappeared. In middle school, in the late 60s, I (& many of my classmates) had Schaeffer No Nonsense cartridge pens. With underwriting, I never had any issues with them. By the end of high school, they disappeared from the market. A few years ago, I got back into fountain pens. As a result of my experience with No Nonsense pens, it never occurred to me that being lefty making fountain pen use more challenging. I was thrilled to discover convertors which are much more flexible than cartridges. I have no issues with flex nibs (have a Noodlers Ahab) but I find that stub pens tend to dig into the paper (haven't tried oblique nibs yet.)
Great video! I am a newbie to fountain pens. I am a left-handed hook- over-writer, but only on paper. On a blackboard, I write right-handed! (former teacher). I use chopsticks left-handed, as well, but I do EVERYTHING else RIGHT-handed! And, I have no idea who Ed Sheeran is either! 😂
Lefties with flex pens!! 😊 I really want to get into them and know it's not impossible, but I'd love your opinions, tips, and tricks on them as a lefty!
Solution to being a lefty in the fountain pen world: go to parochial school in the 50s. The good sisters will be sure that you use your right hand to write with, or else! 😄 Worked for this lefty!
I'm looking forward to that lefty video. I'm trying to be underwriter but it's really hard. Also I want to know some tricks :) Your videos are great!
Another great video! I'm a Lefty as well.
Really loving these videos Brian! As a die hard NY Yankees fan, I am greatly disappointed in Lydia’s allegiance to the Sox. Hey, there are plenty of Yankee fans in Connecticut!
I am a lefty, and cannot underwrite if my life depended on it (my writing becomes even messier and back-slanted). too many decades of the overhand hook with ballpoints and pencils. I don't have too many problems with smudging though, as long as I am careful.
At the end of the day, do what is most comfortable and works for you. If you can avoid smudging as an overhand hook, more power to you! - Colin
Two suggestions for the lefty videos: 1) talk with right-handed fountain pen users who write in a language that is written right-to-left as they likely have significant experience with the problems that lefties in our left-to-right language have; 2) reference on TH-cam the calligraphy of John DeCollibus who is a left-handed master penman.
Though I'm a right-hander, the advice I've seen most useful is simply to tilt the paper so a lot of the issues go away -- this applies to anyone writing with a fountain pen and especially those using calligraphy nibs.
Tilting the paper is certainly part of the retraining, but muscle memory is harder to overcome!
Finally a face to the name! Hi Lydia
As a lefty I would appreciate more tips and tricks. I'm struggling with under writing.
Great segment. Really Brian, how do you not know ED?
Hi I am a leftie. I am fairly new to writing with a fountain pen. I found a Esterbrook LJ with a 2668 nib. I am a over writer and this combination seems to glide over the paper. More pens later.
What brand is the blue pen at Brian's left. I do not recognize it and it looks really clean and sleek.
OMG! You don’t know Ed Sheeran? 😂😂😂 I don’t have many (or any) favorite singers or bands, but I love him. Kkkkkkk
This episode was quite fun!
Yay lefties!!! :) also I hope someone makes a meme of Brian dabbing 😂😂
Lydia, so nice to put a face with the name since we've "talked" on numerous occasions. You have a beautiful smile. Love that your counting down the days to game one. My dad hardly ever watched tv but when baseball season began most other things had to work around that schedule. Living near Chicago we have the White Sox and Cubs. We are life long Cub fans. My husband is a White Sox fan and jokes that my dad let him marry me in spite of that problem. ⚾️. Ed Sheeran, Thinking Ou Loud is a pretty love song.
Have you guys made the left handed series yet? Would love to watch that!
Yep! There are 3 Episodes of Left Out: th-cam.com/video/IypzgWiN1GY/w-d-xo.html - Colin
GO RED SOX!!!!!! Hopefully this season will be better than the last. I'm not a lefty but glad to see the lefties out there are gonna get some love.
Nice to see you in a video, Lydia!
Like Lydia - I am an underwriter with fountain pens. I fight the tendency to be a tightly curled overwriter with pencil, I', most successful with Pentel Graphgear and the big bore draftsman/artist lead holders. I completely lose the war with ballpoint pens as I can't reliably generate the pressure needed to write reliably with them.
I'm probably more into desk pens - especially the Esterbrook Dip-Less pens - my current project is a 407 inkwell that needs new gaskets, still deciding whether to set it up accountant style with a blue-black and red ink, or signature pen style with a stub nib and a signature color like Noodler General of the Armies and a blue-black for annotations. My current favorite Esterbrook nib is the 2668.
I'm a leftie, and a side-writer! I've tried to switch to under-writing but it just makes my letter forms look deplorable. I somehow don't have problems with smearing.
My problem as a leftie, and writing with the paper at a ridiculous angle, is maintaining the verticals/consistent slant. Otherwise ... no issues. I wonder; any mileage in us lefties uploading a video response/pic to show our writing styles?
Not sure if you're big on it, but the Goulet Nation Facebook group could be a good avenue to show off your leftie writing to get some feedback! I've seen others do it recently which has been cool. - Colin
I have two questions. First, would you consider Noodler's Borealis Black conventional, why or why not. Second, Brian talks a lot about the pilot varsity, why not the pilot petit1? They are pretty much the same pen except the Petit1 is smaller and refillable.
Yeah, Borealis Black is pretty normal with a pretty quick dry time. Pilot Petit isn't available through the US distributor, but definitely a good option. The Varsity is refillable as well! - Colin
I'm so surprised that you don't know who Ed Sheeran is, Brian! He's young, a singer-songwriter, plays whole concerts with an acoustic guitar and a loop station. His music is very emotive and spans quite a few different genres.
Can you guys mention nib sizes on your pens? Lydia’s looked like mediums, correct? Also, can you guys toss some love to the EF and F nib scene? Best inks for those nibs... long writing sessions, etc... maybe the differences in people who choose a stub over an EF. Thanks!!
I don't get dabbing either. My nephews have started the dance "Flossing." It's even worse than dabbing. Hahaha.
I love Sherlock Holmes! I am right handed, but hook my hand like a lefty with ballpoint pens that I smeared my ink. Same as Lydia, I had to learn how to under write with my fountain pens. Look forward to the Lefty videos!
Best ink choices for lefties?
Lydia weighed in with some of her favorite choices in this blog: blog.gouletpens.com/2017/10/for-lefties-by-lefties-6-fountain-pen-and-ink-pairings-for-left-handed-writers . Beyond that, a fast drying ink like Noodler's Bernanke is a pretty good option. - Colin
quick question: Why don't you carry parker anymore? because they make some good pens. and why do you think that Parker does not make an Extra Fine nib? I personally love fine nibs and the fact that some pen makers does not make them is dissapointing.
how??? Even if you don't like Ed I thought it was impossible not to hear his music at some point, they play it everywhere. But maybe I'm biased, seen him 3 times.. ;)
I only realized who Ed Sheeran was because of the last World Series, with that Dodgers player.
Two cities are connected by a 195 km long railroad line. On this line there are both passenger and speed trains going back and forth. The passenger train's average speed is 18km/h slower than the speedtrain's, and the passenger train's travel time is 45 minutes longer. What is each train's average speed?
Cheers,
Levente
Levente Fazekas 78 and 60, hope I get it right
Nooo, not the train problem plz 😂
Excellent :D
Yay lefties!!! Give me all the lefty info I don’t know that I don’t even know!
I also do not know the purpose of the dab. I say something similar to what Brian did when I see somebody do it. "That was one heck of a sneeze!" :)
People say being lefty is a disadvantage and especially can't enjoy fountain pens. But as demonstrated, fountain pens should be the superior writing instrument for lefties.
including writing Hebrew and Arabic for right-handers
1st comment!!always on the lookout for this series !
I'm not a lefty but this was interesting to watch
what is the blue pen on the table by Brian? I really enjoy the new series!
That's a Karas Kustoms Ink in Blue Aluminum: www.gouletpens.com/karas-kustoms-ink-fountain-pen-blue-aluminum/p/KK-5054-Blue - Colin
It is great to be a leftie!
Yeah! A lefty!
A fellow leftie, the struggle of running through your writing.
Hi Lydia! I feel I know you from your comments ... Have a great week. Play Brian some Ed S music.
Might need to have an informative concert later. ;) - Colin
Brian, you have my respect for not knowing Ed Sheeran. If Drew does not know either, he's my fountain pen hero till the end of my life.
Don’t know who Ed Sheeran is???? Brian you just gained 10,000 xp points on my respect list!!!!!! hahahahahah.....bloody Ed is on the radio here in Australia all the time - his music makes me want to drive off a cliff!!!!!
Tips for lefty videos AND music maybe? :) #heartedsheeran
11:13 for a dank dab
Brian, I’m 70, and I know who Ed is!
I am 68 years old and even I know who Ed Sheeran is!
No love for the Patriots, sad times. :D
Wow Brian IS a dinosaur, lol...
I thought the only person in the world caring about baseball is Stephen King.
Brian, how do you not know who Ed Sheeran is?! 😲 you’re like 35?! Still super young!
Lydia- message me on instagram- Francisc0123
I’m a lefty underwriter. Would love to help on the videos.