Chekhov’s Mistess

For the Love of a Good Pencil

For many years I wrote with mechanical pencils that never really quite felt right. I gave up on my search for the ultimate mechanical pencil that could accommodate a heavy hand while writing quickly (I do most of my initial drafts of creative writing in a notebook). I went for a while in fear of the old-fashioned #2 pencil, hanging on to the mechanicals out of desperation, until I found PencilThings.com.

Now you’ll find me around time with my Staedtler Mars Lumograph HB, my California Republic Palomino HB or Golden Bear H or of course my favorite Faber-Castell Grip 2001 2B (I’m saving the Faber Castell Autograph #2-881 HB for the holidays). It’s easy to spot a pencil aficionado by their lack of on-pencil eraser or their two-stage KUM sharpener (one sharpener for the wood and another for the lead). I am happily one of those people.

What’s more, I’m part of the PencilThings.com Pencil of the Month Club. No joke folks, you get three pencils mailed to you every month, each with a thoughtful description and sometimes little extras like the Rhodia notebook that came with our last shipment. Here’s a sample note from the July POMC newsletter:

Lyra Osiris 916 2=HB. Lyra of Germany, one of the world’s outstanding pencil manufacturers, is celebrating its 200th anniversary this year. Osiris is one of its principal lines of pencils, being produced in graphite, colored and aquarelle leads. The Osiris 916 graphite pencil is produced in 5 degrees of hardness without erasers (2H, H, HB, B, 2B). We chose this month’s club selection, the Osiris 2=HB – the only Osiris 916 with an eraser – to enable club members to experience an Osiris as a potential everyday writing instrument.

It’s nice that people take seriously what seems positively quant in a time of i-This and i-That and it’s also encouraging that there are companies still making them. Honestly, before this year I would have thought there was only one wood pencil maker in all of the world.

Pencil resources on the Web:

Pencil Pages

WikiPedia Pencil Page

Paper and Pencil Blog

Pencil Revolution Blog

Timberlines Blog – on the pencil industry, forest management and other topics
You may also be interested in:

Henry Petroski’s The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance

*If your were wondering just what those Hs and Bs are at the end of each pencil name. They designate each pencil’s degree of hardness. Hardness in a pencil is determined, according to Faber-Castell, “by varying the mixing ration of graphite to clay. The more clay versus graphite is introduced into the mixture, the “harder” the writing action of the pencil will become.” H is more clay and means “Harder,” while B is more graphite and means “Black.” They add, “The added number indicates increasing blackness or hardness. For instance, a 6H lead is harder than a 4H.”

HB is the most common for writing, although the 2B is good too and suits me well. The 2B is, I think equivalent to the good ol’ #2 as they are called in the U.S. (#1, 2, 2 1/2, 3, and 4, although the better manufacturers stick with the European nomenclature which has more fine gradations of hardness).

comments

I’m curious, Bud—why the pencil? I have always been a pen afficionado myself—from fountain to fancy ball point. Besides eraseability, is there something to the pencil I’ve been missing? Perhaps you sketch and shade drawings? Or just want to be able to? Maybe there’s some deeper existential statement at work about the impermanence of the mark we make upon a page, this world?

    – Robert (09/14  at  02:11 AM)

That’s a good question because I don’t even erase that much. I think it stems from the fact that I have terrible handwriting and like to have at least the option to erase. You may have hit on something with the “deeper” statement meaning something, because I do often lack confidence in my creative writing. Hmmmmmm. Still, I’ve become accustomed to the pencil way of life.

    – Bud Parr (09/14  at  09:14 AM)

it’s really cool to hear that somebody else writes creative writing in longhand. i thought i was the only one who didn’t use a computer by now.

i love the fact that if you cross something out on paper, it’s still there in case you wanna reconsider some of it later on.

i tried writing a whole novel once using a dip pen, that you dip in the ink bottle. but it got way too much ink on my fingers. i’m not neat enough for that.

so i just use purple flairs, by the carton. but am in the market for a really nice (non-leaky) fountain pen if anybody knows of a great one.

    – James Chapman (09/14  at  11:47 AM)

That comes from necessity, I’d say, for two reasons. Because I work on my computer all day, writing on the computer (which I do for blogging and anything not creative) is too distracting (although if I had the money, I might have a computer just as a word processor and dictionary - but alas my taste in keyboards leads me to only want an Apple Powerbook, which is very expensive) and what you say about crossing-out vs. deleting is true too - the work lives a better life with its massaging just sitting right out there and it’s easier to reconsider and put things back in too.

Also the slowness of it, making you think about what you’re writing I think ultimately makes better writing. It’s hard sometimes when your mind is zooming, but I think as a trade-off, losing a little inspiration off the sides is not a bad thing.

    – Bud Parr (09/14  at  12:01 PM)

Bud, I think you’re right on with that last statement.  I, too, write first drafts long hand (I’m a pen guy, though) and it’s primarily because it slows me down some and gives me time to think about the word choice and order.  Then when I go to type the draft into the computer, I begin editing.

Plus, I can have my notebook with me in a lot of places I wouldn’t want to bother with a laptop.

    – Damon (09/15  at  10:57 AM)

wat do u no about machanical pencils

    – mr craig lindley (09/26  at  06:04 AM)

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About this Post

• Posted by: Bud Parr
• Date: September 13, 2006
• Filed Under:
  Song of Myself: Diary

• Comments:6
• Links to this Post: Technorati

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