ripples through water: happy third anniversary!
The morning chill blows through the darkness into the train station, where the only light comes from buzzing fluorescent lamps. Trains chug along, whistling in the early morning, the conductors laughing and chatting as shifts change. There’s a general sleepiness in the passengers, fingers huddling around warm cups of coffee. It’s too early for a Saturday morning, and I will always be grateful for the upbeat conductors.
Today is a very important day to me, it is the third anniversary of this blog. I had never thought I’d make it this far in writing, mostly probably because I didn’t think much about it at all at the time. Last week forced me to look back into the older posts of a fleeting ripple as I was trying to copy all of them back to my computer so that I could switch the website provider. It was great to see how far I’d come, how much more comfortable I got with writing. Apparently, my posts got longer as I had more to talk about pens, though I’m not sure if that’s a good thing. I liked the shorter posts of the first year, and I definitely miss the old house with its sun-filled living room that let my photographs be filled with sunshine.
Well, the biggest news is that I have moved to Squarespace, those ads on Pen Addict podcast definitely works. I was not happy with my previous provider and how hard it was to keep the website afloat. Hopefully this will help me run things a bit smoother in the long run, because for now it’s a little clunky. I have to carry all the old posts one by one by hand, which is a work in progress, and I am sorry if it floods your RSS feed to oblivion. In the meantime, the new posts will continue as usual. The most unfortunate part of this whole move is that I couldn’t save the song links that I had in old posts. They will be silent posts, but I hope you can continue to listen to a little bit of joyful music with the new posts.
In the beginning of the year everyone talks about their stationery goals, and I have some blog goals to share. I want to keep a tighter schedule, I had been writing a bit more sporadically over the last year or so due to a big move and then trying to finish school. Now, I’m happy to announce that I managed to finish my bachelor’s degree, and I have more time until September to sort this blog out. Another thing I want to slowly incorporate is more doing-focused posts instead of product-focused ones. I want to make my own lists of top 5 pens, how I managed to keep a journal since the day I started writing, maybe even a beginner’s corner. Since I love reading other people’s blog posts, they inspire me to write on similar topics and view pens I love through a different lens. I think we’re so lucky to be fountain pen hobbyists today with so many pens, inks, and lovely people.
Talking about lovely people, I’m going to open a tab to keep track of blogs in our sphere. I feel like discovering new people through social media and YouTube is easier than discovering new blogs. This is my way of spreading a little bit of pen nerdery. I think the format for now will be similar to what The Gentleman Stationer does in his Sunday Reading series, links to other people’s blogs with a couple sentences on why I like them. This is highly personal, and I’m not aware of everyone that’s writing about pens, so if you want me to check out someone new, simply let me know. I will start uploading the list this week, and over time hopefully it’ll be a nice place for people coming into the hobby to land on. I remember when I first started this hobby, I wanted to learn and read everything there was about pens and it was hard to find blogs that were less well-known.
The focus will be on blogs for now, simply because I write a blog. I want to show a little more love to blogs as it can feel like they’re falling by the wayside or becoming review factories in a social media age.
Lastly, I want to say thank you to everyone that is here. This is very hard to write, there are no words to how much love and support fountain pen community has shown me. Pens and inks are nice and all, but the reason that I write is for you. I was an avid blog reader for the longest time, I had read every single Pen Addict post to date during the quarantine, and I know how disconnected it can feel to read someone’s writing from years ago. Fountain pens are a better hobby when I can talk to people about it. When I can write about it.
Thank you for three years. Here’s to us, going together to one more.
