With varying degrees of frustration, I really dislike when I’m writing something while my pen runs out of ink. Argh! If I have another pen on hand (which is usually the case), it’s not the worst. If it’s my only pen without another one instantly available, that’s like Hulk Smash-level frustration. Sometimes, I’ll just keep writing with my inkless pen to finish my thought, hoping I can go back later and etch over it with a pencil, just like in the mystery and detective stories. And sometimes, I try to get to a new pen as quickly as possible to attempt tracing those letter impressions.
As much as running out of ink annoys me, I want to experience more of it. It’s a sign that I’m actually doing the work of writing. If my pen weren’t being used, it wouldn’t be running out of ink. So, that’s one of my goals for 2024 — more empty ink pens. More moments of aggressively shaking my scribing utensil or sucking hard on the writing end, hoping to coax a few more sentences worth of ink droplets into the ballpoint, allowing it to grace my page with more thought manifestations.
