NaNoWriMo 2013: Final Countdown

I started today with five thousand words left, give or take a hundred or two. Might have gotten in a thousand during the morning session, leaving me with four thousand to both write and transcribe. I'm thinking I'm not going to make it to the finish line today as I'd hoped, but I can at least finish up the first composition book if I push hard: twelve pages left!

Been using mechanical pencils a bit more in these last stages, to reduce even pleasurable distractions like switching out pencils. When I was at Fred Meyer yesterday I noticed they now carry the Pentel Graphgear 500, so I grabbed one both out of curiosity and because it came with the cutie-wutiest wittle baby Hi-Polymer eraser. Dawww!

I like the pencil, too. It doesn't have a retractable tip, so I have to be a little careful with it, and the balance is way different from the back-heavy Graphgear 1000. But I actually find myself liking the tip-heaviness of it, and the rock solidly secure feeling of the sandpapery knurled grip (the 1000 is knurled, too, but much smoother, and also has little rubber grippies embedded, so it's softer and more slippery in general). If I didn't already have a callus on the side of my finger, I'd guess this one would start to cause pain very quickly, but as it is, I rather like how it sticks in place.

Anyway, onward toward the finish line. Figuring I'll probably cross tomorrow, with about another 15-20k to write at my own pace to finish the story.

The Most Dangerous Time of the Year, 2013 Edition

This, my friends, is why I should not be allowed to roam Staples unsupervised, especially at back to school time. In my defense, at least some of it was on sale, or even clearance. The pink Signo pens were 50 cents apiece, for example. And I resisted the half-gross container of Ticonderogas.

These were kinda sorta what I went in for. Pencil Revolution just gave them a pretty positive review, and I find them very attractive to boot. (Go look at the photos on Pencil Revolution, not mine!) They were on sale for five dollars for 36 pencils, plus the two bonus erasers, so...how could I resist?

These were purely a curiosity buy. I've seen all-graphite pencils in art stores, but never in an office supply store with the regular pencils. And besides, the packaging is all shiny and stuff... I may do a bit of a review on these at some point, since I've not seen much about them on the web previously. Really curious if they do last longer.

And I pretty much always stock up on composition books this time of year, the more when I can find them with good stiff covers and decent paper--harder and harder these days. I went through all of them looking for Made in Brazil notebooks, and took a gamble on a few of the Made in Egypt ones. You'd think Egypt would know paper, right? We'll see.

Off to play with the new toys!

White Before Memorial Day: Pentel Hi-Polymer Eraser Caps

Awhile back I mentioned about how much I like Pentel's Hi-Polymer erasers. They do a great job, and they're relatively cheap and available. In a discussion that followed another blog post, an anonymous commenter mentioned seeing a pencil top version at WinCo, a discount grocery chain here in the Pacific Northwest. The other day I found myself in that part of town, so I popped in briefly to stock up on some pantry supplies and had to at least glance at the stationery supplies. Sure enough, there they were!

I don't think they're quite the same material as the blocks: they seem firmer and a little more crumbly.  Still, they do a much better job of erasing than your average pencil topper.  I keep a lot of full sized eraser blocks around, but there are times when it's nice to have one right at hand.  I added one to the Ticonderoga currently living on my music stand.  They're a bit odd looking...remind me of clunky looking nurse shoes.  But they do the trick right well!

Now if the fashion police will just leave the little guy alone...

New Favorite Eraser: Pentel Hi-Polymer

(Yes, seriously, a post about erasers).

NEWS FLASH: Pentel Hi-Polymer Erasers are TEH AWESOME.

1. When I first encountered the Mars Plastic Eraser a few years ago, it was a revelation. An eraser that actually...well, erased? And did so without leaving smeary crumbs like ye olde gritty pink erasers of yore? Whoa. There's a reason these are one of the benchmarks of eraserdom.

Since my eyes were opened to the possibilities, I've picked up a few other eraser varieties.

2. The Papermate Black Pearl (out sick the day the class photo was taken) is a great shape--if you use a sharp edge, you can get into pretty small spaces, but used lengthwise you can go to *town* with the thing. And being black, it doesn't acquire the grungy...um...patina of the white erasers. It does, however, produce more and messier residue than the Mars.

3. The Pentel Clic erasers get into small spaces and erase almost entirely--I think they're the same material as my new favorite eraser, actually. For things like math problems where you might need to erase one tiny character at a time, I imagine these'd be the way to go. Because they retract, they also can be kept pretty neat and clean--I keep one in my purse partly for this reason. But I like the solid, stolid simplicity of plain old block erasers, and (how shall I put this?) the way these sort of squish when you press down on them unnerves me.

4. Awhile back I picked up a Uni-ball "Boxy" eraser on a whim when placing a Jet Pens order, and this may be *the* primo eraser. Black, so it doesn't show graphite, and as you erase, the little shreds roll into a sticky little ball all by themselves, so they're very tidy. They also have that somewhat enigmatic little slogan: "The basic concept of Boxy always aims at a simple life style." Mmkay. Good to ponder. And, most importantly, wow they work well, even on dark and smeary pencil. They are, however, small, difficult to find, and rather expensive as erasers go. Also they are soft enough to damage by hard use if you aren't careful.

5. But the Pentel Hi-Polymer ZEH10 may be the Baby Bear's Chair of graphite erasers. Not only do they have a nifty '80s sort of style goin' on with the print on their little sleeve thingie, they're also large, long lasting, and work pretty much like the Boxy but are less easy to damage. As a bonus, they're available lots of places. I bought three of these bad boys for less than two bucks at Wal-Mart. I'm sold.

A Beautiful Mess of Pencils

The positive side of my NaNoWriMo transcription project (aside from the fact that I now have a digitized NaNo novel, such as it is and what there is of it) is that it reminded me of just how much fun I had playing with pencils that month--lots and lots of pencils, lots and lots of hours spent with them. I've been more or less fixated on the fountain pens lately as I'm working my way through all my pretty ink samples from Goulet Pens.

But last night, I got the pencils out and started working on a short story idea. The wonderful tactile realness of pencils combined with their optional impermanence makes them one of my most confidence inspiring writing technologies. Love 'em.

How's this for a lovely cluttered autumn palette of pencils? (Please to ignore the eraser crumbs and cat hair...)

Pencils of the evening yesterday were the General's Semi-Hex (love those: dark, *and* they hold a point forever) and the General's Layout. Unintentional theme.

No real point to this blog post. Except gratitude, I suppose! Life is good.

2010 NaNoWriMo by Pencil: Week Four Report

My random thoughts are going to be even more random and thrown together than usual, I'm afraid.  Had no time to think any of this out ahead of time.  It's been a crazy week!

1. Oh, Happy Day!
I was at Fred Meyer today (Fred Meyer = a Northwestern chain of big supermarket/drugstore/everything else under one roof stores--like a Super Wal-mart but nicer) looking for a lantern to prevent further power outages ('cause you know as soon as I get a good one, the power will remain rock solid for the rest of the winter), and happened to walk through the art supplies section.  I noticed first of all that they actually carry a pretty good supply of sketch books (which make good blank books for pencil, especially if you kinda *like* having no lines).  And then I spotted these!



I really liked the Cedar Pointes that came in the goody assortment of pencils Speculator sent me awhile back, but until now, the only real source I'd found for them was Dick Blick on-line, and the shipping charges were exorbitant, and I decided I'd live without them.  But hey, I can get them locally!  They weren't cheap at $2.75 for the package, and I'd rather have had a full dozen pencils rather than yet another pencil sharpener, but still...Cedar Pointes!  Locally!

But no, I still don't have a lantern.

2. Erasers and paper
I had a dream a few days ago that a) I had moved into an apartment right next door to a coffee shop, and b) I had invited all of my siblings over to the new place for an eraser showdown.  In my dream, the Black Pearl melted into tarry goo if used strenuously, whereas the Mars Plastic worked like, well, a dream.  My brothers (who would never do this in real life) spent most of the dream passing the Mars around, scribbling heavy lines and erasing them and saying, "Where have these been all our lives?  How come no one told us????"

Ahem.  We will not analyze the dream.  But I will say, that Mars Plastic is a wonderful thing.  I could only dream of such erasers when I was a kid.  I'm also fond of the Pentel Clics, especially for quick mistakes.  And actually, in real life that Black Pearl works almost as well as the Mars Plastic, and the shape--with a pointed rim  all the way around the oval--means it can get into small areas pretty well.  Also--and this is a big plus--it doesn't get grungy looking.  The Mars Plastic flunks that category big time.  If I was really going to keep it clean, I'd need to spend as much time erasing blank spaces as erasing mistakes, to work the mess off of it.  I probably should have done so before taking the photo, but that's another story.

Paper: I'm now working my way through one of the Norcom composition books, after writing the first big chunk of the story in a bagasse composition book from Staples.  I have to say, although the bagasse paper is marvelous with fountain pens, it's less than great for pencils.  I had a great deal of ghosting between pages in the bagasse, pencils wrote lighter than on other paper, and it's sort of hard and smoothish compared to regular paper.  It didn't feel good.  The Norcom paper is much better.  Now I know.

Quick stats:

• Composition book pages killed: 281...but the day isn't over yet.
• Pencils obliterated: none this week, but the first Palomino will be the next to go.
• Words written: 43,555, but I'm hoping to get in another seven hundred to a thousand tonight.  We'll see.  I really intended to get a ton of words in yesterday, but I gave blood in the morning, and my right arm (where the needle stick went in) felt...funny if I wrote much.  No pain, just felt really tired, like I'd lifted weights.  So I cut it short.

I'm not out of this yet.  If I have to, I may resort to (gasp!) using the computer in the next few days, just because there are more times when I can squeeze in two or three minutes of computer writing than there are times when I can grab a pencil and my notebook for the same amount of time.  But I really, really want to say I pulled it off by hand.  And I'm awful stubborn...