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Tackling The OliveOctopusInk #12PenPersonQuestions List

So OliveOctopus.Ink created an open call to the stationery community as a whole to take a shot at answering the 12PenpersonQuestions list that she curated. I have to say, this was much harder to sit down and answer than I anticipated, but I think that was good to take a little bit of time to think on some of them before typing out a response.

You can find out the origins on Lisa’s site at https://oliveoctopus.ink/12penpersonquestions.htm

  1. If you consider the different ways you can engage with pens and stationery—as a user, a collector, a hobbyist, a creator, a maker, a vendor—which roles fit best and what percentage of 100% would you assign to each? Are you happy with the balance?

So this was interesting to sit down and look at for sure. I started as a user with a side of small collection and left it at that for many years. I used what I had and wasn’t really adventurous with inks, ink colors or papers. As I got back into the hobby, I came in a different manner completely. I started by using what I had, and then by happenstance, the invent calendars led me down a different unintended path of the creator space. I quickly learned that I like that part of the hobby, as that helped reinforce the enthusiast and user areas. At this point, many of my personal purchases are now influenced to some extent by what the creator side could do for those items, so that is why it went to 40 over 30 on the other two categories. Having found that not only did we have a local pen club, but it is very active in addition to two local stationery stores, that has allowed me to jump into the Enthusiast category full tilt.

2. What is something you want to understand better or develop more informed opinions about?

I would really like to get more into the larger variety of nib grinds. I love my EF or finer nibs, but I know that there are times when larger nibs have their place, or better utilizing specialty grinds. I think there is a whole new world when it comes to nibs, especially when you get to thinking about the Monoc or the Harmonic nibs that are being made from scratch my members of the community.

3. In the pen community, what’s something someone has said or done that stuck with you?

The thing that comes to mind at first is how supportive Brad ThePenAddict is to other creators, and how when I was close to hitting 1000 subs on Youtube, he stopped his Twitch stream until people who were watching took me over that threshold. I know that he didn’t need to do that, but that kind of support is huge for a newer creator.

4. There are now 25 hours in a day, a bonus hour is available to use however you like as long as pens or stationery are involved—how do you spend your hour?

I think that I would use it to get caught up on all of the various podcasts that I am behind on from the stationery world. I feel like there are so many aspects of the hobby that are discussed in detail in that format that I might not come across otherwise.

5. In the pen community yearbook, what would your superlative be? (i.e. “Best ______”, “Most _______” “Most likely to _______”)

I think my superlative would be something along the lines of mostly likely to own every type of EF nib. The smaller the nib the better to pair with my writing, so I would like to get EF or smaller options from all different nib types and needlepoint or smaller grinds from every nibmeister that I can.

6. How do you feel about your handwriting?

If we are talking print, I like it. Even if I am writing quickly, it is pretty legible. When it comes to cursive, on a scale of 1-10, it would be a 1. That is a skill that has all but vanished due to non use, so I hope to start working on that to bring it back in the future.

7. What is something you are proud of doing, achieving, or overcoming?

I would say that I am proud of starting a Youtube channel. I have never been a person who liked being in front of the camera, so why dive into a medium where that is the cornerstone. I not only started it, I took it to another level of starting a video podcast with no background in podcasting at all that has been I feel successful and I hope that continues well into the future.

8. You’re going on a writing retreat anywhere in the world—where would you go, what would you write, and what would you write with?

I would go with my wife of course, and if the focus is writing, I would have to go somewhere that I have been before, or it would be too tempting to go see a new area vs spending time writing. I really loved when we visited Ireland, so I could see finding a smaller village area to stay in where writing could be done at the house, or at a table in a pub etc.

9. What’s a current or favorite creative outlet?

Obviously, I have really embraced the creating , but the parts I enjoy the most are the livestreams and the podcast interviews. I like being able to make the connections with all of the various creators to learn their stories.

10. What’s something that causes you benign envy—the kind of admiration and desire that leads to inspiration or motivation?

People to have beautiful script writing, or people who are able to make their writing look like works of art by adding in variety and drawing. That has never been something that has been in my wheelhouse due to my handwriting, but I love to see what people are able to create in that medium.

11. What’s a comfort item, material, or color?

Titanium. I have a weakness for all things titanium, and I love the grey and black colorspaces. If I had to only have pens of a single material, as much as I love the colorful materials, all titanium, all the time.

12. What would be a dream collaboration, project, or partnership?

I would love to have the means to just travel around the country and go interview makers, visit stores, and go to all of the pen shows. I would love to be able to partner up with other creators like Independence Mike, The Pen Addict Brad and others as I passed through their areas. As an overall more natural introvert, the pen community has started to bring out a little more of the extroverted side of things which is a nice change of pace.

    That finishes up my answers to these questions for now. I think that I will try to remember to revisit this in the future and see if I have any updates to my answers as time goes on.

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    Ordering My First Fully Custom Fountain Pen

    When I started the DWRDNET Stationery Feed, I didn’t realize that I was starting a new way of helping to decide future pen and stationery hobby purchases. As it worked out, I already owned items from many of my guests, and after the interviews, I found myself looking at the creations of the guests when preparing for the episodes, and that led to new items being added to my collection. When it came to interviewing Lisa Marie of Pourly Controlled, she just makes blanks, so if I wanted to have one of her blanks, I would need to get it made into a pen, so that is what started this path. Another previous guest of Nic Pasquale of Pens By Pasquale was going to end up being called into service to make my first custom pen order come to life.

    I am very lucky to have local pen makers, so when I was thinking about a pen, I was at a Friday morning pen meetup that Butler Stationery hosts from time to time, and Nic was showing off his new faceted creation called the Cerberus. After seeing that pen, I knew that I wanted to own one eventually, but I was thinking of it as a longer term item. After talking to Lisa Marie, I knew that Nic had been an early adopter of using her materials, so the writing was on the wall. I reached out to Nic, and he already had 6 different materials from Lisa Marie in his shop, so that just left me to decide which one to go with, and then get on his commission list around the end of June 2025.

    The selection of Pourly Controlled materials that Nic Pasquale had on hand when I reached out asking about a commission.

    After going through the material options, I was able to quickly narrow it down between the lava and bourbon and smoke and then after some more time, bourbon and smoke seemed to be the verdict among a few people that I polled, so that helped to lock it in. I let Nic know, and then the wait began. I had no expectation of how long this process would take, and to be fair, I never asked. Having dealt with other commissioned items in the past, and having done commissioned work, I know that quality takes time, and while excited, I was not in any kind of timely need for a new pen, so I just settled in for the process to take whatever time was needed.

    The first in process photo that I got from Nic in July.

    I was able to go see Nic’s shop on July 4, and saw the blanks in person for the first time, and I could tell I made the correct material selection. A couple of weeks later, I got a teaser photo from Nic of the pen in process, and I for my first true look at what the pen would end up looking like. One thing that I have learned from talking to blank makers and seeing before and after comparisons is that the true material doesn’t show itself until it is turned down. Seeing the color variation inside of the blank and how it had a great natural flow, I could not wait to see the pen once it was fully polished.

    I got a short video update a couple of weeks later where Nic ran into an issue and was having to do a little bit of a remake, so while I hate that it happened, I really appreciated the great communication from Nic during the process. I know that for many parts of the pen making, things are done in batches as it is easier in terms of what tools are used, dry time, and other factors, so I was glad to see that my pen was still in process. My next update was when the pen was mostly done aside from the finish work. Nic was asking about if we wanted to try going with alternating matte and polished facets, which sounded interesting, but it turned out that this material just performed better when polished.

    The matte version where we decided that fully polished was going to be the best look for this material.

    A few days later, I get a final text to confirm my nib size, and then with Nic being local, I happen to live between where he lives and works, so I got front door delivery service. Seeing this pen in the sunlight is just something else. The camera does not really capture the depth of this material, as the subtlety embedded shimmer just glows in the sun. The polishing is done to such a level that when I took my photo for the Youtube video, when editing it, I noticed my fingerprints were showing on the entire pen, so I had to wipe it down and then take a new photo. There is a reason why Nic is known for his polishing.

    I have to say that this entire experience was a great experience, and has affirmed that while I know that I will continue to find pens from various makers that I will pick up, I am not going to be hesitant about doing the occasional full commission, as that lets me get the exact pen model that I want in my selected material, and that is just a great thing to think about to be able to find that level of customization in a hobby that I love.

    Photos of the finished pen that Nic sent me after it was completed.
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    The Evolution of the DWRDNET Stationery Feed

    I recently wrapped up season 1 of the new video podcast that I started back in March, and in that final episode I took a little bit of a chance to look back at the show and I wanted to expand on that some here in addition to what I spoke about in the episode.

    In the past, I was a photographer for many events and I was very good at not being in photos, and that is a hard mentality to break out of. So how does one go from that to hosting a weekly video podcast, well to be honest I am not really sure, but here is roughly how it happened for me. As a consumer of some stationery audio podcasts like The Pen Addict or the Well Appointed Desk Patron member podcast, I realized that for me, I like having the visuals to go along with some of what is being talked about. I would love to see the pen being held up or the facial expressions during discussions, so that kind of planted the idea in the back of my head to begin with.

    Having discovered that I am very fortunate to have local stores and local makers, I thought it would be great if I could use the Youtube channel to help spread the word about these members of the community who are helping to make the community grow and prosper. This lead me down the path to start doing research on what would I need to do in addition to what I had been doing for Youtube videos and to try to plan out the entire process. If I was going to take on this venture, I wanted it to be repeatable and easy for any guest who I might be fortunate to interview. I tired out different software, settings in the software, advice on scripts, times to record and pretty much every aspect that I could think of. All of this started probably two months before the first episode was ever recorded.

    By the time March rolled around, I was ready to do a tech test with a future guest Lisa of OliveOctopus Ink. With her already being someone who does a Twitch stream, I figured she would be great to help do a proof of concept on the setup and the process. We were able to do a test shortly before the Arkansas Pen Show, so then it came down to me to find guests and get them scheduled. I wasn’t sure how to really approach guests to be on a new show, so I needed to make a pilot episode. Luckily, I was able to reach out to one of my best friends who was a new fountain pen user, but understands the tech side to do a pilot episode 1 of the show. I got stuff scheduled, sent the FAQ document and questions that I had prepared and I didn’t realize at the time where exactly this would go.

    After recording that episode, I had to figure out how to edit the show, which needs a different approach than a normal video. There isn’t really an option to do retakes or anything like that, so after a few days, I got a version uploaded, got some feedback, changed some things and then uploaded the video for real. During this editing time, I was already reaching out to potential guests to try to schedule the next episodes, and luckily things just started falling into place to get people scheduled to record.

    Scheduling guests, while a very daunting task, ended up not being as bad as I thought that it might. I was able to get some help making introductions to people via past guests, and that honestly was a huge help. Many people in the stationery world use things like Instagram as their main method of sharing their work, and due to all of the spam prevention tools necessary in the world today, sending a message normally would go into the abyss and never be received. Once I actually found a way to get in contact with people, I was very encouraged that people were glad to record an episode. Being new to the creator space of a hobby can be daunting, but luckily the stationery hobby is one where people are supportive of other members and creators, which I am sure is not the case in other hobby communities. I was even able to get a couple of guests at the last minute, as someone had to reschedule for a later date, so I was able to maintain that 19 week stretch. Somehow I did manage to take a week long vacation during this time and not miss an episode, but I knew that was really luck when looking back at things.

    One thing that never even crossed my mind with starting a new show, is that eventually I would need to be able to take time off, as going on every week forever as a host, editor, producer was not very sustainable. I wasn’t really sure how to do this, in mid stream, so happenstance of a guest who needed to cancel to help a family member with a medical issue happened at such a time as to ned season 1 on Episode 20. I took this as a bit of a sign that this was the perfect time to look back at the show and take. a little time to regroup and prepare to make season 2 and beyond even better.

    Overall, I think this entire venture has been a great success. I have been able to talk to a variety of people in the stationery hobby and community and help to share some of their stories to audiences that might not have ever had that exposure otherwise. If you came to watching the show later on in its season 1 run, I would encourage you to go back and watch some of the earlier episodes. They might be a tad less polished from a technology standpoint, but the great conversations are the part to not be missed.

    While I don’t have a set date to start season 2 yet, I do plan to spruce up the show production some and try to do a better and more consistent presentation of what guests will be coming up later on the season, so be sure to make sure you are subscribed to the Youtube channel, or if you are doing audio only, follow the show on Spotify or Apple Podcasts so you won’t miss out on the next season of exciting guests.