Anyway, click pens. Kinda retro. Uncompromising. Once you click it, it feels like it's time to get down to business. Ordinarily, I just get a couple 10-packs of Bic pens. Solid. Stable. Reasonably priced. Blue for most writing; black for dark scenes or my horror novel, because black ink makes creepy words seem more foreboding. Just a little atmosphere for myself, you understand. I'm not doodling monster faces in the margins. Ok, there was that one time when I wanted to see what some glowering, pissed-off-alien-eyes I was describing would look like, but ... Never mind.
Occasionally, I bring home something completely different; get enticed by something cool-looking that caught my eye, maybe Goth-style (who can resist a pen with a skull on top?), or Star Trekky, or a long, skinny pen that has pretty pastel suns & moons & stars all over it. But they always seem to be the type with a cap you put back on when you're done writing. Ok, if you're the type to remember to do so. I'm not particularly good at it. If I had a buck for every pen I allowed to dry out, I could buy ... well, a whole sh*tload of new pens.
Anyway, yesterday I bought a click pen. I liked the way it looked -- black, with silver lightning bolts on it -- but mainly a pack of two was fairly cheap, I needed pens, and it was hot and muggy outside and I was in a hurry to get back to my computer, the a/c, and a cup of coffee.
So I took it home, finally ripped it free of the plastic-on-cardboard torture device that contained it, and ohhhhhhhhhh, the smoothness of that gel ink. Instantly, sentences -- then, paragraphs -- of my horror WIP began to flow freely, effortlessly. Cool.
I had a blast for a few hours, but eventually the real world intruded. One of those things most writers who are not in Oprah's tax bracket must stop for -- cooking, cleaning, shopping, doing the dishes, etc. Someday we'll all have servants for that stuff, right?
Later, I sat down to take up where I'd left off, and ...
Nothing.
Zero words. Zilch. Nada.
ARGGGGHHHH!
I closed my eyes, tried to meditate, to clear my mind of all things except the image of my main character. He's an adorable little 4-year-old -- how could that miss? Still nothing. Tapped my foot for a while. Tapped my fingers. Then, started to tap my pen. Well, hell, no wonder -- I was holding one of the old Bics. Blehh.
Picked up my shiny new black pen.
Still not a damn thing. Not a word of dialogue, not a new idea, not a start to a new paragraph.
Then I realized I'd forgotten something. I put my thumb on the button, pushed ...
Click!
Within seconds, the little-boy-character's dad began to whisper in my ear. I started writing. The words began flowing.
Damn.
Gotta go buy some more of these things.
As certain furry Internet icons might say ...
Theez clikk penz haz majikel powerz.