Pens

They say the pen is mightier than the sword. So I must be the mightiest of all. I carry a few dozen pens with me at all times. Like the scene in Alice in Wonderland with the Mad Hatter, when I get stuck while writing, I call out, “Clean cup! Clean cup!” and switch to a different color pen. There are times when I have written half a dozen pages with one color. But there are also times where I have written one page in half a dozen colors.

Plus, there is nothing like a full color illustration to get the writing juices flowing. I also like matching the color to the mood of the piece I am writing. Dark red ink for a bloody, gory scene, pink or pastels for a more lighthearted scene. It helps keep me on track with the feel of the piece I am trying to write.

Oh, I use them for other things, too. Like teaching math. I use a different color to show how things work. Graphs use at least four pens when I color code the lines to the equations and that sort of thing. And it’s great to use different colors to show the correlation of sine to tangent, for example.

I have heard that many students are developing a fear of the color red. Face it, there is nothing worse than getting a paper back from the teacher covered in red ink. So I correct their papers in different, random colors and purposely try to avoid red.

Or when I am designing a new quilt, knitting or crochet pattern, it helps to have the design done in the colors I plan to use, or to use different colors for each design element.

I could go on with the reasons I carry so many pens, but we don’t have all day. And the truth is, I just like pens. So all I can say is, “Clean cup! Clean cup!” Time to move on.