Through several of my friends and classmates from Viable Paradise 17, I’ve gotten back into fountain pens recently.  And I keep asking myself why I ever left them.

I’ve always loved fountain pens, since I was 15 and I took a summer school course in Calligraphy (what can I say; I lived in Napa and it was the 80s–we had classes like that).  But while I’ve always kept my calligraphy pens, and used them from time to time, I drifted away from using fountain pens–they tended to leak, and there would inevitably be a day when something would get ruined.

Well, it took years for me to realize that that happened because I was buying cheap pieces of crap.  I don’t blame myself; I was poorer then and got what I could afford.  But now that I’m a working professional, I thought it was time to try some new pens.  I got turned on to The Goulet Pen Company, who sell pens from 1.50 to many thousands of dollars.

I started out with a relatively cheap pen, the Monteverde Monza. It was a decent pen, enough to get me interested again.  And then I saw it.

In Lightsaber collecting, a Unicorn Saber is the lightsaber that you simply must have, the perfect saber that will complete your collection.  Well, on the Goulet site, I found the Unicorn Pen.  It was far more than I could justify spending, but I told myself I would get it someday.

And then I sold my novel. As my wife and I had agreed, my first advance was mine to spend however I wished.  For the family, I bought a PS4 so we could play some games that aren’t on Xbox. But then I got my pen: the Platinum 3776 Century Chartres Blue & Rhodium.

If ever a pen was designed for me, it’s this one.  Cobalt/Chartres blue is my favorite color.  I prefer silver to gold.  It’s translucent, which I love.  And when writing, it feels like heaven.

I currently keep the pen filled with Platinum’s Blue Pigmented Ink.  It’s wonderful.

At school, I use another pen for correcting papers starting today: The TWSBI Eco demonstrator, currently filled with Noodler’s British Empire Red ink.

I have a few other pens, all very cheap, which I’ve all but stopped using.  The Platinum and the TWSBI are my go-to pens for now, with the Monza as backup at work.

But I doubt they’re the last pens I buy.

This is from chapter 3 of The Blood-Dimmed Tide, book 2 of the Zhen series (which remains unsold; don’t get your hopes up):

Councilor Siiren rose from her seat in the circle around the outer edge of the room. Like all female Kelvaki, she was slighter than the men, about the same size as a human male. She stepped softly to my side, and her hand rose to rest briefly on my shoulder. “We do understand this, Captain.” She looked at Aljek, and her expression hardened into one of disgust. “What my esteemed colleague is asking, is why that should concern us?” She looked at Aljek. “Yes?”

He glanced at me, then at her, and then at the Ascendant, who was leaning forward, his eyes fixed on Aljek.  Finally he turned back to Siiren. “Yes,” he said grudgingly.  “Though I would not have phrased it quite so ineloquently.” Siiren hissed amusement; she knew damned well he would have.

I glanced at Liam, sitting on the side of the chamber. His wide eyes met mine, and I suddenly realized—I was standing in the middle of a power play that ultimately had nothing whatsoever to do with me or with Earth.  I was being used as a convenient lever to move a difficult piece in the Asendancy’s game of rule. I took a moment to consider my words carefully, then moved to the center of the chamber, turning to face Aljek and the Ascendant both.

One of the lines in my mini-bio, which I am perhaps inordinately proud of, is that I live in Sacramento, CA with “his wife, daughter, and more cats than is strictly necessary.”

Which is to say, four. And sure, four cats isn’t a terrible number of cats, but do we really need four? No, we do not.  And we didn’t really choose to have four of the little beasts.  Here’s how it happened:

When I was single, I had two cats, Caisha and Shinji.  Caisha was a lovely black cat, and Shinji was an adorable black and white kitty with a Hitler moustache.  They were best friends, though Caisha was twice Shinji’s age.

Then I started dating Elli, who also had two cats, Cleo, a tortie, and Fletcher, an “orange” tabby kitten.  Obviously, once we got married, our two cats each became four.

In late 2006, Shinji suddenly became very ill, and had to be euthanized–one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.  He was only five years old.

I couldn’t even think about getting another cat for years.  Eventually, we discussed it, and we decided that a “one cat per person in the household” rule was good.

A couple of years later, we came home to find Caisha, who had been his normal self, catatonic under a cabinet, not responding to us.  We rushed him to the hospital, and to make a long story short, as I’ve written about this before, he, too, had to be put down.  Again, it wrecked me.

Eventually, we adopted Maggie, a one year old ragdoll.  She’s amazing, but we decided after a while that maybe three cats was too many, and so we’d let attrition whittle us down to two cats, and then we’d only have two.

Cleo, the oldest of the household, was failing fast, and at 17 years old, we had to put her down to spare her an increasingly painful decline into death.

We then went on with only two cats for a time, until friends had to give up a cat, and we took her in.  So now we have Celty, an adorable-but-neurotic cat of indeterminate age (at least 13, we think).

And then my sister asked if we could take another one.  He was adorable, and our daughter fell in love with him, so we adopted Loki, who is now two years old and seems to like me best, and then my daughter, and then–if she’s laying in the right place–my wife.

As the guy who does the majority of cat waste disposal, I have put my foot down: NO MORE.  And attrition until two cats is the rule of the house once more.  Four cats aren’t particularly hard to take care of, and they’re not destructive, but it’s a lot of work. I’m trying to get my kid to start helping, but you know kids and pets–dad does most of the work.

How many cats (or dogs, or rabbits, or whatever; we here at the Johnston house don’t discriminate) have you got?

Okay, so… I’m no Scalzi, but I thought maybe I’d try to do a reader question period.  I don’t have a ton of readers, but if you have any questions about my writing, or (more entertaining, most likely) teaching, or what-have-you, feel free to ask in the comments.  I’ll answer in a post or three.

Or none?  That’s possible, too.  We’ll see what happens!

Who knew selling a book would be so hard?

Well, I did, actually.  But this is nothing compared to the writing.

Anyway, the book is still going around to agents.  There was a request for more pages, but the agent passed–said she was a “very, very tough sell on aliens, although your writing is good.”   I’ll take that compliment; thank you!

The thing is, it’s very easy to start thinking that the book is crap because nobody has said “OH MY GOD I WANT TO REP THIS!”  But that’s bullshit. People I trust, who have no reason to lie to me (and who were very honest with me in the beta stage about the flaws it had, and helped me fix them), like the book.  In fact, my favorite comment from two of the beta readers was “If I’d bought this in a bookstore and read it, I’d consider my money well spent.” It’s not perfect–no book ever is, especially before an editor takes it in hand–but it’s good.  It’s a story worth telling, and worth reading.

It’ll sell, or it won’t.  But that isn’t the important thing.  The important thing is that I have a voice, and that I need to use it.  Because, while I need to write, I’m not really writing for me.  I’m writing for that teenager who thinks the future won’t have people like him in it, because they’re not in the mainstream books being sold.  I’m writing for the girl whose parents tell her she’s a loser because she loves SFF.  I’m writing for the man who is sick of every story with a gay protagonist being erotica or romance.

So the important thing is to keep writing, and keep querying.

Onward!

Note: While this will crosspost to Facebook, I won’t be seeing any of the comments there for a few days, as I’ve left social media to avoid spoilers for Star Wars: The Force Awakens.  If it matters to you that I see it before Saturday, best to comment on the blog.

Old books are weird. People often think they’re valuable, but the truth is, most books still in existence today were printed in enough numbers that they’re really not worth that much.  Of course, the older it is, the more likely it’s going to be rare, which increases the value, but unless we’re talking “Gutenberg Bible” or “Shakespeare’s Folio,” it’s probably not going to be worth much even then. Age alone is no indicator of value; much depends on the rarity and condition of the volume.

One of the silliest parts of old book buying is the differences between one version and another.

One of the old books I own, The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke, was printed in 1921. It’s worth about $8. The 1919 edition, on the other hand, is worth $1400, partly because only 1000 of them were printed.

Another book I own, printed in 1819, is “Prayers and Offices of Devotion for Families, and for Particular Persons,” by Benjamin Jenks, Rector of Harley, in Shropshire, England. This 196 year-old book is worth a grand total of $25. Other copies, from just a few years prior, are worth over $100.

Fortunately, I don’t buy old books for their value (I couldn’t afford to, if I did).  I just like holding a nearly 200 year old book and thinking about all the hands that have touched it over the years.  It’s a connection to generations of human lives I will never touch in any other way.