MultiMind's Blog

Late mention but I will be at the CityLit Festival on Saturday, April 11, 2026 at the Maryland Center for History and Culture in the Mount Vernon neighborhood of Baltimore City. I’ll be in the Marketplace selling my books!

Be there!

I prefer to write my novels with a fountain pen but I also am very minimal about things. I essentially have several pens (five, to be exact) but only two fountain pens and they both do very different things. My TWSBI Vac700R Extra Fine is for writing novels and my Kakimori Frost Rollerball is for everything else when life goes “do you have a pen? You need to fill this out”. I personally don’t need more than that. I have 3 dip pens but one is metal and two are glass dips of different widths. Now, I’m basically out of the market for a pen (with exception to the 3D printed spiral pen, only because of how they look). And since I am, I try to take care of the pens I have. They’re pretty, yes, but I didn’t buy them simply for that. I bought them for work.

My Kakimori Frost, I only use one ink in it now: Platinum’s Carbon Black. The Frost is meant to be my everyday pen, when I have to jot down a note, fill out a form, etc etc. It’s a waterproof ink, which I prefer to have in a document or on an envelope, where rain and knocked-over water happens. That pen lives in my bag and since I use it everyday just about and store it nib up, I don’t really clean it much. It’s meant to be used and used normally, not be finicky. Plus, it’s a rollerball, not a traditional nib, it doesn’t need to be cleaned the same since it’s internals are different. I haven’t had any skipping, squeaking, nothing with this pen & ink combo. Nice thin line, great dark ink that withstands water, cap posts on the back, good capacity that doesn’t require me to refill for months, it’s all that I want. It’s meant to be utilitarian primarily in use, plain ol’ reliable. No risk of bending a tine or flipping through colors. I can even scrawl on a cardboard box just fine. It can write thirty journal pages straight before I have to even think about refilling. Refilling isn’t a pain, it’s quick. Everything is perfect for me, I literally have no other need ignored when it comes to this pen.

The more I use my TWSBI, the more I learn about it. It has penned over a thousand pages so it’s a workhorse at this point. I use all sorts of inks in it, from shimmer inks to ultra sheeners, no matter the color. I clean it out after most ink changes but I do deep cleaning after I’m doing writing my story completely. Since I crank out whole works within a day or a couple days, I can do that. It keeps the pen clean and ready for the next time, which is important to me. Just like the Kakimori, this TWSBI wasn’t cheap so I want to take good care of it. I don’t really leave it out, I put it back in its silicone case and keep it with desiccant. I originally used desiccant I would come across from buying stuff but now I use re-usable colored desiccant, which tells me when it is time to re-dry the desiccant. Orange when dry, green when full of moisture. That has worked out super well for me because I don’t have to meticulously dry my pen, moisture is wicked away in an enclosed environment. Mine is a vacuum filler so there’s a rod coming down the middle that can make drying tough. And you’ll never get everything in the nib, water will sit there until it dries out, which isn’t much of a problem but I’m finicky. I super like this dessicant, it makes care easier. I just put it in a very breathable material to make it a little bag and just keep it in the pen case.

I keep care of my TWSBI simple because I don’t want to spend forever cleaning the pen. I have an ultrasonic cleaner to get ink and shimmer out of it thoroughly (I don’t think anything gets glitter out and as quickly quite like an ultrasonic) and I use Anderson Pens pen solution. When I’m done with the pen and its empty of ink, I rinse off the ink from the nib and start drawing in pen solution so I can empty it out in a waste dish. I do that a few times, until the napkin looks kind of clear. Drawing the pen solution up also means that there’s solution all throughout the pen. I don’t like leaving pen solution in the pen so I just dump the nib in the ultrasonic, which is filled with filtered water and let it run for about 10 minutes while I clean out the main body separately with some water. I don’t want to use a lot of water either because I plain don’t so I only really use what I need, which is probably the amount it would take to fill a soda can. Once I see that the water is clear, no shimmer glitter and there’s no color showing on the drying napkin, I wipe off the outsides as much as I can and throw the three sections (cap, nib/head, body) in the pen case for me to essentially ignore until the next day or whenever I remember, when I screw it all together as a whole pen and then put it back for the next time to write, whenever that is.

I’m a firm believer in simplicity. These pens are meant to serve utilitarian purposes, so that’s important. I don’t mind deep cleaning my TWSBI when I am done writing, because it might sit for days or months. It doesn’t mean “oh, I am a more fancy writer than one that uses a computer from the start”, it’s meant to streamline things in creation. Having a fountain pen doesn’t make you smarter or sound well read – even the ink makers don’t know how to not use the same 5 White writers to name their inks after, especially if those writers are guys. That’s far from “well-read” to me. Instead, it’s just a tool. I run through ink insanely fast so I need something that can keep up with that.

At the start, I was getting ink everywhere, all the time. Now, I have a pretty full collection and I want to wear it thin. I have already gone through two bottles of ink and several sample vials. I think I only have a couple inks I would rather get but after that, it’s a wrap. When it comes to fountain pens (or any pen), ink is the primary consumable. I already don’t really buy the same ink twice (I think I’ve only done it less than five times) because A) I have so many already B) Some ink collections are limited and when the ink maker runs out, that’s it C) I already wrote with that one, time to pick a different one. I’ve seen ink influencers (yes, they exist, surprisingly) have major payloads of ink, enough to stock a store and still have extras in the back, and one thing they get asked is “What are you going to do with all that ink?” Yeah, journaling exhausts ink but not a lot. One bottle will last you over a year, easy. A couple years. Maybe even more than that. I probably know my ink capacity down to a science, how much ink will produce how ever many pages. I have probably twelve or fifteen bottles of inks, a 50 ml bottle will produce about 600 journal pages (as I learned back in Korea). Some of my bottles are more than that (85ml at the max) or less than that (25ml bottles).

Almost each and every bottle has been used at this point but right now, I’m trying to shrink down my sample vials collection because it’s creating some overflow in my writing drawer I’d like to reduce. I keep my inks hidden from sun and in their boxes because I don’t want to see my collections all the time, where they can fall and break, and because the boxes the inks come in are totally lovely. I don’t drink alcohol at all and fairly abhor it so it’s nice I can collect ink bottles because, yay, pretty bottles. When I empty a vial, I clean it out and hold on to it so I can give sample inks to others if I want (I learned my lesson when I used a little sauce canister recycled from takeout. It wasn’t made for that). I think, where my current collection stands, I have enough ink to write maybe three thousand pages, ball-parking it. Sounds like a lot until I look at my story list, the average book I pen is about mid 200 pages. And I have over 40 planned. The book series I went to Korea for was about 570 pages and that’s just Book One – and I’m still far from done I’m a prolific writer so I can exhaust a bottle of ink pretty fast. But I still want to work down my current collection since I literally don’t need more (at the moment).

I bought a crapton of ink from Ferris Wheel Press at the start so that’s the majority of my collection, probably. I love their inks, so beautiful and whimsical. I have each of their bottles, the big orb (85ml), slated circle (38ml), small orb (20ml) and even their sample size (10ml). I don’t have their dip pen bottle but I’m holding off for now since I don’t use dip pen-only inks, dip pens are for writing with fountain pen inks as well. I’m still looking for a Black ink maker, though, so I’ll buy a bottle if I find one. The last bottle of inks I bought were in Korea from Dominant Industry & Wearingeul. I was in Korea and I even have custom colors I made at Dominant, so that’s a little different. Whatever ink I don’t want, I give away to other writers of color. I’m not going to waste any ink, even the kind I don’t like. Especially since some of the inks come from pricy brands.

I have so many blue inks Like “Do you love the color of the sky” many. I lean towards stormy hued inks but, still, I have so many blue inks, stormy or not. As a result, I’ve gone more towards orange/salmon inks, but currently, they’re samples because if it is too light, there’s no point in buying a big bottle of it. I already have several too-light inks (Ferris Wheel Press’ Dusk In Bloom, Colorverse’s Cancer the Crab, etc) so I definitely don’t want more. The fact I have too many blue inks is also why I haven’t added more inks. I inadvertently get more blue somehow. Might as well work down the inks I already have.

When I was younger, I super loved the colorfulness of gel pens. I kind of kept with that vibe in my inks. I like writing with color. It helps with the vibe of the story on the first draft. Plus, with my inks, if I get tired of a color, I can always switch to another.

As it pertains to fountain pens, I have a use for them since I’m a writer and I write by hand. I think it’s wild when people get elitist about owning one, it doesn’t mean much – especially if you’re not really using them in general. I wouldn’t use a fountain pen at all if I didn’t have a skill set that can include it. Due to how potentially pricy pens can get (the cheapest is $5 (a preppy fountain pen) but the most expensive is thousands of dollars), possible ink messiness, etc etc, I would never suggest someone to get a pen if they genuinely barely use a plain old Bic. Yeah, they’re pretty but it can also be a pretty waste of money if you’re not using it. It doesn’t make the story better nor makes a person more creative, it’s just a tool of the trade, like a guitarist does with their guitar. It’s also a sustainability thing for me because I’m not tearing apart pens for their ink sticks and throwing the rest of the body away, that’s wasteful. All I need is a steady supply of ink, not much else. And two fountain pens is just enough for me, especially since each pen has a different job.

I was in Korea for 3 months and like I said in previous posts, it was my first time overseas, third plane trip in my life and first time in a country where English is not the primary language. I can speak and understand Korean to an upper-intermediate level (I can shop in HMart just fine by myself and read the original labels without a problem, for example). I was there to write my book series Soaring, which I got 570 handwritten pages done … and still have not finished (more on that later).

My fields are in libraries, music industry and archives but I was in Korea for writing (and health reasons pertaining to my disorders but that’s not what this post is about) because that’s exact what I thought would assist my work. I am not a fan of distractions.

I’m still very much new to flying, I even lost my poor 20+ year old Linkin Park wallet chain when I came back because everything was so hectic. Being in Korea wasn’t too bad for me, I stayed in Seodaemun district in Seoul but I went to Paju and Gwangju as well. When I went through customs, it was super hot to me. I was asked why I was staying for so long and I said that I’m a writer in extremely exhausted English and Korean. (I left during the US govt shutdown. The airport computers failed on the morning I left. Noice. Two layovers instead of one.) I already have a body of work so I was ready to showcase that in case it sounded like a “Sasaeng with a threadbare excuse”. I expected ICE-level customs behavior – because I’m American and this is the first time out of the country, I have zero idea what to expect and I have a tendency to ride on the “the worst is the best you can expect” school of thought. It was a bit harrowing for me because of the repeated questions of “why are you here for so long?” I guess they’re used to foreigners staying here for a week or so and leaving. Or international sasaengs (stalker fans). Or sex/bridal tourism (think, “My Korean Boyfriend” show). I knew that was an issue but it really seemed to be a bigger issue than I originally thought. There *was* a lot of bright-haired girls and kpop shirts or gear in the customs line. My hair was cotton candy pink and blue twists. I probably was fitting a type, ah jeez. That’s why I was ready to show my body of literary works to prove, yes, I am there for what I say I am. I didn’t have to show it but the questioning was a bit harrowing. They were nice but hella persistent.

Let’s get some bits out the way first: If you’re there for Super Happy Kpop Time, just watch Kpop Demon Hunters with some overpriced Shin shrimp chips and call it a day. It’s a country. Filled with people. That have lives and histories of their own. Please don’t go there so the poor kiddos working at Olive Young wonder why they let you in their country. If you can’t speak/read Korean and it’s too big a hurdle for you, don’t go. They don’t speak English there widespread, they don’t speak your language there widespread. They speak Korean in Korea. Even if you can just parse a bit of it past “hello/thank you”, it makes them breathe easier. I used the app Korean English Dictionary by Bravolol when I needed a new vocabulary word or to make my sentence more clear but I didn’t lean on it for communication.

I’m coming from the USA but I’m also not a White person so I don’t have some innate feeling to show all the worst parts of my personality as loud and brashly as possible in a foreign country, which I did indeed see. Some had sense but quite a few did not. Yeah, international PoC can also act up (See: Johnny Somali) but White folks really kick it up a notch (See: Logan Paul). When you’re White, they assume you’re from the West but being Black, it seemed no one really could guess my nationality (Lordt.) I could be American, British, Senegalese, Caribbean, etc etc. So they didn’t know if I would start speaking English, French, Spanish, Somali, etc. I regularly had to say that I was an American in Korean. Didn’t bother me too much but I did see a marked difference in tone and behavior before and after the fact was known.

Same with White folks who thought they were acting up in front of a non-Western Black foreigner when they were doing it to another American. Or to an American, period. The look on their faces when they discover, no, they don’t have a “no one knows who I am” invisibility blanket. American privilege is very real and I already knew I had that because that’s how intersections of privilege and marginalization works, I have privilege in some spots, marginalizations in others and they don’t count each other out, each has their own lane. Even people from Europe, regardless of race, treated me different. Or would try to say a blithe joke about Trump that would work well angering a White American but doesn’t bother me really. I mean, I can always bring the full American douchebag out and bring up their history and America’s interaction with it and it ends the conversation.

Korean natives were also surprised to see an American that knew so much about their nation and history … and language. They’re basically expecting MAGA Kpop Fan Jerkoff – geez, I wonder why? There’s a reason why the Olive Youngs in the tourist areas don’t have a lot of samples on display but in non-tourist areas, almost everything has a sample on it. Just speaking the language and being basic human level nice got me free pizza and snacks without me asking, they appreciate it that much. Otherwise, they have the “please help me, god, a foreigner walked in” look on their face.

For money, I recommend getting WowPass simply so you can control your spending. I wasn’t sure of it at first but it really did work. They do take American cards but I liked the ease of WowPass. I’m there to write so I didn’t have a lot of needs – though I did spend a lot of time in Olive Young. When I was there Oct 2025 – Jan 2026 (yep, I just got back), $1.00 USD = ₩ 1,400.00(ish). An American dollar goes further in Korea than you think but definitely don’t blow it all at once at the first tourist trap that successfully lured you in. And don’t haggle, it’s rude. If you don’t want to pay an over-inflated price (aka, spending in Hongdae, Myeongdong, Gangnam or Itaewon), then you’re going to have to learn Korean, find some manners and go to where the locals shop. You don’t have to be Victorian etiquette level perfect but don’t act like an attention-starved live streamer. It’s ok to have flubs and wtf moments (I had many of those) but still, try not to ruin everyone’s day simply because your parents didn’t opt for an abortion. They do see how Westerners act via online and it isn’t great. They don’t know if you’re going to be a regular person, Johnny Somali, or, super worse, one of the Paul Brothers. Money doesn’t make you king there, even if it seems some folks in Korea could do with that reminder as well.

WowPass also works as a TMoney card, so you can also take public transportation there, just make sure you boop your card as soon as you get on and when you get off. Driving in Seoul is utter madness, they treat lane markings as street art and ignore just about all of it. Just take public transport, it’s cleaner than what we have in America but there will be times it is crowded and you don’t always know when. They have several kinds of buses, all color coded. From the green pillbug village buses to the large, red rapid buses. Naver is the app you want to download to get around Korea, it’s like Google Maps but if it merged with Facebook but not suck. Naver has a way better feature to get you around the country, even tell you how much fare will be per transfer. There is an English version but you have to type your destinations in Korean – because it’s a Korean app and you’re in Korea.

For insoles, because Seoul is hilly and my legs were dying, get any insole with “EVA” written on it. I found a pair in Emart in the Daiso section. Yes, you will have to learn what “insole” is in Korean (깔창).

These are life savers ;_; Bless whoever invented EVA

I stayed at an AirBnB because I despise hotels, I can speak the language and I wanted to be left alone. I stayed in the Seodaemun district. The most frustrating part for me was the recycling because of how minute it was. You have to break it down by:

Metal
Plastic
Vinyl
Paper
Cardboard
Glass
Food

And there’s little rules and exceptions attached to those as well – as well as their own district-mandated bags. In my city of Baltimore, you just put recycling in the yellow recycling bin or you put it all in a cardboard box so it all can be carried away. You also can get a bunch of clear vinyl bags but still, sorting all that was a pain in the neck. And there are almost no trash cans or recycle bins in Seoul. If you buy a bottle of soda at a convenience store like CU or GS25, either you chug it right there so you can chuck it there or, congrats, you’re stuck with it for the entire day, it seemed.

I was able to get the correct bags by asking for it at stores, you ask for 봉투 (which confused me because it means, “envelope” not “bag” so I had to search a bit to find a couple guides to help me, here) and there you go. I don’t need to be babied because that’s not what I am going on the other side of the planet for so I could manage fairly well myself.

Since I didn’t have major agoraphobia like I do in the US so I could go to the store normally and I didn’t order food much. I used Shuttle since I didn’t have a Korean phone number. The selection is small and they assume you’re a dimwitted foreigner so sometimes that would be grating. The prices are sometimes jacked up and they don’t tell you they’re sold out of something until you find out too late so there’s that. Delivery in Korea is very rapid, well under an hour and usually under 30 min. They will deliver straight to your door (or attempt to put it inside your apt, which happened to me It was a surprise for me). I wrote in Korean my floor and door number so usually the delivery guy is shocked to see a Korean speaking foreigner there but it happens occasionally.

Due to the fact that it’s Korea, I didn’t bother getting an eSim. Seoul has free wi-fi throughout the city (which American cities don’t do, and other Korean cities but still, pretty innovative) and on the public transport (which American cities also don’t do). KakaoTalk is a primary app there, which I already had for years. From Olive Young coupons to store sale papers, Kakao is used a lot. It also does phone and video calls for free so I could keep in contact fairly easily without paying money. I may consider a Korean phone number since I am planning to go back but it’s not at the top of Things You Must Have. Granted, I know the language fairly well to not panic, I don’t know for someone who knows nada. There will be times the wi-fi is le crap and you will cycle through several wi-fi’s, however, from time to time, so get ready for that.

If it isn’t obvious here, I did a lot of research and saving so that I could go on my trip, not bother anyone living there and not be bothered by anyone being there. I didn’t want things to go horribly wrong because I somehow confused a New Jeans music video or random KDrama for real life. I also wanted to keep things very affordable because I would have to ration my money. I stayed away from tourist traps and things like that. That doesn’t mean I didn’t splurge from time to time but since I spent almost everyday in my apartment writing my book, it was pretty easy to save – because I’m doing literally nothing but staying in my apartment, writing my book. I handwrite my novels with a fountain pen so I brought 50ml of ink (that writes almost 600 pages) so there essentially isn’t much reason to spend like mad. I still did from time to time because it’s my first time outside my home country and I found great stuff, like a book holder for my novel journals so I can transcribe them easier, a nice pair of earrings, and cleansers that actually work on my face. If you can understand the language kinda well, you can save quite a lot.

For those who want to buy from Olive Young, get both the domestic and global apps. The domestic so you can find what product is in which store (click on the little bar with the green and white awning on the smol store). You sometimes have to type in Korean – and the app is Korean only, by the way. Global so you can check the ingredients in your home language (mine is English). I want to avoid anything with Niacinamide, Madecassoside and Glutathione because those are usually for skin lightening. It’s damaging to skin, especially melaninated skin and nothing is wrong with darker skin. They sell products that handle dark spots that do not involve destroying your skin over colorist bs. I already know what my skin prefers and its trouble spots so I already came to Korea with a shopping list sitting in my Kakao.

Location bar, circled. And remember, it’s all in Korean. Because you’re in Korea.

And don’t give the store workers grief. If you can’t speak Korean, stick to struggling with the two Olive Young apps until you figure things out. It’s ok to ask “Do you speak English/[Language You Speak]” in Korean (notice how I keep saying that part?) when its time to check out but keep the English simple if they reply “A little” or “yes”. You don’t need to recite James Baldwin at them, just the basics of shopping. (“Where is…”, “What is the price of…”). Test samples using the back of your hand, don’t have a meltdown you can’t restrain to yourself, don’t assume everyone can speak English, etc. The workers don’t harass you as you shop, they leave you alone, which I like. They bustle pretty hard so please don’t make their day harder. Crappy customers exist in Korean, too. I’ve seen local folks bug the workers the same way us Americans stress store workers here in the USA, try to be nice.

For Black folks who want to get hair care in Korea, they have lots of affordable options. My hair really loves argan oil and I was able to get giant tubs of shampoo and conditioner (also called “treatment” there) for less than $10USD a pop. 40+oz of shampoo and conditioner. That’s unheard of in the USA. It’s about ₩12,000 – ₩13,500 there per bottle. They have afro picks but they’re sold as art brushes and such lol. Bring your own combs and brushes with you. Or get a protective style like I did. But Korea has tons of stuff you can glorp on your hair with.

I’m not kidding about the picks, lol

Get a EU to USA power strip, it’s amazing. You can still plug up things like your laptop, hair dryer, phone, etc etc. Don’t get one of those blocks they sell on Amazon, mine fritzed out the second I plugged it in. Korea is 220 volts, USA is 110 volts. You will need a power strip with a built in voltage converter. And perhaps invest in a travel wi-fi router, it makes surfing the web more secure. I used one during my stay. It had hiccups but when it worked, it worked great.

Some places in Korea have unmanned stores, stores where there is no human, just products and a big computer screen to check things out with. It is only in Korean. They usually are ice cream stores but they sell all sorts of things, like snacks, soft drinks, candy, etc. They even have unmanned stores for clothes – including haute couture/expensive brands -, for stationery, all kinds of stuff. We don’t have that in America. It works like a self-checkout counter. Don’t scam it, don’t pickpocket everything you see out of the store, put back what you don’t get exactly where you saw it. These things don’t exist much in tourist areas for a reason and it’s because of not-great behavior from the international crowd. It isn’t the place to live your best KPop/KDrama life.

I stayed in Seodaemun district, which is quiet. Mapu district (where Hongdae is) and Yongsan district (where Itaewon is) are a bit more bustling. Korea basically closes at 10 PM but those spots have a few late night places. There are so many crowds in Hongdae, Myeongdong, Itaewon and Gangnam but I remember being around way too many people in Hongdae. It wasn’t crowd crushing, it’s just I have trauma-induced agoraphobia and thus, crowds aren’t my thing. If you buy anything in those many, many stalls in Hongdae, don’t get it the second you see it, just take a picture of the item and the location of the stall. You might find a better version of it just a few stalls down or something like that. Things also go a lot smoother if you speak in Korean. They don’t have elevators in some of their apartment buildings, even if it is taller than 4 stories.

For queer people, Korea is pretty plain a country. They don’t know much about the different queer flags so they won’t really bother you. My hand-knitted cardigan is the ace flag on one side and the nonbinary flag on the other side. No one, except for other queer folks there, had a clue what they were looking at. Some probably think queerness is for White folks (because that’s what happens when you run into colonialization and White supremacy painted as global policy a lot) and foreigners in general so they don’t care much. How queerness expresses itself all around the world is pretty different, remember that. Americans are over-obsessed with “not appearing gay” to the point they’ll live hella miserable and remarkably lonely lives with very little emotional depth, especially the guys – American men rather kill themselves and other people than simply be ok with the fact they have human emotions. However, though Korea has a lot of gender problems – there’s a reason why the 4B movement exists – but as long as you don’t live life like an obnoxious youtuber streamer, you’ll be fine. It’s insanely hetero in Korea but also there are queer-friendly clubs you can visit, like Rabbithole or Living Room in Itaewon. I was told there are some queer spots in Gwangju but I couldn’t get around to them. There’s the Seoul Rainbow Foundation in Mapu, they’re super nice people and run QPlanet but it’s not a one-stop-shop location the way some Queer support places are in some parts of the USA. However! They have nifty stuff you can buy, like little pins and bags. Buy ’em. One person speaks English but the rest are fairly Korean only. They’re hardworking! I like them. If you are trans or anyone else that needs estro or testero shots, you should be able to bring them to the country just fine, just bring the right supply you’d need for the length of your stay.

I had glow in the dark hair in Korea; glowed at night, was cotton candy pink and blue in the day.

Mah hair!: Day Edition Mah hair!: Night Edition

I got stares sometimes but also I’m Black and not at all Korean so that was going to happen anyways. Some actually liked my hair and told me so (in Korean, esp when they found out I could understand them). Some told me I was pretty so that was very nice. Usually, I get agitated by those comments because I’m not big on commenting on appearance, I rather focus on skill, etc, but didn’t mind this time – especially since I heard so much “They’re anti-Black!” before I left so it was nice to encounter the opposite. I didn’t experience any major, omega racism and I’m a Black American, I come from a country that has a history of slavery, lynching and messed up laws laser designed to target me, that’s the bar you have to hit before I go “wow, they’re super messed up there”. Since I wasn’t in Europe, I wasn’t really dealing with that bar even being closed to reached.1

It’s just a lot of passive anti-Blackness cooked into the culture in Korea that can be easily missed at first, and then it grates on you. The obsession with Whiteness, paleness, the colorism, etc. Even being in a Olive Young getting products mean you have to become an investigative scientist just to make sure you’re not getting something that will destroy your skintone because someone else hated theirs. The Kpop there was constantly an extremely bad mimic of Black created sounds from Gospel to Rock to Hip Hop and with zero care or concern of where it came from and why it even existed in the first place. So, zero respect for the arts and people that came before them in the creative worlds – in a culture where showing deference to the people who came before you is supposed to be a big deal. They’ll wave it off as “oh, I didn’t know” but will float to Whiteness like a moth to a flame. It sucked when I was on transportation and people wouldn’t sit next to me sometimes but also I’m an American, I just started to use that to take up space in a way Americans are extremely good at. It’s not great to be a jerk but sometimes it is a valuable tool sometimes when dealing with jerks. Koreans are not children, they’re extremely capable of thinking and learning outside of their own sphere. If I can figure out their culture and language almost from scratch, they can do the same with mine. Period.

However, Korea also is not a great country to visit if you are the follower/conformist type. There’s a reason they’re number one in suicide in the world, if not top five. It’s very easy to get caught up in caring about what people who are essentially nobodies (might) think about you and internalizing that to death. People who might not even know that you exist because they have their own problems. People who like to pressure or press on others because they think its the right and lemming thing to do. The list goes on and on. I do try to be polite and courteous because that’s the right thing to do but I didn’t go there to be liked, make friends or to conform – I went there to write a book and be left alone. I knew I would get avoided for the most part because difference makes them shy and thus, I could use that to my advantage. Not all of them are shy however. Korean older women do not care at all about anyone’s feelings, they will do whatever sails through their heads, say whatever sails through their heads. But remember, most of the nation is fairly unhappy, 95% of the nation is stressed. I’m not going to put in a lot of overtime in trying to get people to like me when those same people don’t even like themselves, statistically. Mental health is a major issue there socially and it’s very easy to emotionally fall apart there. They’ll say they are a collectivist culture but it’s really just a big conformist culture because watch how fast the collective falls apart when a bunch of people collectively die from preventable circumstances, from being on a subway train, on a ferry or simply in a alleyway on Halloween. Then it’s “oh, that’s a you problem, and you better keep it to yourself – for the collective”. If you are the type that super cares about what other people think, including people who probably don’t know you exist, perhaps pick a different country to visit. Don’t wreck your mental health because you want to be Rumi from Kpop Demon Hunters in the worst way.

Kennie JD, puts it best:

And now, the weather:

Weather in Seoul is a bit hot to me but I am from the mid-Atlantic region. I was sweating in October, well into late November. Snow is pretty there but for the love of the gods don’t make snow creme – the air quality there is so awful.

Sing it if you know the words! “A-ri-rang, a-ri-rang…”

Also, they don’t get a lot of snow in Seoul. Or rain (I stayed Oct-Jan). Any weather event I experienced is fairly short lived. They consider heavy snow 3 or 4 inches. In Maryland, that’s just regular snow. It’s very pretty tho. The younger folks love playing in it and snow abatement is very WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE, HERE IS YOUR EMERGENCY ALL CALL. EXPECT THREE INCHES OF SNOW AND COLD AIR emergency phone warnings. Granted, people drive in Seoul as if they’re skating their car on ice when its bright, warm and sunny outside so perhaps that’s a reason. I’m very used to the American “It’s gonna snow. Feel free to die in it. Maybe have some water in your bathtub, idk” style of weather forecasting. Baltimore just got dumped with a bunch of snow and a lot of it still hasn’t cleared up or been cleaned off. It’s snowcrete, now. Outside my apartment in Seoul, there was a small river and when it froze – not even all the way – kids would play on it. I’m used to cold weather horseplay but these kids were being ultra risky because there were still weak parts of ice atop a running river. None fell in but there were a lot of slips and slides.

Didn’t snow for long Snowmageddon: Seoul Edition The two little dots in the snowy middle are duckies

The weather doesn’t start to get biting cold (to me) until December-ish. Bring electric, self heating gloves. I already own some so I can write in the cold but it worked great when I was outside. I didn’t have to use the little handwarmers you can buy there even once. They also have some super warm blankets you can buy. ₩10,000 – ₩12,000 is the range around where I lived.

If there is OSHA in Korea, that person is tied up in a closet somewhere, holy crap can some parts be so mobility unfriendly. I fell so many times, even cracked my phone screen, because of how uneven the ground is. And sloped. Like hills in San Francisco. There will be teeny doors, like Alice-in-Wonderland level small. There will be narrow doors, you can barely fit through without going sideways, even for average Korean bodies. The busses are not designed for mobility struggles or rider capacity, there will be random steps in random places, there will be uber narrow sidewalks that are basically small minecraft blocks haphazardly laid about – assuming there’s any sidewalks at all. Being in a wheelchair would be a chore in Seoul. There’s no way to even get into places like Olive Young, GS25 or CU, nor navigate their super narrow aisles if you can get past the steps. If you’re thin enough to look like you crawled out of a gulag, you might be fine but the average body is not considered in Seoul or Korea, especially if that body is in a wheelchair or has any other mobility restrictions. Elevators are hard to traverse to and they’re very slow sometimes.

One Shot Hansol, a blind Korean youtuber I follow put it best (with English subtitles):

Visiting a business is tough:

Trying to ride public transport while disabled (be it sight or mobility) is tough:

Even going into the subway, you have a little curb to step up upon. How these places do not claim drunk people in a country that has soju in it surprises me because I genuinely would expect to see people rolling and falling about like it’s the folks in a Black Pink “Jump” music video

I am almost surprised I didn’t see this every day, even after the bars let out

Stationery stores are very plentiful in Korea, no matter where you go. Look for “문구” and you’re there. Granted, I write my books with a fountain pen so I mainly prefer stores that has fountain pen supplies. The really good stationery store I found was Homi in Hongdae, Mapu, but that’s an art store. They carry Wearingeul inks, a Korean brand. An even better one (for my needs) is the Hangaram Stationery branch in Hongdae/Hongik University. It’s inside a bigger building and is over by Issac Toast. Don’t make the same mistake I did and get stranded on a steep hill in icy sleet, use Naver’s walking guide. If you don’t see an Issac Toast, keep walking until you do. Hangaram does have ink but they’re Japanese inks, I didn’t see any Korean ones. I already have several Japanese inks and I’m in Korea so I wanted Korean inks. BUT! They have amazing stuff for writers, artists, knitters (circular needles are ₩1,000, which is a little under $1USD). I got a folding book stand that makes it easy for me to prop up my journals and transcribe them. I love it so much and have been looking for one for a while ;_; It’s perfect for me. They have all sorts of fun stickers, doo-dads, knick-knacks and more! Even earrings and snacks.

Korea has a few ink makers, such as Colorverse, Dominant Industry, 3Oysters and Wearingeul. If you write with a fountain pen, you will spend money somehow on their ink or their supplies. They have in-store exclusives. I only visited Dominant Industry and Wearingeul. I couldn’t get around to Colorverse, I ran out of time. Dominant Industry is in Paju and you need to reserve a time to make custom ink, which is ₩40,000 (about $27 USD). Wearingeul believes in Pop Ups Only and you need to scour their Instagram to know where the next one is. I have a write up in the works for my visit to Dominant Industry, it was very nice to go and I even got to make custom ink from scratch. I got free pen refills at the Wearingeul pop ups, even of their store exclusive color, “Still, In This Barren World”. (It’s actually “Central” by Yi Sang, sometimes also called “In a World that Doesn’t Understand”, the Korean title is more accurate.)

If you prefer to type, they have unmanned cafes for you to sit in and type, open 24/7. Korea is very good at third spaces, which America could use a lot of. They’re clean and serene. Super warm in the winter time as well. But it can also be very easy to isolate yourself from other humans in public in Korea, just you and your screen.

If you are thinking of driving in Seoul – DON’T. It’s like Twisted Metal and Burnout Paradise over there. GTA level driving on the regular, oh my gods. Lane markings are treated like street art that everyone ignores. Delivery motorcycles drive on any surface available, in any space available, even if it is cramp and potentially very deadly. Seoul driving makes New York City driving seem calm and peaceful.

What driving in Seoul looks like

Even getting on public transportation is wild. Some buses are really wonderful and others will throw you – depends on the driver and their day. The MTA in Baltimore has their NASCAR drivers, but these folks in Seoul are built almost the same, if not a little worse. I almost won’t trash talk the MTA anymore due to Seoul bus drivers. Getting on the little green pillbug bus in Itaewon is a practice of applied physics: horror edition. Cramped streets and high speeds don’t mix but to these drivers, that’s a Tuesday night here in Itaewon. Getting on the Seodaemun 11 or 13 would be hectic and cramped at times. I remember taking the bus back from Gwangju to Seoul in the evening and I saw several short stops, brake checks, high speed tailgates and other risky maneuvers. We have the same kind of driving in the US – but usually there’s a fleet of police cars behind said car and a news helicopter over top. I shouldn’t be so close to the next car in the next lane that I could roll down my window and place my palm on their window and still have a bent elbow.

What being on the bus in Seoul feels like

I have been in several near bus-car collisions when I rode public transport in Seoul. Paju isn’t that bad but will still have Need For Speed behavior even if there is only two cars on the road. Gwangju is calmer, especially when their clock chimes at 5:18 PM. But Seoul? I had to ask friends several times “Do y’all have traffic laws?” because I would see risky behavior pulled even in front of a cop car. Stuff that would be an instant “bwooOOp” heard behind you if pulled in the US. I’ve seen so many near misses and almost-collisions from the street and the bus. It explains why my friend said I was a good driver when she was in America and I would take her to the market And why she thought an American driver’s license was hard to get.

Lane markings mean next to nothing in Seoul

Americans are not perfect drivers, we have cities where driving is a deathsport and I wouldn’t drive in them unless I have to – like New York City and Philly – but Seoul takes the cake.

The subway can be really confusing at times for me but that’s because Baltimore has a vastly underdeveloped subway line that’s been there for over 40 years thanks to red lining (I live in the city that was the testing lab for it). But navigating DC metro and NYC subways have made me a bit more comfortable with dealing with Seoul’s sprawling subway systems. And I still suffered a bit because wow, are some of the stations like little cities. The one at SM Entertainment is a bit unique, Hongje will remind you a bit of New York (in terms of design, not dear-god-yuck-what-is-that). It’s easy to get lost, get a bite to eat and boop out in spots you don’t need to because you got confused. And the trains will throw you so hold on to something. Korean people will try to avoid sitting next to you. Well, some will. Others won’t. It’s quiet and there’s screens telling you to not be obnoxious in cute Korean animations. Yellow seats are for the elderly and disabled, pink seats are for the pregnant, on both busses and railways.

Korea has issues with Christian cults and of them approaching you on the street – Seoul has a surprising amount of churches. Megachurches, especially. And those churches are usually cults. They mainly approach in tourist areas, where they think you are a stupid foreigner that can only speak English. So, in Hongdae, for example. Usually speaking Korean catches them off guard. Because I learned from the stories of Kennie J.D. (awesome channel, love her), I never really spoke to a cultist for longer than two minutes and I only was approached twice. I dealt with them the way I deal with Christians that bother me in general here in the US – talk comfortably about my faith, Paganism. Scares them off basically every time. Want a Christian to leave you alone? Introduce them to a different faith and talk about it in a normal way, terrifies them 8 times out of 10. The remaining two are worth making friends.

I don’t have a nervousness about Christian cults because they don’t act a whole lot different from regular Christians when it comes to being a different faith, in my experience. I’ve had to deal with aggressive Christians since I was a teenager. I detail that on my other blog, Black Witch. Engage them in warm, normal conversation and watch them dart off in less than five minutes.

The supermarket isn’t that spellbinding an experience, no matter where you are in the world, people need to get their groceries from somewhere. There’s EMart, Lotte and various mom & pop markets. You really needed to look around for the best prices because sometimes prices truly do bounce around. And so will you, different stores would carry different things. I’m used to American markets where things make some relational sense, like you would have spaghetti near the spaghetti sauce. In Korean markets, sometimes it’s not so cut and dry. I have been in markets where there aren’t prices on most of what I saw, you just get a surprise at the cash register. I don’t drink alcohol at all and I have super negative interest in doing so, so I have zero clue about getting booze in Korea. They will sell you fireworks, however but turns out, you can’t set them off in residential areas … but they will sell fireworks in those residential areas? I have an HMart card (there’s no HMart in Korea, only EMart) and I think I might have a Lotte card but all the points you wrack up here do not transfer over there. That makes me blue.

I didn’t use a tour guide or anything when I was in Korea (what for?) but since I also knew the history of Korea before I went there, I’m pretty ok. I do have local friends but they weren’t tour guides, they were friends. I’m there to work, not to do “Eat. Pray. Love.” nonsense.

However, I did do some karaoke because I love to sing and I love music. Rabbithole Arcade Pub has live karaoke every Thursday night. I also did coin karaoke, which is a small booth that you stick in your money and out comes your ability (hopefully) to sing songs. Some are unmanned, others are not. I have a very strong singing voice so I can fill an auditorium with my voice, so I probably bugged someone by mistake when I used a Coin Karaoke booth. They do have music from the West but it is not the greatest quality and sometimes even the lyrics are wrong. They have heavy music books that contain songs from Korea, Japan and the West, usually. I prefer live karaoke but that’s also because I’m fairly used to being on a stage thanks to my music background.

The heating system in your apartment is through the floor, not through vents. Remember that if you put a bag of shopping on the ground and wonder why your stuff is bubbling now. Especially ice cream you forget. Look up the brand of your thermometer and there will be a translated guide for you to use. Same for the laundry machine. I just needed a quick guide to remind me which words mean what things but there are dedicated guides online you can look at. It can heat a room fairly quickly but not as quick as a vent blowing in hot air.

The bathroom is small for Western bodies. I had a shower head laid about but they also had the tradition pail and buckets in my apartment – layered with a slick coating of wet crud so yeah, not using that. You might not get a traditional tub or shower section like you do in the USA so try to mentally adjust for that. Or look for accommodations that are more Western-like, bathroom-wise. Get shower slippers of your own, you can buy those almost anywhere. Mine are from Daiso. Make sure you know your shoe size in Asian sizes, which is in millimeters, so you can get the right ones. They’re pretty affordable, about ₩3,000 – ₩5,000. Plus, you can keep them.

They’re serious about noise there, try to buy slippers that have at least one inch thick sole if you live above others. I knew that before going to the country so I got a pair at Daiso, I think it was about ₩5,000, if even that much.

Look for this tag

Mosquitos. They will show up if the temperature goes even a glance above 40 degrees F. I regularly found mosquitos in my rooftop apartment, at least two a day. They have things like Raid in Korea (their version and Raid itself, which is a different name, Killer, I think) but what worked best for me was the electronic mat heater. Only ₩5,500 (where I found it) and the refill mats are very affordable, ₩3,000 for a box of about 40 or so. They last 12 hours-ish and work better than the coils. Get it.

I also used a VPN when I was there because I regularly use it, no matter what country I’m in. Get a dedicated VPN, it helps with sites that are a bit more rigorous with usual VPNs. I have Surfshark. Worked fine for me.

Since I’m a writer, I don’t have a lot of needs since the primary things I need are quiet, to be left alone, my bottle of ink and my pen and the journals I stitched for this story. Everything else is just to maintain comfort and work on my disorders. When it came time to mail things back to America, I learned that EMS will not take boxes that has writing on the side. Either it’s a blank brown box or an EMS box you buy. Different from the USA, where we go by the rules of “if it fits and doesn’t tick, it ships”. Shipping really is pricy in S. Korea so try to shove it in your luggage the best you can.

This is about the most I can think of. I’m sure I probably missed something but I think I covered the basics.

Remember, American colonists didn’t come from space – they came from Europe. And they brought a lot of those messed up beliefs with them. It’s also the same continent that brings you The Holocaust, so no “we’re not racist in Europe” here. These guys invented the modern slave trade, including the trans-atlantic slavetrade and breathed life into chattel slavery. Most of Africa speaks a European language and you guys talk about reparations with the same joy as getting a full-jaw root canal. Can’t really gas people based on existing or murder entire towns simply because they housed people who looked different and say they’re not prejudiced to a startling degree. There’s a reason why Jesse Owens was not at all surprised when he went to Germany for the Olympics, one might as well queue up Sinners’ “‘Are y’all twins?’ ‘Naw, we’re cousins'” here and it would be a direct bullseye. ︎

For the past 3 months, I was in South Korea writing Soaring. This was:

My 3rd time flying1st time outside my home country, USA1st time in a nation where English is not the primary language

I can speak and read Korean to an intermediate level so I have that on my side, otherwise, I would have never gone. I can speak 5+ languages so there are a lot of countries open to me but I picked Korea because I can lazy-read Korean and it’s one of the very few nations on the planet that doesn’t fly head-first into activating my trauma disorders. I struggle heavily with being in America due to my disorders so my doctors thought Korea was a good idea when I brought it up. They wanted to see how I would be without being surrounded by triggers. Mine is primarily about drugs/drug culture because I grew up in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood of Baltimore City and saw all the violence that mess can very easily produce. Things are a lot worse now for me because of cultural attitude changes about that stuff, like full-blown agoraphobia worse. The docs wanted to see how I would fare in a nation that’s not so, well, pro-That Nonsense. Turns out, I do extremely well when I don’t think I’m going to die every five seconds on both a conscious and subconscious level and I tend to walk everywhere when the air doesn’t risk smelling like Coachella at too-constant random (I will take terrible air quality over air that locks my lungs down any day, Seoul has awful air quality but hey, at least it doesn’t give me lung-pausing panic attacks). My disorders don’t magically disappear but at least my doctors now have a functional baseline so they can see how much of my condition is environmental vs disorder-produced. Some are not going to like me saying that that but, hey, I don’t really care. I can’t write if I am under a prolonged sense of terror all the time. There’s a reason why I can crank out a several hundred page novel in about two weeks or less, my brain is working on constant terror mode. I noticed I slowed down a little in Korea. Which is a good thing. Kinda. I still wrote until my hand couldn’t function, though – several times.

Mah pen, Limited Edition, TWSBI Vac700R, Extra Fine. Has officially written over 1000 pages of creative works, collectively

I handwrote 570 pages/roughly 200,000 words (would have been more if I had less interruptions) and exhausted a 50 ml bottle of ink, Kaweco’s Midnight Blue. I also wrote with Troublemaker’s Freedom Park Rose and Wearingeul’s I Am A Cat, they were samples I had. I earmarked the bottle of Kaweco for Soaring, which I have mentioned in the past [link] and I wanted to make sure I would exhaust the bottle. The empty bottle currently is now part of the Seoul Queer Archive, as are the swatches used for Soaring and the custom inks I made at Dominant Industry.

empty bottle of ink, 50ml

I went to Paju, for Dominant Industry to make ink by hand. This is different from ordering from a bevy of swatches on Kiwi Ink, you actually sit there and make ink. I’ll talk about that at length later because I wrote a whole blog post detailing that but I recommend going if you like fountain pen stuff. But know some Korean first if you do, you’ll need it.

the ink swatches I made, both shimmer and standard the ink I made, both shimmer and standard

I went to Gwangju because book research, especially about May 18. I already saw the virtual versions of the exhibits at 518 Archive and a little bit of building 245 so I was kinda able to speed run the museums a little bit. They were already very male-focused, women only got a single I-guess-they-did-something room and dassit, so I didn’t want to stay for very long or I’ll start saying that – in Korean. It took about 5 hours to get from Seoul to Gwangju via bus so that was a trip and a half. We stopped at a rest stop, which I was a bit stoked about because I saw them in shows like “Human Condition” and “Running Man”. It was maybe a week into being in the country so I had next to no idea what I was doing. I bought some takoyaki and tried to not get left behind. I don’t fully know what rest stop we were at but it was bustling, I will tell you that.

Gwangju was pretty ok, I got a massive bingsu at 245 so that was neato. The city is one of the many, many settings in my book series so I wanted to do more than just see stuff about May 18 because I personally feel that focusing purely on things like massacres and such almost implies A) that place is dead (and maybe someone should take it over) and B) People from that place are only good at and for one thing and one thing only – dying. Orrrrr, you can just look at how Palestine is depicted in media if you need a modern example, notice they usually are in news and media: dead, violent, soon to be dead, emaciated, extremely dead to bits, etc. There’s a reason and it does affect how you see them. Almost implies that they brought it on themselves in, in oppose to someone doing it to them. Same for Gwangju, there are people still living extremely normal, boring, incandescent lives, just like the rest of Korea. The massacre is one part of their history but it isn’t all of their history and it isn’t something they brought upon themselves, it was something done to them. They also drive better than people in Seoul ;_; Much appreciated.

I wanted to make sure I got writing in but I also visited museums such as the Women and War Museum (I even donated an electric mosquito mat machine because there were so many down in the Vietnamese comfort women section, which is an outdoor exhibit), the North Korea Database (NKDB) art show, the Comfort Women statue in front of the Japanese embassy, and the Seoul Queer Foundation, where I bought stuff, talked their ears off and donated money. And I went to Olive Young. A lot. It was the first time I was somewhere where the colors matched my tone and suited my skin (once you avoid all the skin lighteners, which is a LOT) so I went nuts. I also saw that Wearingeul had a pop up at the Hyundai mall and got free ink there, as well as an in-store exclusive and the next ink I plan to continue Soaring in, Human Issues (also known as From Wonso Pond) by Kang Kyeong Ae. (Wearingeul has an ink series that names colors after Korean, Japanese and European diasporic books, might as well be relabeled “Korea and the Colonizers Book Series”.) I also bought things that helped my work a lot, such as a portable book prop.

Soaring is a sci-fi/fantasy alt history work that looks at the complexities of prejudice, such as intersections, but, more importantly: what if prejudice, such as racism and colorism, had a corporeal form and they can be seen, possessing others like a ghost? No one is born prejudiced, it’s taught and brought to life through thought and action. That’s what Soaring explores but on a global scale. From Palestine to Armenia to Togo, I’ve had to look at the histories of the 200+ countries that exists today. First got the idea when I worked at the Library of Congress back in 2014. It’s expected to be a series but the first book already has taken up three handbound journals that are 200+ & 300+ pages a pop. I brought five. I would say Soaring is similar to Ring, Shout but I haven’t read that work. The work will (hopefully) be out in 2035, at least the first book.

Doesn’t show the thickness but that’s 570 pages Stickers from DC Mart down the street where I stayed

A sample of the super rough draft of Soaring will be available in coming months, mainly as a proof of work and to drum up monies to go back to Korea for another 3 months (most likely Oct 2027) to continue working on it. Lots of human rights stuff but it’s not going to be wall-to-wall race/gender/queer trauma porn because who the hell wants to read that? I don’t. I am a reader of color and so is the vast majority of readers around the world, statistically speaking. It will still be a bevy of stories of people living and existing and marginalized people won’t be depicted as if they’re marginal but as people of the global majority, which is also factually true. They have lives and things happen in those lives, good, bad and historical. Not “they don’t exist until someone comes to save/kill them”.

I also super appreciate the sweet lady from Hong Kong who helped me down a steep, icy, wet road when I wore rocking horse shoes and I was struggling to not die all on my own ;_;

Hi! I’m not dead, I’m just working on a lot (or apparently causing chaos on Threads). To start, I was on this nifty podcast not too long ago, it’s the first time I was interviewed by someone in my hometown so it was nice to get local questions. The podcast is “… But Make It Books”

Watch/listen below:

“Reclaiming the Page”

I’m also featured in The Writing Fae, the questions were very nice and appreciated how thorough they were. Read it here

The Harlequin has switched narrators again, more details on that later but now is the time for WriteHive 2025!

WriteHive is the all free virtual writing conference that I paneled for last year. I’m back again, with WriteHive being July 11 – 13,  and here are the panel topics:

How to Recognize AI in Cover Commissions

(Sat, July 12 @ 10:30 PM – 12 AM EST)
Recognize AI in your cover commission and prevent getting scammed – and what to do if you still get tricked

How to Transform Your Books Into Audiobooks

(Sun, July 13 @ 11:30AM – 1 PM EST)
An hour long presentation on how to convert your books into audiobooks.

Breaking into Bookstores: The Self-Published Way

(Sun, July 13 @ 6:30 PM – 8 PM EST)
Indies can get into bookstores, learn how here

Be there or be square! The schedule is here

Because I have to prep for S. Korea [link], posting will be very meager. As aforementioned in past posts, I’m keeping things very low key. The only folks who will most likely hear the most from me are my doctors and my friends taking care of my cats and my car.

Recently in my city, the clown wagon arrived in the form of a poorly thought-out ball and convention. Think “Dashcon” but make it literary and forget the ballpit somehow.

I already mentioned my original feelings on Threads, but it got whining from the usual suspects: White folks.

Now, if anyone else wants to whinge, they’re free to but bear in mind several things:
– I’m actually from Baltimore. Born and raised here
– I’m going to act as if I’m actually from Baltimore, born and raised here – and have spent time around the literary community here
– I know the Baltimore Convention Center inside and out. As well as actual ball hotels. Yes, they exist.
– Baltimore is a very literary city. We have long histories about reading. Our football team is named after an Edgar Allan Poe poem
– I’m from the gothic lolita fashion community … we know how to throw fancy events. Regularly. For decades.
– Black conventions are reamed by White fans for even the slightest mistakes (Read: Dreamcon) so a White-focused dumpster fire should be treated the same. At least RDCWorld, the runners of Dreamcon, aren’t hapless scammers. They actually try.
– White tears have the opposite effect on me. I don’t sympathize, I vivisect viciously
– I’m not concerned about the feelings of people who would rather put their hand in a wood chipper than read something not White
– I came from the entertainment industry of music and I have ran events, this one had major red flags

Now, we can start the post good and proper.

During the weekend of May 2nd & 3rd, there was an event (that wasn’t promoted locally … or well – we’ll get to that in a second) called the Million Lives Book Festival. Held bafflingly at the Baltimore Convention Center – because the Lord Baltimore hotel or the Belvedere somehow weren’t available? Even the Central Library has been known to open its doors to fancy soirees. Or just dig through John Hopkins’ garbage pile and you’ll find a few. Those ethically-wayward, myopic megalomaniacs love their hoity toity. Helps them feel like the Ivy institution that they’re not. Hell, this could have been held at the Library of Congress, who are the epitome of “esteemed class shooting out of one’s derriere”. I should know, I worked there. Their main competitor is the British Library, the LoC is not going to just give the British Library something to titter about, it’s bad enough the LoC has to deal with the “American” part. Anything less than regal counts as “utter trailer trash”. The Library of Congress is dangerously allergic to gauche. (And sense but that’s a different post.) But alas, some dimwit thought of coming up with a Fantasy Ball at a place that isn’t really fit for balls. Conventions, yes. Balls, no. I’ve gone to Otakon there for many years, my school had my high school graduation there. I know that place inside and out so I recognized all the pictures and all the exact locations that they were. And how White the event (including the promo) was.

This event could have been held in a lot of bookish places. If the runner wasn’t a doe-eyed dimwit. I don’t think she actively tried to scam – but that’s exactly what it became, a scam. And she deserves to be punished to the fullest extent of all that can be thrown at her about it. Even her mouth-clicky apology was pathetic.

But, holy crap, is there a sucker born every minute.

Let’s talk about my city, Baltimore, for a while because there’s a reason why I’m this caustic. Well, reasons:

While I have a major slew of gripes, bones to pick, complaints and issues about the city I’m from (“Stalwart” was written for a reason), I will give credit where credit is due. Baltimore is a very literary city, we’re quite good at literature. There’s One Book, One City; the Baltimore Book Festival; the CityLit Festival – we had to actually drop a lit festival, the Baltimore Literary Arts Festival, I believe, back when I was a teenager because we already had so. Many. Literary. Festivals. We will shove Edgar Allan Poe and Fredrick Douglass any and everywhere. Laura Lippman shows up, she’s always around somewhere to the point that’s how you know it’s a literary event! She could be at the supermarket, strolling down the aisle at an Eddie’s somewhere, looking for the price of papayas for her groceries somewhere and even that would somehow count as a literary event by proxy. If she’s there, it’s a literary event. The current governor, Wes Moore, built his name on his book The Other Wes Moore. It is a very good book.

Also, cannot stress this enough:
OUR FOOTBALL TEAM IS NAMED AFTER EDGAR ALLAN POE’S FAMOUS POEM. WE HAVE ACTUAL RAVENS – the birds, not the players – LIVING AT RAVEN’S STADIUM. THE MASCOT’S NAME IS “POE”. AND THIS IS FOOTBALL. ONE OF THE LEAST LITERARY ADJACENT SPORTS EVER.

We are beyond dedicated. We really are the city that reads – including reading someone to filth.

Heck, I nearly bought F. Scotts Fitzgerald’s apartment down in Bolton Hill. (I hated the green carpet.) We’re a very literary city! Jill Scott has been to our open mics, the Boom Bap Society hosted Lupe Fiasco, we’ve had Saul Williams here. Slams are important here. Open mics are important here. Octavia Butler came here to visit and do research for her book Kindred. One of the few functioning parts of City Hall is the Baltimore Council of the Promotion of the Arts. Also known as “The people who run Artscape, one of the biggest art festivals on the East Coast [and it is free to attend]”.

When it comes to Baltimore and the arts, particularly the literary arts, we know a thing or two.

Actually, let’s pause with Million Lies for a moment and pivot to a real literary event that was a bust in my opinion, the CityLit Festival.

That was held back in April, because April is National Poetry Month. I have been going to the CityLit festival since I was a teenager, back when it was held at the Central Library. It has over 25 years under its belt … and it still sucked.

This time the event was held at the Lord Baltimore Hotel (which has hosted actual balls as part of its history), which is a hotel most natives here in Baltimore do not really pay attention to, outside of “it’s the place across the street from one of the Charles Street subway stops”. But it’s there and it is a very fancy place to be at, I must say. CityLit still sucked tho.

It was the second time, I believe, the CityLit held an in-person event after the start of the pandemic and also after the loss of their long-time event spot, the Central Library. Thus they had two detriments against them. Their previous location was the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (another place a ball could have been thrown). So, basically CityLit is currently leapfrogging throughout the city to find a place to stay. They’re now also without the mega marketing machine that the Central Library has and right after a historical, catastrophic mass sickness at that so they’re basically starting from scratch, despite a glittering 20+ year run. The room was small, the promo was uber limited, there was poor signage and the flow was wonky. No one really knew what was going on until someone found a roving volunteer. At least, however, there were helpful volunteers who knew what was going on. Even the person who ran the event, she milled about and listened to every gripe everyone had. Volunteers checked in to see how the book sellers at the tables were doing. There were tables, there were chairs, there were table covers, the very basics of what an event should be. Just not a lot of people, because they were busy seeing their favorite authors on the other side of the hotel and milling out the doors before they knew there was a vendor hall of any sort. If you traveled by anything more than a car to get to CityLit, you most likely took a loss. I made back my table and the uber I took to go there. I knew the event was going to be small, especially since I remembered CityLits of the past and the fact that this is right after a pandemic and the promo seemed on the limited side. That’s why I only took about 5 copies a title in a teeny box (which I also knew was a bit overkill, my math said to basically bring 7 books total. (Always calculate to bring enough for 3% of the projected crowd. If it is a brand-new event, assume only 100-250 people will show, no matter what the event runner says.)) I had enough space in my box for five per title in my small box, and the Zazzle card reader I use. Some folks brought a towering, ego-inflated amount of books that basically became ego-crushing when it came time to lug all that back to wherever they came from. Oh, and I showed up late and still broke even, I probably would have sold more if I was on time. Not much more but more all the same.

For what it’s worth, I could call the CityLit event runner on my phone, I have their number. And have called it. I’ve been to the address of the headquarters of the CityLit planning part of the festival, it’s on North Ave, near where I live. They were accessible, even by email. It was ran by more than one person. At least CityLit had logistics emails. Emails that had maps and icons and details about the area, including a protest and an evening performance at the nearby Baltimore Arena. Basically, all CityLit had to do was amp the promo better and make the layout suit the Lord Baltimore Hotel better, not Central library (because the layout was still with Central in mind as a remnant).

By the way, the CityLit Festival, just like the Baltimore Book Festival, Artscape and even the Baltimore Literary Arts Festival, was free. It was free to attend. Always has been. For those tabling, a half table of 3 ft had cost $25, a full table of 6 ft was $40. I got a half table because I wasn’t expecting much.

Notice all the low costs and this was for a free event that has ran for years? And I still held my reservations because I noticed limited promo and things were a touch henny penny behind the scenes. That’s my default, always one foot out of the door, even when I know the event well.

Oh, and several dolts on Threads said my take was “not a good look”. To who? Remember, I don’t have an interest in attracting readers that already do not read diversely on principal. I’m not worrying about losing readers obsessed with Sarah J. Maas, Neil Gaiman, J.K. Rowlings, George R. R. Martin, etc. Can’t lose readers you never had to begin with. My core readers are BIPoC and those who don’t need to see a brutalized dead body to justify cracking open Kindred. And one numbnut in particular said it was very surprising that I said all that I said “despite my content”. I don’t write romance and I never have. I also don’t entertain Standard White Girl Stupidity in any field so I have zero idea what content he is referring to. I don’t try to get readers from the SuperWhoLock crowd, they have even admitted they can’t understand books that don’t look like the fantastical retelling of Project 2025. I leave the Beckies, Susans and Karens to the most ineffable of storytellers and writers who solemnly swear they’re up to no good, lol. One big lovefest going on over there.

Moving on, the CityLit Festival sucked. I told that to everyone who ran the event and the people who sat around me. It used to be so much better and they need to return to that better immediately.

But at least it wasn’t this trash pile that A Million Lives was.

For one, usually book events reference the cities they’re in. At least Baltimorean ones do. Actually, many events held in Baltimore do. Otakon had a little teeny crab that would do fun things next to the red-headed mascots of the convention. CityLit colors are the colors of the city’s flag. Baltimore Book Festival has the city in the name. Even when I went to Multiverse, which is based in Atlanta, they had a shirt with the ATL skyline in fantastical situations, such as Godzilla and spaceships. A Million Lives could have been anywhere, they did not care. Probably part of the point.

For two, at CityLit, I saw Black people at the top instead of White Only. The people who ran CityLit were diverse … because we’re a 60-70% Black city. Anything book related held here that excludes us overtly or subtly is a joke and will be treated like one. The Million Lives event was ran by one person, one lonely White girl who should have stuck to penning books instead of showing how much of a walking problem she is. The choices she made were glaring. Not in hindsight but as part of How Things Were. That’s where my major lack of sympathy comes from.

One thing I have noticed about these ball events is that they are very White. Maybe some tokenization here and there so some hapless, clueless person gets to have their existence used as a human shield before they know it when accusations of racism and/colorism arises, but the entire thing has about as much diversity as a Republican social meetup at the White House. That will kill any sympathy I could have had fast. I already said it on Threads but I mainly only feel bad for any of the BIPoC writers and attendees because they got the worst of it, it seemed. And the one person who tried to get ADA. Otherwise, I’m hard pressed to find sympathy for the Fourth Wing reading bloc. I’m also certain this isn’t going to ding me readers, especially from that crowd because, as I’ve stated prior:

A) They would rather stick their hand in a salted wood chipper than read works featuring people who look like me willingly. Like I said prior, can’t lose readers who already avoided you on principal alone

B) I don’t write romance. There’s nowhere on my site, especially my bibliography, that says I do. I’m demisexual, it’s not my speed at all.

C) It’s Threads, the White people – especially the “I’m not racist, I vote blue!” ones – crash out so fast the nanosecond you treat them only a sliver of a pie slice of how they treat BIPoC

D) I remember how White women overtook the romance community and drove out Black originators, and how vehemently they defended and adored Gaiman, Rowlings and more, despite glaringly obvious issues (such as how Gaiman treated Orlando Jones). Oh, and when one White writer screws up … they go find a new White writer to replace them – who will also eventually screw up. They avoid anyone of any other race like death. Actually, a viral death of a Black person usually has to happen for them to even try anything but White. But it doesn’t take much to get deep-sixed, in their eyes, when you’re Black or any other person of color, but Black especially. And that deep-six will also have a knock-on effect for other writers of the same background, something that plainly does not happen to White writers. Not even the moron who ran this mess of a ball and convention, will get much thunder and lightning for what she did in a few months and it isn’t like other book events ran by White women – or White people in general – or White writers, indie or not, will be paying for it via dashed reputation/guilty by association. All shall be very “Ça ira” af. Just a bump. Dreamcon gets worse, even if it is their best year yet. CoryxKenshin has caught major heat for his manga Monsters We Make just for late delivery and simply not having copies available due to selling out so fast. Black DnD players got axed from line-ups and promotions just because Gabe James figured out how to even cheat in poly relationships (my ace self didn’t know that was even possible but, wow, it is) and it’s Dungeons and Dragons, the White people in that community have done way worse on a much regular basis but can walk away from it. The girl who ran this, Grace Willows, will as well. Heat of the week, flavor of the month, taste of the day.

For me, lack of diversity means the event has built-in problems. It implies unsafe environment, an event board that is terrified of accountability, just problems waiting to happen. The Whiter it is, the more suspicious I am of it. Because it is not reflective of the actual fandom. If the event is upholding Whiteness, they’re going to uphold other problems as well.

Once a friend of mine asked me to speak at a Pagan convention as my other blog identity, Black Witch. I had never heard of this convention before so I looked it up. The friend wanted me to basically cover BIPoC Pagan topics, because the convention is so White and she noticed everything, including the line up, is very blanche neige.

She’s not one of the convention runners, btw. Her husband, who is also a friend of mine (and White. She’s White-passing Latina), was teaching a lithomancy class at the convention. They’re friends of some of the convention runners.

Already the basis of everything was about to get an automatic “no” from me:

– I’m not being asked by a convention runner, just the panelists.
– The reason I’m being asked is because the event is very White and the runners have no visible desire to change that
– The pictures on the convention’s website were very explicitly White. You could tell people of color attended but the photographer and the person who posted these pictures (could be the same person for all I know) did all they could to not center or acknowledge the attendees of color, only White ones. That’s a problem. A happily ignored problem. And if they’re ignoring this problem, they’re definitely ignoring others.

I checked the site and noticed their safety policy was very dunder-headed and lacking. You could tell this organization hated problems it couldn’t gloss over or ignore. “No racism whatsoever. Everyone must respect everyone.” If it is a majority White event, that means pointing out racism or letting a White person know their behavior is not acceptable will also count as potential racism and ejection. For example, to shift just a little, if a trans person at a convention calls a cis person something nasty in response to the cis person saying something nasty to the trans person for simply existing, it is not the same thing. Even despite the fact both parties said something messed up. The cis person would need to be ejected because transphobia is real, cisphobia isn’t. The cis person could have ducked the fire if they simply kept their mouth shut. The transperson can’t simply stop existing to avoid transphobia. These rules need nuance for a reason and if I can’t find it then I’m not going. I’m a little easier on BIPoC focused spaces and conventions because they’re usually designed with that very issue in mind (well, Black centered spaces are). But! I scan extra hard about gender and queer issues as the next rung down, as a bare minimum. It reduces my chances of crappy experiences down by a lot.

One thing to remember is research. Research and be suspicious, especially if they are new or new to you. But definitely if they are new. Assume low turnout, assume flakiness until it isn’t. If they are new and serious, they won’t charge a mint of a price. They will be genuinely inclusive (as in many different people, visibly different people will be there. It won’t be pink flavored vanilla, rainbow speckled vanilla, plain boring vanilla marauding as spicy vanilla, etc). Yes, rules suck – until you need them. Not a fan of diversity? Congrats, you got what you deserved. If the person running the event is hard to reach, you leave after trying all you can to contact. Things seem to be unraveling? Leave. If they have no track record, you get suspicious. Even if they do have a track record, still always have a foot outside the door.

I learned that the one BIPoC panel they had was a disrespectful mess and that BIPoC authors were treated poorly. That mainly has been coming from BIPoC circles so that’s a problem, and part of why I don’t feel so bad for the non-BIPoC attendees. White women shafting White women (and women of color aspiring to be White) is a tale about as old as time itself. It’s basically thanks to their White privilege they can even get this far to pull off such a con. Whereas Black folks get to deal with hyper-scrutiny and can’t a hair be wrong. So, no, I don’t really feel bad for the non-BIPoC attendees because they got suckered by one of their own (yet again, it seems. This is not really the first time it has happened). These folks are usually so nit-picky when it isn’t White. Maybe should have used some of that nit-picky brain here, instead of resting on “sounds about White ”.

Remember, this is the same group that basically maintains its toxicity, I’ve very little to feel sorry for as a Black non-binary woman, including as a Black writer. This is the environment they created, thus this is their problem. My only issue is that they came to my city to pull this mess. Otherwise, this would probably be a post about the CityLit and how they could have been better, if even that. Very shortly after there was chatter happening about Million Lives did excoriating (and very anti-Black) things about Baltimore pop up. That’s a problem. This group likes to cry and flounce, that’s not happening here. Pony up and deal with it. That’s not victim blaming, that’s noting a very broken stairwell and its cruddy foundation.

When the event runner tried to get a Baltimorean bookstore (a White one because what else is she going to pick?), they responded exactly how I expected: they noticed they were dealing with someone who had zero connections to reality and logistics and smartly bowed out. And she still tried to implicate them. Like I said, we’re a very literary city, we know lit events. Also, we’re not a “fake it ’til you make it” city. You’re thinking of DC.

The event went so horribly that BCC security felt bad for them. Even brought personal speakers the con-goers could use to help things along. BCC security is usually super terse and very not caring. At all. See? Attendees got some special treatment, lol. Usually, convention security puts the B in ACAB.

About the Baltimore Convention Center, by the way:

– The lower floors are bald concrete because the event runner is supposed to bring their own runners, rugs and things like that. If they want, of course.
– There really isn’t a PA system there, a common gripe from Otakon goers. Either megaphone or get super social.
– The BCC would not just chuck away swag bags unless they looked like it was honestly trash, and even then they would ask. The event runner is lying because she already lied to implicate a bookstore, she will lie to push responsibility onto others. She already isn’t doing automatic refunds and who knows if she will refund all who asked for one at all.
– It’s not that the BCC can’t hold dances, I remember the raves from Otakon, but its clear someone – Grace Willows, this nitwit here – personally decided to not do her own homework and then blame others when things fall apart while also tricking the susceptible.

So, to sum it up neatly, A Million Lives is just one more example of how being dangerously stupid can lead you to making a scam. Dashcon, the Willy Wonka Experience, Blue Ridge Festival, etc. Willows, who pulled this not-at-all clever stunt, better get rinsed financially because she needs to learn that this is not acceptable at all. Ever. I feel only bad mainly for the BIPoC attendees and writers but that’s kinda all and even that is a bit limited. There were too many red flags that were ignored and “White is all right” isn’t a great way to discern if you’re going to be ok or not. Sucks for those who attended and vended but, seriously, use your head next time. Be as critical as you usually are when you spot a book that isn’t White-centered, lol.

Welcome to Baltimore, the city that reads.

I will be back at The Bottom for Independent Bookstore Day on April 26th in Knoxville, TN. Please join me and other authors for festivities celebrating independent bookstores. There will be super limited hand-sprayed edged versions of my works and custom page holders. As always, I’m happy to sign any of my current and previous works.

Also, I did a small podcast episode with them, be sure to listen – I’ve been on a few podcasts, there will be a round up post soon.

Coming up! Signed copies of The Harlequin will be available but I also will sign copies of my previous books!

This will be, currently, my last in-person event for the year, as I have to focus on going to S. Korea at the end of the year for Soaring, which I have talked about in posts past. It’s my first time out the country and my third plane trip in my life (first plane trip was in 2023) so I have a lot of stuff to learn and do. Like packing.

I have recently learned through the writer side of my personal fb account, and furthermore via rightfully outraged and upset writers on Threads, that Meta (formerly Facebook) has been using pirated work to power Lib Gen. Read more about it here. If you’re a writer with works out (including, and I’m not joking, fan fiction), check that link to see what of yours was scraped.

If you have discovered Meta has cribbed your works as well, fill out this quick and easy cease & desist from the Author’s Guild – DON’T do their “human verified” program, that has issues also.

I write sci-fi. I also have a science background, which heavily includes tech. (I build my own robots. I have a 3D printer. I own a VR headset. I worked at NIST. This is the short list.) AI is not new to me. The tech doesn’t 100% bother me – the greed does. The people do. It could help get rid of animal testing, for example, but instead, it’s scraping my stories, robbing my artist of clients and worrying my narrators of the sustainability of their jobs. It helps boil oceans and make talentless, deeply deluded people think they can actually create while doing zero work. (If you think you can write better than me using AI, one: the AI is doing the writing, you’re still doing nothing & two: the AI is trained on past me, you’re still trained on nothing except stealing lol Try getting a paper and pen and learn a skill.) It’s all a major abuse.

I’m miffed but I’m not as angry and upset as I thought I would be. For me, I already wrote basically this (and the issues surrounding it) in a work that will be eventually released, A.I. Rockstar, about a year or two ago. So I’m not super surprised. I’ve also been watching let’s plays of the new game “Split Fiction”, which sums up pretty completely the whole issue of AI in the arts – the literary arts, in this video game’s case. Also if you use AI to “write books”, just get used to being laughed out of a room by actual writers and artists. They’ll stop when you finally come up with something of your own on your own. But good luck selling anything once you get the “uses AI” rep. Even people who get mistakenly accused of it suffer, it’s worse when it’s confirmed.

Personally, I’ve never seen AI books net a payload of money, develop fame, the “writers” lauded, nothing. It’s not even a work that can be copyrighted so anyone can crib the work so what’s the point? Anyone who says they got rich from AI books is most likely lying – they already lie and say they’re an author, what would keep them from lying twice over? It’s like NFTs, but make it books.

I think people who use AI to make art, be it books, pictures, etc., don’t really get art. At least not the intrinsic nature of art. Art for art’s sake and all that jazz. They just see it as Just Another Get Rich Quick Scheme – But With Little Effort. Kind of like scratching off a lotto ticket … but this time with real, drastic harm on real careers. Lotto ticket scratchers don’t call themselves hedge managers, financial wunderkinds, nothing. They don’t call themselves “luck artists”, either. Nor do they get smug about what they do.

Times are hard, no doubt, but art shouldn’t be used as a fast-cash-dash grift. If you want to get into art, actually do it, don’t steal it.

I will be tag teaming with the Author’s Guild the best I can on this. You don’t have to be a member of the Guild to use their site or resources on this matter.

If you want to be a writer, actually learn the craft. If you just want to rinse unsuspecting people of their money and art means nothing to you, head back into NFTs and go find new people to rug.

I have a rollerball fountain pen so I can carry it around to fill out forms and stuff. I’ve talked about it at length here. I usually use my J. Herbin as an Everywhere Pen, it’s not for creative works, per se, but it’s for signing documents, writing notes, anything that suits the “do you have a pen?” question. I can’t sign a bank document in scented canary yellow with gold shimmer.

The Herbin is great as a pen, no real functional complaints. It’s not pricy so someone curious about getting a rollerball fountain pen wouldn’t break the bank getting one*, it’s a good starter rollerball fountain pen. The line is just too wide for me, it’s a fairly medium line (about 0.07mm). I prefer narrow, thin lines, 0.05mm or thinner. So, it’s just preference to me.

I have been looking casually for a different rollerball fountain pen, mainly to keep an eye on seeing if there is a fine line rollerball out.

And it finally happened, as the Kakimori. I saw it on JetPens and got it. It’s pricy af ;v; so you better not lose it and you better be sure you want to use it.

Herbin (Left), Kakimori (Right)

Since I got the Kakimori, it’s an amazing pen. It’s the thin line that I want, it comes with a twist style converter that holds three times more ink than the Monteverde converter. The Monteverde holds about .4ml (.5ml, it feels to me) ink, the Kakimori converter holds 1.5ml of ink, so that’s great for me, more capacity. It’s basically at half capacity of my TWSBI Vac700R, which holds roughly 3ml of ink. That’s wonderful for me. I have never ran out of ink in the middle of writing with my Herbin and I basically refilled it once or twice a year, if even that. The cap posts (it can be put on the back of the pen) on the Kakimori and it twists open, instead of pull open, which is what Herbin does. Getting used to how to open the pen will take a little bit of time but it’s a remarkably small hurdle to hop that’s a non-issue for me.

It’s brilliant, in short.

Just needs a roll stop.

The Herbin comes with a pen clip, the Kakimori comes with nothing so it will sprint off of a table top no problem.

A roll stop is, well, exactly that, a decorative thing that prevents the pen from rolling away. It stops rolling. ‘Das it. ¯\(°_o)/¯

There are some pricy roll stops out there but I already spent a lot of money on the pen itself so that’s out of the question completely.

Annnnnnnnd you can just use anything small as a roll stop so I opted for nail art cabochons. They’re small, designed for curved surfaces (the nail), can take a bit of a beating, etc. I settled on the Vivienne Westwood Saturn orb, because I like Westwood (I’m part of Gothic Lolita fashion so there’s that). I got a small bag of them for five bucks and glued one on with UV glue. Now it has a roll stop and one that looks like it came with the pen.

Glitzy, no?

I filled the Kakimori with Platinum’s Chou Kuro. It is an ink that has special cleaning instructions, it’s finicky. My Herbin was filled with Caran d’Ache’s Cosmic Black. The Chou Kuro is nice but it stains my pipette, doesn’t have any sheen (Cosmic Black has a little bit of it) and is a finicky one. It creates a dark line, that’s wonderful and exactly what I want, but I prefer a black ink that’s not going to make me feel like a scientist to prep, clean and use. I have a 3ml sample of it but a full 60ml bottle is $60 a pop. I’m certainly going to use all my Chou Kuro because I really do love the dark line (and it is more waterproof than Cosmic Black, which can look like smeared soot when water touches it) but once it is up, I’m getting a bottle of Cosmic Black. The bottle is interesting, it’s tilted so easier to fill.

The bottle is tilted, I love it. I really like unique ink bottles

Right now I have a sample vial of both. I’m not even bothering to use my sample vial of Waterman’s Intense Black, it is not intense at all. I will keep it around as a just in case I run out of Cosmic Black and I have nothing to replace it with.

I’m still in the “convince me” stage, however. If I get a bottle of Chou Kuro, I won’t need a pipette at all. If I get a bottle of Cosmic Black, it’s a good black ink that I’m already pretty happy with but water is not its friend.

Back to pens, the J. Herbin I have isn’t broken, it just wasn’t for me. However, I’m not big on mass consumerism and throwing perfectly good items away so I’m giving it away to my friend who seemed to super like using the pen for his book event and it’s fitting for his signature. He’s not into fountain pens so the fact its a rollerball and not a traditional nib should make it easier to use, even for a novice. And it won’t be heart-stopping if it drops because there are no tines to bust. If there is one thing that is important to me for dropping the money I do for a rollerball pen that I have to also buy ink for separately, it needs to be durable and reliable. Otherwise, I might as well get a Bic yinked from the post office and call it a day.

Here’s a brief show of the lines of the different pens:

See how, for my small handwriting, the Herbin looks blobby in comparison? As if I’m using a marker? At the time, the Kakimori was inked with a drip of Dominant Industry’s Duftrausch Rose ink (which is scented). I had gotten the ink along with the pen so it was all I had on hand. Now it has Chou Kuro until I run out of the sample completely, which probably won’t be a while.

I super like the Kakimori, it’s really great and I don’t have the lingering afterthought of “I wish the line was smaller” like I would with the Herbin. Instead, it’s a breeze to use and now I don’t have to worry about throwing away a disposable pen, because it sucks to have a pen that is really great – and then it runs out of ink so now you just have empty plastic in your hands.

*nota bene: I’m American. This post is coming out April 6, 2025. It is currently $13 to get a Herbin rollerball pen and $8 to get a Monteverde converter (because the Herbin doesn’t come with one)