How difficult is it to use fountain pens?

It isn’t hard at all. (You dip it in the inkwell, and you blot it with a blotter.)

The old scratch pens that you dip take a little getting used to, but not much. We learned to use them starting in fourth grade. The main thing is just learning how much or how little to press down so that you don’t spatter ink.

Those aren’t fountain pens, though. Dip pens do not hold a supply of ink inside them. They just hold what you can carry on the nib, like a paintbrush when you dip it in paint. A fountain pen has a hollow barrel that can be filled by one of several methods and keeps its ink supply through some considerable amount of writing. Those are as easy to write with as a standard felt tip or gel pen.

Real ink and a real pen nib do have a special feel, though, that some of us like much better than the throwaways.

@Jeruba Ah, thanks so much for clarifying. We were never taught that in grade school, but I always thought the look of them was so much nicer. I may just have to go back out and get it tomorrow :)

You can also buy disposable fountain pens. They are inexpensive and they offer a slight taste of the fountain pen experience (no dipping) even though they are not what you would call a fine writing instrument.

You also have to watch the speed of your stroke. They are way more touchy than ballpoint.

And the type of paper is a bit of a concern. Don’t get to “cottony” of a paper or it seeps.

Assume that you’re not going to be very good at it at first and then work at it. The improvement you’ll see in your abilities will drive you forward.
If that sort of art is for you, you’ll enjoy the process of doing it more than the finished product many times.

At first it will be fun, more like art than writing, but the newness will wear off and you will get tired of always having to go back to the inkwell.

Get a Waterman or Mont Blanc or similar. I have had mine for over 20 years and still love writing with it.

I love cartridge fountain pens. There is nothing as satisfying to write with.

When I lived in Germany, cartridge-based fountain pens were standard in school. You can also get a separate pen that will erase the fountain pen ink (with another pen tip on the opposite end, so you can write back over the erased section – which won’t take fountain pen ink any more).

In the U.S. though, when I’ve tried to get back into using a fountain pen, I’ve been stymied by the kind of paper typically available here. It’s usually courser than what I used in Germany and tends to bleed quite a bit. That makes whatever you wrote look really bad as the ink spreads a little outside the lines your drew.

So. Fountain pens good. Just make sure you get the correct paper.

They can also make your hand writing look better. I have terrible hand writing because of my Essential Tremors. But with the write tip it really improves.

I spent from first grade to sixth with inky hands, clothes, and sometimes face. The dip and scratch pens were a trial to sloppy people, such as I was and still am.

Might be fun to seek out a stationary shop that sells pens and will let you try different styles. I think the glass pens are fun and easy to adapt to, but are fragile, of course.

I write with a Parker fountain pen. It’s great, and since I write so much by hand, it saves me a lot of money.

Having said that, I am extremely picky when it comes to pens (and for the record, notebooks too); I like writing with certain pens, and not others. Pens that are scratchy will hinder my thinking process. There are a couple of disposable pens I do not mind using, but generally, I prefer to write with my fountain pen, and I get antsy if I leave it at home.

Dip pens are a bit messier, but hey – why not get one to try?

I used one for a while in Vietnam. In in my shirt pockets. Ink on my desk. Ink in my fingernails and finger prints… Cool to use – but the traces are difficult to deal with.