Fountain Pen Journey has Moved to Blogger!

Fountain Pen Journey has Moved to Blogger (and Twitter) - Why?

Welcome to blog No. 1 on my continued Fountain Pen Journey!

For those of you who are new to this Fountain Pen Journey and haven't seen my YouTube channel, I'm Rob. I live in the UK and have been buying and using fountain pens since July 2017.

Firstly, I need to say why I have moved to this platform... There are a variety of reasons which I shall give below.

1) Time
It takes roughly 3 hours to shoot, edit and upload a 20-30 minute video to YouTube - It's far too time consuming! I have other priorities right now, including studying for a Degree, but also those three or more hours I spend messing about with videos is time that I don't spend writing with fountain pens.

2) Quality
I've had more than a couple of comments on my YouTube videos about sound volume and lighting. Constructive criticism is fine, but quite honestly I've reached my limit with how much crap I'll take from individuals who don't even produce their own content.
To counter the production "problems" I spent a lot of money on a camcorder and microphone - and the results were actually worse!
If some people don't like the production quality, then bear in mind that this is a channel about fountain pens, I have limited resources, and I spend my time and my money making something for others to watch - for free.
So, no more videos.

3) My Fountain Pen Journey
I started collecting fountain pens in July 2017, but my YouTube channel runs several months behind this journey. The result? I've got lots of low-end fountain pens that I've still not used yet, but have already moved on to vintage pens. My Fountain Pen Journey doesn't tie-in chronologically with my YouTube channel, making production of videos and using the pens that I want to try out first very difficult.

4) I enjoy writing
Making YouTube videos is a far cry from writing. Shooting a video isn't as fulfilling as hand writing notes to be typed into this blog.

5) YouTube
So, with a mixed bag of comments on my YouTube channel, I'm not getting much back for the effort that I've been putting in. There's no incentive to carry on making content.
I want to promote the fountain pen hobby, especially in the UK, as much of the content out there is centred around North America.
YouTube fountain pen videos got me into these wonderful pens, but recently I've been watching my favourite fountain pen channels much less than I did at first.
This week, one of my favourite YouTubers (Matt Armstrong from The Pen Habit) announced that he was effectively retiring from the fountain pen community. Matt has various reasons of his own for doing this, and I sympathise with him. However, I shall be continuing with my Fountain Pen Journey here on Blogger.

6) Blogging (and Microblogging on Twitter)
Out of all of the various platforms out there, Blogger suits me.
I've written other blogs using Blogger before and I enjoy it. It's less time consuming than YouTube, but also for those quick insights into my Fountain Pen Journey, I am also on Twitter - Follow me on Twitter at @fountainpenjour


So what can you expect to see on this blog?
1) Fountain pen reviews!
2) Thoughts and observations about the pens and inks that I'm currently using.
3) Fountain pen news - I cannot afford to buy the latest Pelikan Limited Edition pen, but at least I can blog about its release!
4) A UK/European slant on the fountain pen hobby.

And to end blog No. 1 - I had to include a photo of a fountain pen!

It's only a Wing Sung 6359, but there we go...