Tools for Telling Your Stories
Posted by Connie Constantine on 16th Oct 2025
Tools for telling your stories:
Here are lots of the things that I find helpful with my writing. Once again - no rules, do what works for you!
This might be a bit technical, but these are the things that I use. Use the things that you love and make it fun!
When it comes to recording memories and information the tools you use can be very helpful to remove a level of friction from the process and even bring some joy. Having a system based on tools that work for you is key to making your process successful.
Do you write with a pencil or a pen - pencil, mechanical pencil, ballpoint, rollerball, or fountain pen? There are many ways to write. Do what feels best for you. It might change day to day, or within the day. Karas pens write like butter, either the fountain pens or the rollerballs. I use them both for different things.
Digital is another way - either by writing on a computer or tablet, or following the oral tradition and recording into your phone. Do whatever feels right at the time.
Pencils - My favorite pencils are made by Blackwing. They write amazingly smoothly. Blackwing has a cult following with a long history. I still have 2 Blackwing (Eberhard Faber) 602 pencils from my time in boarding school. The artistic girls all used these and I wanted what they had. The Masters School bookstore didn't discriminate, fortunately. I was more a writer than a drawer and these work well for both.
Steinbeck used them, Looney Tunes was drawn with them, Sondheim used them. There are lots more to discover. Now you can use them, too. They come in 4 different hardnesses, all with their signature replaceable eraser.
Here is a link to The Blackwing Story.
This is what we wrote in our support for Blackwing:
This mother/son pair started Abino Mills 20 years ago when we decided that we wanted our house etched on glasses. It turned out that many other people were interested in this as well. This expanded to lots of design and etching those graphics on different kinds of glassware and crystal. Our etching is a way to tell stories - be it with houses, monograms, recipes, favorite places, or whatever you might think of. Our focus has morphed into other ways to tell the stories.
Storytelling is core to what we do and we help other people tell their stories. We want to make it as easy as possible. Blackwing is key to this! The replaceable eraser, the rectangular ferrule, the smooth graphite all help create a magical writing and drawing experience. My 602 pencil from 1965 holds memories and still smoothly writes those stories. Holding a 602 pencil invokes those who used these pencils before us - my mother/grandmother, John Steinbeck, Chuck Jones, Stephen Sondheim, Vladimir Nabokov, Charles & Ray Eames, and Quincy Jones, to name just a few. Use the best tools that you can find to insure the richness of your stories.
Karas Kustoms is a machine shop in Mesa, Arizona. The workers there decided that they wanted really nice fountain pens, so they made their own and sourced really smooth-writing nibs of different configurations. I use a number of these with different nibs and different inks. Make it fun! Use the pens that make you want to write and switch out the inks, as well.
We offer an array of Noodler's Inks. My favorites are Baltimore Canyon Blue
and Lexington Gray
and Black Swan and English Roses.
Check out our website for all the colors of Noodlers that we carry.
The notebooks that we use and sell have paper that is as smooth as silk.
The Rhodia Goalbooks give you a calendar, table of contents for organization, and lots of space to write from your heart. The paper is really smooth and takes the Blackwing pencils, a Karas rollerball, or a Karas fountain pen, or all of these.
The Lochby notebooks are sized for their folios with multiples for different subjects fitting in the folios. The folios are set up to hold 4 notebooks and have ribbons for bookmarks. You can also add more ribbons. I prefer the dot grid paper. It gives me an idea of where to write, but doesn't yell at me when I go off the line.
My favorite Lochby set-up is an A5 Field Folio with A5 notebooks for different subjects. It is easy to carry, especially with its carry handle, and holds whatever else you need - pens, pencils, my iPad mini, and my phone.
I use multiple thin notebooks for different subjects. I do seem to spill over between them, however, as the ideas spill together. Multiple A5 Lochby notebooks will fit in the Lochby A5 folio.
I always keep a blotter paper in mine, as well. I also use a B5 Field Folio with the larger B5 notebooks. I use these for genealogical research and writing up what I find when I am searching for my dead relatives. There are lots of stories there to be discovered and added to.
My wallet is a Lochby Sidekick Wallet with a tiny notebook, which is always there to accept any thoughts or market lists that I might need to make note of. I always keep this with me so that those fleeting thoughts don't have a chance to get away. These notes in this photo are about memories from my children's childhood. There are lots of fun stories there that need to be written. Keeping these notes will remind me to do just that. I find that I use this often and recommend keeping this or some kind of notebook/pen combination with you at all times. These give you the ability to jot it down when the epiphany comes.
Make it easy, so you will do it!
Bring joy to the process!