Fractured Ink: Writing In Life's Chaos (audio)

Pens, diaries, and cases ordering my private life

• Diana Dirkby

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If you’ve ever tried to keep your creative life steady while everything around you moves, this story will feel familiar. We split our time between Texas and Alaska, and the distance between those worlds has taught us how to hold a routine, tune our tools, and still leave room for wonder. The secret isn’t a bigger checklist; it’s choosing what must stay the same and what can change without breaking the flow.

We walk through the practical side first: a Mac laptop for drafting, Scrivener to wrangle chapters and notes, and a Kindle Scribe that travels well for outlining and quick markups. Then we shift to the slower, analog layer that keeps us grounded when airline miles pile up. Handwritten letters with wax seals evoke the pleasure of a deliberate pace. A Clever Fox one-line-a-day journal turns vague days into proof of progress, a tiny daily square that cuts through the “I did nothing” fog. Those short entries add up, especially when a big writing push is on pause.

There’s also room for beauty. We discuss choosing a gold Scriveina fountain pen with a fine nib that writes closer to extra-fine, why that precision is helpful, and how a sturdy pen case protects it on short trips without the bulk of a whole box. Not everything needs to travel; some tools are duplicated across homes because habit lives in the exact layout, while others vary just enough to spark fresh attention. With another ten-day trip on the calendar, we set a clear start line for the next book in mid-November, confident that routine, not willpower, will carry us back in.

If you’re balancing two places, two schedules, or just too many demands, this conversation offers a practical way to stay creative: keep the hours consistent, let your tools reduce friction, and honor small daily wins. If this resonates, follow the links in the description, subscribe for more conversations about process and tools, and tell us: which habit keeps your creativity steady?

My Amazon Affiliate Links for products mentioned in this episode. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

1. Scriveiner Luxury Fountain Pen - Stunning Luxury Pen, Real Gold Finish, Schmidt Gilded Nib (Fine), Converter: visit https://amzn.to/4hFkUB1


2. Clever Fox One Line A Day Journal – 5-Year Memory Notebook: visit https://amzn.to/48RnKR2


3. Jankow Leather Pen Case Holder: visit https://amzn.to/3WxSsr8


My books by Diana Dirkby:

4. The Overlife: A Tale of Schizophrenia: visit https://amzn.to/4qCnVGc


5. Three Kidnapped, Three Siblings, Three Furies: visit https://amzn.to/4qCQCTk


#traveling #fictionwriting #scriveinerpen #fountainpen #diary #dailyroutine #chaos

SPEAKER_00:

Hello, hope you're having a great day. Um today I'd look like to talk a little bit about uh this theme I've already introduced about working in two places. Uh just remind you that uh my husband and I divide our time between Texas and Alaska. At the moment we're in Texas, been in Texas for a few weeks, and next February, the end of February, we'll go back to Alaska where we'll stay until October. So that's kind of the uh the pattern of it. So there are two obstacles to this. Uh I uh last time I spoke about it, I I spoke um about the advantages um that it's very good for the creativity. It uh because the two environments are so different, they make me realize that I can be many different types of person and still identify. Um both places are very pleasant physically, which is important, uh, but um there are some practical difficulties. First of all, uh such a long journey um it does present a certain amount of upheaval beyond just jet lag, and um you have to find a way to keep to your creative writing routine in the same way as you did in the other place. So uh my goal is to observe time-wise, exactly the same routine, doesn't always work. Um, I have a lot more errands to run in Texas because we have a bigger house, but um you know the climate's different, uh so um that affects how I feel when I go out first thing in the morning and so on. So it may take a while, but you can do it. Another thing about the creative writing part is that what do I need for it? Well, um I need a good laptop and I use a Macintosh, uh, and uh I now have my Kindle Scribe uh, which I'm going to use as a companion to uh my creative writing. I'm beginning a new book, which is very exciting, and I'm going to use the Scrivener app and the Kindle Scribe to organize that book and organize the notes about that book. So those can come back and forth, but very important to me, as you will have picked up by now, is how I organize my um my life when I'm not doing the current creative book project that I want to publish. Now I love writing, and even working hard on my book to be hopefully published, I still crave writing. So I have a lot of products um to do with writing that are far away from the digital world. That's what I kind of seek. I seek to construct a world that I love outside my creative writing project that um is free from the distractions of the digital world. Now, obviously, I can't put in my baggage when I go between Alaska and Texas everything that I want. I mean, the plane wouldn't get off the ground. So I'm in the situation of having to do without certain things uh that are not in the place where I am, but maybe I have something that substitutes, and then there's the things that I really do need, it's not just something that I can uh not do for five months, and uh I try to find a product which is fulfills the same function as the product that I have uh in the other place, but is somewhat different. Okay, so it's kind of not not a waste because I actually have something somewhat different, but there are some things that I really want exactly the same thing. So one of those is um a diary by Clever Fox, and it's a very unique kind of diary, although it's not the only one on the market, but uh Clever Fox is a brand that I like to stick to. And you can get it at Amazon, and I'll put the affiliate link in uh the episode description, and as an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. So the nice thing about this diary is it's called the one line one line a day, one line a day journal. And I've found that I really need it now that I've started to use it, because I also advocate uh keeping a much more comprehensive diary, that's many more than one line in a day. But I've noticed that with this diary, I always find something in the day that when I come to write it down, um I realize I've achieved more than I thought. You know, um, a lot of writers grapple with this feeling of going nowhere. Um, and I find that with this diary, I may not always be going somewhere with the creative writing, but I am going somewhere with my life, and it's usually at least partly related to my writing project. So the I have one in Alaska of a different color, so that was the only concession I was prepared to make, and it's actually a little more than uh one line a day. So you'll see the ink there, okay, and then that gives you the size of the space that you have to write in. So it's more like five lines a day, but um, it's not much, and you can find time to do it. Now, I like to write letters by hand and use wax seal stamps and all those things that you've seen in my other podcasts. This kind of old-fashioned writing world where you go slow and you savor is what I crave when I'm not doing the uh writing project to be published digitally. So I love the Scrivina fountain pen, and I have already done a podcast on the rollerball pen, but in Alaska I also have um a medium point and a fine point. So I wanted something different in Texas. So what I went and did was I bought this nice luxury version of the Scravina fountain pen. You see, gold, it's gold, so uh it's uh covered with real gold, okay, and it looks beautiful. And I went for the uh fine nib uh version, but it writes more like an extra fine. So if you're seduced by it and you buy it, bear in mind that the nib may be a little bit more fine than you expect. I find it's writing beautifully, and I'm not having any smudge marks, and it's very, very clear because it is a fine nib, and it's just a pleasure to pick up and use because it's so beautiful and it writes so well. So I'll I'll leave the link to that in the episode description. Now, and um you may say, why didn't my scravina fountain pen come with me from uh Alaska? I mean it's a tiny thing, right? The main thing is I don't want the scravino pen to get damaged. And you know, with the Macintosh lap lap laptop and the Kindle Scribe and my iPhone and all the things that I'm putting in my uh personal item for the plane, I don't want to risk uh damaging uh my fountain pens. But if it you're just going on a short a short trip, as I will be actually next week, you can get this nice fountain pen cover. Okay now I'm reaching for my iPhone because I always forget the name of it. I have one in Alaska 2 and it is the Jane Co. J A N K O W. J A N K O W. Pan case okay. So it has a little loop inside for you to put your pens and it's strong. Okay, and there's the scravina pen inside, so rather than having to carry the whole scravina pen box, I've just got to carry this thing, and it does up with a really strong zip, and there's my fountain pen, all protected for my short trip where I won't have as much stuff, and I can put it somewhere where it's where it's safe. But I'm so glad that I I got this um golden scravina pen. It's just beautiful to write with, beautiful to write with. So you can have a lot of fun uh with that, even in one place. If you want to kind of collect an item that you like, like uh like fountain pens, you can have fun doing that. And uh I like to go to Scravino, but there are of course other other uh manufacturers of fountain pens uh that uh that compete. So I'm going on pretty well with uh getting my creative writing up and up and running again, except that I I have a trip of about 10 days coming up. So uh my work on uh the next book will begin after that. So it'll be about mid-November. And uh I'm excited about it, and I'm excited about um talking to you about it when I do my podcast. Okay, so that's it for today, and I hope you're all doing well. And if you're listening to the audio version of uh this podcast, um of course you can't see the things that I've shown you, but I will have the affiliate links in the episode description of those audio podcasts also. And as an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases, and so you can just follow the link I have in the episode description, and that will take you to the page of the product on Amazon, and you'll be able to see what I mean uh um in my description. Okay, okay, guys, bye for now. Don't forget to subscribe, please, like, and uh comment. Okay, bye.