Vacation Is Over, Now We Write!

An incredibly accurate artistic rendering of my Vegas Vacation.

I’m back from our Summer family vacation, feeling … tired! It’s a good tired, following a great trip, which is all I could ask for. This type of trip is fun to plan, with mostly full days and nights, as opposed to a sit and chill trip with plenty of time for thinking and refreshing.

I did miss that latter part, so I’m taking today to work on that and plan out the next few months of writing and reviewing here at The Pen Addict. I have a lot scheduled with upcoming pen show and pen event trips, planning for September’s Relay St. Jude fundraising event, and multiple product launches.

One topic always at the forefront, now more than ever, is how it is best to share with readers, followers, and listeners. The blog is great for direct access, or through the RSS feed. The Pen Addict Membership program has been a great success for additional content sent directly via newsletter, or private podcast feed. I’m around on Mastodon, BlueSky, and occasionally Instagram, but more as a consumer than a poster. Also, I do love a good Twitch stream.

I want to open the floor to you: what type of posts, content, reviews, and more would you like to see me dive into? I’m always looking for topics to add to the list, or other places to share. Feel free to leave a comment below, or reach out via email at hello@pennadict.com.

Let’s have a week!

Stationery in 2025: What are your plans?

It’s still holiday(-ish) season around these parts, but I did spend the weekend getting caught up on work. Shipping, emails, planning - all of that fun stuff. I wasn’t quite ready to jump back into the review queue today, but did spend some time brainstorming plans for 2025. What will my year in stationery look like?

Today, I want to ask you the same: What does your upcoming year look like? Write more? Ink more? Use more? Buy less? All of those things are on the table for me, along with fun and unique ways to accomplish them.

We will be talking about our plans for 2025 on this week’s podcast, and I’d love to share some of your thoughts and goals. One of mine is pictured above. What are my plans for this notebook? I’d be lying if I said I knew 100% the path it will take, but that is part of the fun.

Leave a comment below, email me at hello@penaddict.com, message me on Mastodon or Bluesky, and share something stationery related that you are going to work on in 2025.

After today, this week’s schedule will be mostly back to normal. Blog posts are back for the Review Crew™, and I have a full week of streams and podcasts lined up.

2025 - I’m coming for you!

Thank You Chicago!

Shawn Newton, hard at work at the 2023 Chicago Pen Show.

Another excellent pen show is in the books.

I had a great time seeing everyone and everything this weekend in Chicago. The show went well, I got see old friends and make new ones, and yes, I bought some stuff.

More on that later, as I have to get ready for Grand Jury Duty first thing Monday morning. That means I have no idea what my schedule holds this week, but I’ll update my status page if I’m able to fire up a stream or two. Normal blog posts and The Pen Addict podcast will happen, but maybe at different times than usual.

Wish me luck!