Creating a Writing Environment

When you decide to leave your old profession for something new, unknown and completely different you spend a good amount of time really thinking about it and analyzing what you want. At least that is my experience. Opening the retail space required(still requires) a large investment of both capital and time and I tend to be an over thinker soooo.... I knew I wanted to create a space where people could go to try out pens before committing to purchasing them, especially when they are first starting to use or collect fountain pens. What I have been surprised to discover about myself is that so much of my desire to do this is based in my desire to create an environment where more people write. It doesn't matter to me what they write, I just want to encourage them to write. Stories, journaling, letters, cards, to do lists...anything, just slow down while doing it and let your mind connect through your writing instrument to the paper. I have the supplies to experiment with in my shop and a little desk to sit at to try them out. I have a very small shop but we have purposefully outfitted it in a way that we can partner with local organizations in the future and offer a space for writing. This really all started from the collectors point of view of what I thought was missing from the fountain pen arena ( being a shop where you can go to to actually get a pen in hand) but now feels like it can be so much more if we can build community around it.