Some months ago, the person to whom I'd dedicated my book gifted me a stately black Sheaffer ink pen. Despite my loyalty to the silver one I owned of the same brand, which my brother got me for my 30th birthday, upon my request, my fingers took to this new implement unwittingly. Something about its width felt perfect, as if it were designed specifically for my grip. Alongside was also a bottle of blue Sheaffer ink. Until then I'd always had a noted preference for black, usually sourcing Parker's relatively inexpensive Quink. But there is a precious density to the pigment-like blue in the Sheaffer bottle. It transforms my handwriting, even my hurried notations into artful transcripts.

It was a package-deal kind of gift that impelled me to love this person even more. I realise as I write this that every little or big thing he has ever given me in the ten years that I've known him, from my first Moleskine to the goat leather satchel I'm currently using, has shared a common motive: to endorse and empower my vocation as a writer. This time around, his timing was impeccable. This pen became for me a magic wand that helped un-block my writerly voice; its liquid velvet ooze unclogged my brain. I started to write once again in my multiple books. I felt no longer intimidated by process, by self-doubt. I rediscovered the utter pleasure of articulating the written word with an unabashed fluidity.