You're considered an intelligent person. Thoughtful. Well-spoken. Urbane. At social gatherings in your local Bohemia, when you speak, people appear to turn slightly, to put down their tea — to listen. At night in your little bed, in your heart, you wonder if perhaps you have something important, something special to say. You wonder if you may be — dare you think it? A writer.

Dear and most hopeful reader, Monsieur Chariot has uncovered that the difference between a person with a great deal to say and a writer, is that writers have in common something of which the aspiring writer may have been — until now — entirely unaware. Actual writers, it may now be told, share a special device that allows their ideas to be transmitted: thrust forth from the darkest recesses of the mind to the vast, bright expanse of Le Grand Monde. A subtle blade with which the mad charge of thoughts can be slashed into sentence after impeccable sentence!

Critic! Authoress! Playwright! Correspondent! Bend your ear to my disclosure! You, who wish to march out into that great world, to slay a rampaging public with your wit, your wisdom and your insight! You, who long for the shining career as a writer! To you I say: Arm thyself! And not with mere words: Bah! But with nothing less than the Poet's Falchion! That Lexical Lance, that Bilbo of Bookmanship, that Semantical Sabre... The Quill Pen!

The Quill Pen

Hugo. Murger. Colette. Baudelaire. Poke any truly great writer and he or she will poke you back: with a Quill Pen! On the parchment of history, as in today's worlds of Bookery, Bloggery and Magazinery and what-have-you, the gentleperson who does not "quill" most surely fails to find any audience at all. You may be very interested to know that our Benefactress herself, that Grande Femme des Lettres Madame Joan Walsh, perched, as she is all day and all night at her magnificent escritoire in the dark and cavernous oak-panelled offices at Le Salon, tirelessly scribbles out her missives with nothing more — and nothing less — than an imposing ostrich plume Quill Pen in resplendent royal blue, a color discriminately chosen to invoke l'esprit de Vérité et Démocratie!

Yea, ne'er a jot would be writ by the noble novelist, the eminent editor or the peerless poet — were it not for The Quivering Quill Pen!

And what of you, Gentle Reader? Is your mind brimming with words, words and more words? Well then — without A Quill Pen, one might enquire, how do you intend to present those words, long-hand and on parchment, as required by Open Salon?

How To Make A Quill Pen

A High-Minded Endeavor Suitable to Creative Gentlepersons, Accomplished with Steady and Nimble Fingertips, as Illustrated in my Elegantly Tiny Paintings

First, pick a feather, the color and texture and origination of which resonates most profoundly with your person, your values, your politics, your artistic pretensions and your dreams.

Second, make a sloping cut with a small sharp knife to remove the tip of the quill.

Third, turn quill, cut side up. Insert the knife, scraping into the hollow by carefully levering the blade upward.

Fourth, on the scoop-less side, cut a straight slice in the barrel.

Five, you will notice a sloping aspect with a slit, and your quill begins to appear a pen.

Six, shape the nib by carving the corners on either side.

Seven, cleanliness, of one's person as well as one's nib, may require scraping.

Eight, sharpen by cutting at an angle from the top.

Voilá! Flèche! Coulé! Your Quill Pen is now flashing, at the ready, that you may correctly execute attack and parry! Thrust forth and conquer, brave little writer! Open Salon with the silkiest shiv — the Pliant Sword!