Americans throw away an estimated 1.6 billion disposable pens each year and for good reason: They’re uncomfortable and they perform poorly. My goal is to get you, my fellow writers, to change how you think about making marks on paper, to ditch that Bic. Designers have the Creative Suite. Social Media folks have their iPhones, cameras ever ready. You? You deserve a fountain pen.

Beyond giving a clear visual identity, giving our clients a distinctive brand voice is one of our biggest goals at 6AM. That voice becomes a huge part of their brand, shaping communication across all content, from social media to blogs to newspaper ads.

Creating great content can feel overwhelming. With the number of other businesses competing for your target’s attention, the impulse is to try and constantly generate new work and to make as much noise as possible. But not only is this counterproductive—the term “content overload” exists for a reason—it’s also exhausting.

One of the challenges facing content writers is producing work that’s compelling, but still earns measurables like clicks and retweets, satisfying clients and advertisers. On the one hand, you want to write entertaining and informative content, drumming up brand interest. On the other, it must be provably effective, with numbers to back it up.