Lilia talks about 'Weblog as a pen' : 

A piece I guess I have to cut out from a paper I'm trying to finish:

Weblogs serve many purposes. Like a pen could be used to write a diary, a novel, a letter to a friend, or just a shopping list pinned to a fridge door, weblogging tools can be used in a variety of ways. For instance, they can provide a venue for self-expression, serve as a community space or be used to publish formal corporate news.

That was my reaction on the whole "weblog as a genre" discussion. Do you study "pen as a genre"?

A little off the point but i enjoyed this piece 'penned' on his blog by a heartbroken friend - where he uses the fountain pen as a symbol of the creative potential of all relationship, and a reminder that it requires fresh refill for renewal.  An excerpt :

"What would happen if a pen were to loose its creative potential?
Is a pen capable of loosing its creative potential?
For a pen is but a tool...an extension of the writer, a means to creation.
But what if the pen had its own ability to express...Its own stories to create and tell?
After all each pen affects our handwriting. It adds its own characteristics to it. The manner in which it moves over the paper...the friction it creates...the flow of its ink.
The pen might flow like an ebullient stream...gushing through the pages, or it might be like a recalcitrant child...kicking and screaming its way across the lines. It might turn on the nib in a languid pose, indolent, as it speeds across...or it might take its time, in slow contemplation...mulling over each word...or laboring in the exquisite finish of each letter.
All come together to form the handwriting...along with the writer of course!
A personís handwriting will have its own consistency, yet each writing will carry the distinctiveness of the pen with which itís written.
However, what if it wasnít just an influence on our writing that the pen exerted, but also prompted stories within us to be written?"

This made me think of the pen as a metaphor (BTW - don't miss Dave Pollard's cautionary post on the use of metaphors).  Here's an excerpt from one of the few pieces i found on it :

"The pen also functions as a metaphor for self-expression. Not every written document is as momentous as a Magna Carta. People record their lives; they keep journals and write letters, invitations, notes; they "pen their memoirs." The ver to pen, meaning to record, to commit to paper, emerged from the noun pen, signifying a writing instrument, in the Middle English language. Again, the metaphorical meaning is linked to what the pen does rather than what it is.

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