A couple of years ago I got into making pens from scratch using a model maker's lathe. I mainly work in aluminium, brass, delrin or silver steel but do occasionally work in wood on a bead lathe.
It's fun mainly because a pen is mechanically complex enough to be interesting but also simple enough that you can easily design and make them yourself.
I'd encourage anyone even vaguely interested to give it a go.
I think the pinacle is probably Nakaya[1]. I've spent a bit of time looking at their designs just trying to work out the operations needed to produce them by hand. CNC or 3D printing could of course make something fairly similar pretty easily but that's not how they do it! ;)
Instead they have a group of retired old boys working only when the want to. Very simply and very, very carefully. True works of art.
Having said all that, if I was to write on paper I'd probably just use a Parker Jotter[2]. They're cheap, readily availible and I think they got the design just about right way back in 1954.
It actually reminds me of how Casio got the design of the digital watch just right with the F-91W