I love my Wacom Intuos tablet. I have a lot of fun with Adobe Illustrator and I really enjoy the finer control I can get with the pen. What I'm not loving so much is the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator. Almost everything else seems to be coming along except for the pen tool. Intellectually, I can understand the advantages of the pen function, but I haven't been able to get it to work for me. It is so frustrating. I do lots of tutorials and research but I'm not fluent with this tool and I want to be.

This isn't really a skinning article (obviously) but it seems the best way to get some opinions, tips and help.  If I there is a better category to place this, let me know.

This is embarrasing, but anytime I used the pen, the lines close off automatically and it's not as much like the pen.  I figured out how to change the pencil to not close off and just be like a pencil.  What about the pen?

I'm liking this blog:  http://veerle.duoh.com/blog/comments/illustrator_pen_tool_exercises/

It has some nice exercises and it's so pretty.  I'm still working on the exercises.