I need to sand the nib of my charcoal pencil to get the angle more gradual, because as it is the tip narrows to a point a bit steeply and creates a slight curve. That’s why marks were ending up lower than I wanted, because when I tried to hold the pencil vertically the curved side was easier to brush on the paper than the flatter side of the tip.

This happened because I didn’t have a sandpaper block and used an emery board. The smaller size encourages me to use smaller movements and just quickly get the tip sharp rather than sweep it in larger arcs at a flatter angle for a gradual sharpening to a point. I can possibly fix it with the emery board but will have to be conscious of what I’m doing