You smell you writing.
...well when I have a TON of pencil on a page it just smells bad..
Like, if I have a hard worksheet with tons of questions on one page there are scribbles, answers, and erases EVERYWHERE.
You're either applying to much pressure or sharping them too much.
Personally I prefer wooden pencils over pens, And I don't really like mechanical pencils.
Hmm... I say pens are good unless you need to erase stuff, then mechanical pencils are awesome because they don't dull (always sharp), if they break you can click a button and it's back, and as in OP wooden pencils are stuff.