Editing The Pen Addict 399/transcript (section)

== Pen Twins Discussion ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' What's, it just hit me when you said what pen you were using. How many occasions have we been pen twins? I guess a few times. We bought the Clear Sailor King of Pen together.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, so we bought that one literally together. Literally together. And then you realized the mistake that you made and bought the 1911 King of Pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. But we don't pen twin that much. Not that much. Now that I think about it. Not that much.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, yeah. Well, it's because I tend to go down these rabbit holes more than you do. Yeah, for sure. And I guess this isn't counting the stuff that's, like, really easy and much cheaper.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure. But let me guess what paper you're using. Are you using the Pano book?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, of course I am, man. It's the only notebook I use when I'm here, right? Like, when I'm talking to you on the show, like, this notebook is perfect. But other than that, like, I do use other things. Like, I use my Nanami Crossfield. I obviously use my Theme System Journal, right? Yeah. Like, there are other notebooks that I use. But this is, like, a notebook fit for a perfect purpose. I actually need to buy some more of them. But, like, it works so great for this one thing that I'm doing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, so, like, I relocate when I podcast. So, I bring whatever I need with me. I don't, where I'm recording this podcast at my house. Like, it's not at my desk. I don't have my stuff around, you know, my microphone and where I record in a more private area. So, like, I can bring in whatever pad I'm digging that week. So, yeah. But I get it. Otherwise, it'd probably be the Pano book or, like, the Nock A5 Spiral. Like, those are my, those, that's, like, the other notebook that's open on my desk along with, like, my William Hanna notebook.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, like, this leads up to some thoughts I've had recently about using stuff. And this is a long-running, I don't know, dilemma. I don't think that's the right word. Challenge of mine to where I want to capture the things I use because I use a lot of things and I really love them and I have things to say about them. And then to take that a step or two further, I have thoughts in my head that I need to get out. So, my, the dalliances I've had in the past are where I've tried to do, like, a pen log. Like, every time I switched writing instruments, I'd log it in the drafts app and then shoot out a tweet, right? That last, like, about, I think I did about 50 entries and then I just stopped. Like, I was like, oh, this is a good idea. Like, I can, I like, I guess the overarching thing before I even get to that part is I like to share things, right? This is why I'm of the internet, right? I like to share things because the sharing of things can then lead into discussions of more things of and have conversations with people who are interested in those things, right? So, like, it's like a, I don't know, it's like an unwritten kind of process thing, right? So, you share the things you like and then you can have conversations with other people about those things. So, that's like one of the positives of the internet.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, I've tried to do this in different ways. I've written these down in notebooks in the past. I've either taken a field notes or some other notebook. I mean, maybe a Leuchtturm, like A5. And every time I'd switch, okay, I'd log it in the book. And, like, that's pretty tedious, right? That every time I switch something for someone like me who sits in front of a desk where you can't even see the desktop because it's covered in stationary, like, the individual cutover is pretty tedious for me.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, nothing's ever worked perfectly. I don't know that anything will ever work perfectly for my logging of the products I want to use. So, I've tried to go a little bit different route. Mainly because my head's in a really busy place right now. And, like, that's okay. Like, I don't mind it. But I need to kind of unclog it. You know, I need to have a little bit more expression of how I feel or what I'm thinking. And then, on top of that, use the awesome stationary that I have, you know, at my arm's reach. So, I've been reading a guy named Warren Ellis. And I'm sure some people will be familiar with him. He's the creator of Castlevania on Netflix. He's written a lot of comics and novels. I did not know who this person was. Like, are you familiar with him? Yeah, I am, yeah. Okay. So, I did not know who Warren Ellis was. And somehow, I stumbled on, like, one of my RSS search feeds caught a post of his where he was talking about writing in a field notes notebook. Okay. Like, that was my first introduction. I was like, oh, this guy uses field notes. What does he do? And then, he just started basically a train of thought group of blog posts, right, where he would just literally say, I'm doing this right now. I'm doing this later today. My inbox is stupid. I owe somebody a script. Have a nice day. And it would be, you know, like, 100 words. And he didn't publish. And they'd usually have an image. Like, he's big into music. So, like, such and such shipped me a record today. And I'm going to go play it. And it'd be an image. And that was, like, the entire post. And it's just over and over and over again. Now, everything he was saying, like, resonated with me. Like, these are the same things I have in my head during the day that he's writing down. And publishing them. I was like, huh. Like, I'm getting so much out of every little 100-word post that he posts. I was like, I feel the same way as this guy does. So, maybe I should try to write those things down as well. But I didn't want to do it digitally. I didn't want to create some random timeline blog out there. So, I just started writing things down in a notebook. And I was like, that was cool. You know, like, this doesn't really, like, theme system. Like, I'll go ahead and address this now. That's reflective. Right? The way I use the theme system journal. That's end-of-the-day reflection.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It may be a different thing. Like, it may be a little more personal. There might be stuff in there that you don't necessarily want to. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. So, this is more of, like, what's on my mind this second that I just want to write down. Like, it could be a song I heard. It could be a quote. It could be something stupid about my shoes. Like, which I wrote this morning. You know? But that helps me. Like, it's a benefit to me. It may not be a benefit to anyone else. Um, so it's, this is a very, like, selfish thing that I'm posting. I've decided, so, okay, so the notebook thing, like, I enjoyed writing the things down. That's where I started writing them down. And then that morphed into, well, I want to catalog these daily more like Moran Ellis does a blog post. You can refer back to the blog post date and see what happened on that day. Like, so, what's the thing that I like the most that's really good for breaking down into single days? Well, a note card. Um, I have Stacks and Stacks. It's one of my favorite products in the world. Just generic note cards. You can use anything for this. So, I was like, well, let me take one card. And when I sit down to work in the morning, it's not like right when I get up. It's like after I've been settled in in the morning. I was like, okay, I'm going to work. But usually before I work, my head's just cloudy. Right? So, I'm going to do this one thing in the morning. So, I know a lot of people use a thing called morning pages. This is, I feel like it's kind of different than that. But it's just kind of where my head's at before I start my day. And it's usually nonsense. But it serves two purposes or probably three purposes or more. It allows me to get things out of my head that are not necessarily work related. Right? They could be fun or they could be anxiety related or something. You know, just something I want to get out. I get to use my stationery. And then as a side effect for that, it's, I'm not going to lie. It's content I've created that I can then share for people to interact with. And then we can have more conversations. Right? That's not the intent going into it. But it's a result of doing this. Like, it helps with that. But I have thoroughly enjoyed, I've only been doing this a week. Next week, you might talk to me and it's like, yeah, I'm done with that. But it feels good right now because I like, if you didn't know this, Myke, I like talking. And when you work for yourself, when you work for yourself, you don't often, in your house, you don't have a lot of people to talk to. Right? So, you talk to the internet. And this is a way to, like, share more thoughts and feelings. And then share more stationery. Oh, I like that pen. Oh, what's that note card? And it allows me to be a little bit more creative. It's like, oh, maybe I can set up a picture differently or whatever. You know, who knows where this is going to go. But then now I'll have a daily log of these little cards. So, now my next step is to figure out how I'm going to store these cards. Because right now they're just in a stack. But yeah, this is, like, one of those things I clearly don't know how to explain in words. Because I've said a lot. I don't know that I've said anything. But that's just kind of how my brain's working these days. And I like doing it. Like, it's fun. It's helping me talk about other things than work sometimes. And that's super enjoyable. Like, you need that, right? You can't just do all the work all the time.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' They're very aesthetically pleasing Instagram posts to me. I can tell that you work on that, which I appreciate.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. So, like, that's another thing. It's like, you know, I've always said I'm, like, not good at photography. Like, I have a good eye, but I can't necessarily execute. And not that this is going to make me better. But if I can at least do it every day. You know, I may not do it on the weekends. You know, I'm getting ready to travel. I may not do it while I travel. But I can do it more times than not. It's only going to benefit, like, me figuring things out as far as that goes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think this is a really nice thing to do. It was funny because I hadn't recognized that you were doing it. You know, we can thank the algorithm for that, I guess. Sure. I am much more of a check-in-on-stories person than the grid person. Like, if I'm going to Instagram, I'll check stories first, grid later. Yeah, because, you know, that's defined. The stories is going to be there. I think you should also post these two stories. You know, you can share an image to your stories.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I probably should. It'd be a good continuation thing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think you should do that because then you can also save them as a highlight. So people can just go through every single day if they want to. That would be my recommendation to you. But it was funny because Idina just morning told me, Oh, I'm really enjoying these notes of Brad's writing. And I'm like, what? So that was how I found out about it. Yeah. But yeah, I think that this is a very nice thing. You know, I will, having worked with you for as long as I have, 100% attest to the fact that you very frequently, like, have an idea like this and then stop. Right? That is definitely something you do. Yeah, for sure. I would like to see you continue this. Yeah, me too. Because it is a really nice way to show off this stuff. But also, these are just aesthetically pleasing posts that people will just like on your Instagram because they look nice, even if they're not reading what's going on. And I think that if you have a way to generate content that people want to see, then you should do that because that is your role as a content creator. Hashtag.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Hashtag. Hashtag content. Hashtag. Yeah. It makes me feel good. Good. Like, that's the bottom line. Like, I enjoyed it. Can I read this one little post that I saved from Warren Ellis? This was only like three days ago. Yeah. Like, this is a perfect, this is like a prime example of what I'm talking about. And every day is like this. So, this was like from the 23rd. He says, the day after my birthday, I started keeping a written log of what I do every day. Even after only a week, it exposes that even on the days I don't think I've done much, I do a lot. It's just that slews of emails and AV and document processing and calls don't feel like the actual work. I need to remind myself that these days, it is, in fact, a big part of the actual work. As of today, I've also become one of those people who logs their water intake. I'll tell you, this bio-maintenance stuff is some stuff. He doesn't say stuff. I should have been sideloaded into a new body by now. Kemper Norton just sent me his new record. I'm off. That's it. Like, there's so much in that like 100 words. And it's like that every day. And I'm just getting like a real benefit from reading that. So I'm trying to not copy him, but I'm trying to execute some of the same ideas that he has. He's like, hey, I'm talking about work. I'm buried. You know, by the way, I need to drink more water. Listen to this music. Right? It's like this really weird Mad Libs type thing. And for some reason, it works for me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Then you should carry on doing it. Right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Carry on up the charts, Myke. That's what I'm going to do. Good.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Whew.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's funny. It's like, I wanted to talk about this, but I didn't know what to say. Yeah. But that's kind of my thing. I'll just start talking and we'll see what happens. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Why not?