Editing The Pen Addict 121/transcript (section)

== Tomoe River Paper ==


'''Patrick Rhone:''' It's the Tomoe River paper. Yeah. Now. Is that how you pronounce it? Yeah. I'm glad someone cleared that up.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I keep saying Tomo or something. Or Tomo. Yeah. It's just like, it's just like moleskin. There's several different pronunciations. Yeah. There you go. So a few years ago, all our collective writing minds got blown when we discovered this paper. And it wasn't necessarily widely available. And now it's still not widely available.

'''Patrick Rhone:''' But it's a lot more available than it was.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It was at least accessible.

'''Patrick Rhone:''' Yes. Before it was almost next to impossible. Right. Unless you spoke Japanese and could convert dollars to yen in your head. Right. It just wasn't going to happen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So you have a very important thing in your life that you talk about all the time from a writing and pen and paper aspect. So why don't you tell us about your favorite Tomoe River paper product or products in this case.

'''Patrick Rhone:''' Okay. All right. So I've got three that I am actively using right now. But the one that kind of sparked my interest, got me on to this initially, was the Hobonichi Techo. I think I pronounced that correctly.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You did. I've gotten several corrections on that. And I still have a hard time with it.

'''Patrick Rhone:''' All right. So the Hobonichi Techo is a Japanese planner book. Very popular in Japan for a long time. A couple years back, they came out with their first English language version. Even that was hard to order at the time because while there was an English language version, the website was still in Japanese.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' There was actually a website. Someone actually made a website on how to order that product for English speaking people. Exactly. That's how difficult it was.

'''Patrick Rhone:''' For you, like a step-by-step. Yep. You printed off this thing so that you could have it next to you while you followed along on your computer. Yep. Unbelievable. And that's how I ordered my first one, by the way.

'''Patrick Rhone:''' But, yeah.

'''Patrick Rhone:''' But it uses the Tomoe River paper. Now, there's lots to like about the Tomoe River paper. First off, it is a pleasure to write on.

'''Patrick Rhone:''' It's very smooth. No matter what pen you're using, it makes the pen feel better. But it is especially good with fountain pen ink. It has taken any ink I have thrown at it. I have yet to find a fountain pen ink that bleeds through on this paper. But the other aspect about it that throws a lot of people off, I think, but that I love, is that it's very thin.

'''Patrick Rhone:''' But because it's very thin, you can fit a whole lot of pages. In the case of the Hobonichi Techo, I mean, there's, what, 400 and something pages in this? Yeah, it's 400. Yeah, and it's barely an inch thick because the paper is so thin. And so you have this combination of getting a lot of pages into a short amount of space on thin paper, but thin paper that takes fountain pen extremely well, no bleed through, and is not show through enough, especially when the page is turned on top of another, that it's distracting. Does that make sense? Yeah, totally. And so owning the Hobonichi really, like, just was a mind opener for me as to, you know, what having really, really nice paper can do. And for a long time as a fountain pen user, I thought nice meant heavy. I thought nice meant, like, oh, it had to be, like, you know, big, thick, 90-pound paper or something. You know what I mean? That's the truth.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I didn't think of it that way, but absolutely correct.

'''Patrick Rhone:''' Right. Like, you know, and so if I saw, like, recycled, deal breaker for me. If I saw anything less than, say, let's just say anything less than 24-pound, deal breaker for me. Right. I couldn't use my fountain pens on that. Just out of the box. Here we have paper that is incredibly light and incredibly thin but performs better than any other paper I have ever used with a fountain pen. So, yeah, this I use every single day. I keep a daily log using it. So, basically, I'm not only writing down times of meetings and things like that that have happened and taking little notes that way, but kind of tasks I've completed. It's basically just, you know, if I do something, I log it. And, you know, using my Dash Plus system, I mark it down. And I've kind of built in other little habits like making little sketch notes in it and things like that. And if you look for these things online, you will find, you know, people use them in all manner of things. It's everything from just a straight-ahead planner to, you know, to drawing books, to watercolor. Because the paper even takes, like, watercolor well. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. It's crazy, right? So, there's that. But, of course, that then got me into a whole Tomoe River paper obsession. And, basically, I can't stop myself. It's like with field notes. If it says Tomoe River on it, I must buy it. I don't – I can't stop myself.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, that led – you have the Big Daddy Seven Seas monster in the book. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

'''Patrick Rhone:''' Oh, yeah. And that – so, I got a grant to do a big book project. I'm not going to get into that too deeply right now. But this is a big book project. It's going to involve a ton of research, ton of notes, interviews, all sorts of things. I knew I was going to need kind of a big notebook with a lot of pages that was going to stand up to – that was going to last, right? But it was also going to be, well, you know, Tomoe River paper that I love. And so, when I saw the Seven Seas from Nanami paper, once again, it was like, okay, InstaBuy. Must have that. And that's become – I am solely using this one for a big book project. And it's performed like a champ. And once again, a ton of pages. I forget how much is in the Nanami. 480 pages.

'''Patrick Rhone:''' And this thing, once again, I'm going to – thanks to the field note ruler in the back of every field note, so I can tell you exactly how thick it is, assuming I can open to that page. What do we got here? We got – we got about an inch and a half thick for almost 500 pages. Yeah, that's crazy. That's just insane. Insane. And I'm going to need that. I'm probably going to order – need a second one by the time this is all said and done. Wow. So, yeah, it's wonderful. But the most recent discovery, the things that I've really kind of fallen in love with, and you're going to have to forgive me, Mr. Field Notes, I'm taking this out of my bag. But there is – I discovered on one of the pen blogs, I forget which one,

'''Patrick Rhone:''' Kernow Bookbinding and Leatherwork.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, yeah.

'''Patrick Rhone:''' I know what you're talking about.

'''Patrick Rhone:''' They make these little kind of field note – I don't know. I don't want to call it a knockoff. No, no, no. Really, because field notes themselves are a knockoff of the old seed and grain farm bureau books that came before them. Everything's a remix. Everything is a remix. And this is the back pocket journal.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Patrick Rhone:''' And the defining characteristic of these is the fact that they're like field notes and kind of feel, but they're made with the Tamale River paper.

'''Patrick Rhone:''' Sold, like, immediately, like, okay, how do I order that? Once again, a very strange ordering process that requires, like, directions. Yes. Because he doesn't have, like, a – Doesn't have a storefront. I don't know, like an online – A storefront, an online storefront, which in this day and age you can set one up with – well, I can't mention them. They're not a sponsor.

'''Patrick Rhone:''' But, you know, can't you do that with, like, one of those blogging software things that every other podcast in the world is sponsored by? It starts with Square and it ends with Space. Let me tell you a little bit about Squarespace. A little bit about Squarespace. A little bit about Squarespace.

'''Patrick Rhone:''' Like, you can set it up with, like, one click on Squarespace. Why he hasn't done that, I don't know.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Myke pressed F1 on his shoulder. It's integrated into his body. It just makes his mouth start talking.

'''Patrick Rhone:''' So, yeah. You actually have to go on Facebook, his Facebook page, like, check the stock there or something like that and then, like, send him an email and say, okay, here's what I want. And then he sends you – I don't – basically, he sends you instructions on how to order it via PayPal and you do that and it comes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.