Editing The Pen Addict 99/transcript (section)

== Journal Writing ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' And maybe it's fair. Maybe it's an unfair question. So in a world where Field Notes doesn't exist, okay, and you write. You write in journals. You use paper. You use different types of journals. And you're out. You're out. You need a new journal. You walk into the store, your local stationery store, and you see a whole shelf full of journals. You've got your black journals, blue journals, graph paper, dot paper, whatever. And then all the way on the shelf, you see, oh, my God, there's a journal with a wood cover. Is that the one you're picking out?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I don't know. I don't know. Maybe. I might look at it and think that looks cool. I probably wouldn't buy it. And I'll tell you the reason that I think it's different for Field Notes. One, I know that I love the product. All right. Two, I watch the video, see what goes into that production.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I don't know. Maybe not. But, so I haven't got mine yet.

'''Myke Hurley:''' However, from a design perspective, I think it may be one of my favorites. The way they look. I mean, obviously, every single one's different, so, because of the wood grain. But the idea of a wood, just, I think it looks really, really nice to me.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I appreciate the technical.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'll tell you why I think that all around it's going to be my favorite edition. Now, it's hard to say without actually having them, but I really love the way it looks. And it has that paper. Yeah. That paper, and the way that this looks, I honestly feel like it will be my favorite Field Notes edition. Now, let me tell you what I've done. So, it came out. I'm a color subscriber. I was like, okay, here it goes. I've been waiting for it. Video. I looked at the images like, oh, my God, that's amazing. Watch the video. Oh, my God, that's amazing. When I bought another pack. Instantly bought another pack. Gone on the rest of my day.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Later on in the evening, I was reading the page. Saw the paper. Bought another two packs.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, I will have five, three packs of this. I know I'm going to love this edition. Because the things that people are saying that are the downsides, which is that they don't close as much, is not an issue for me. It won't bother me. It's just not going to be a problem. The combination of the way this looks, the technical achievement and the respect and appreciation I have for that and that paper. I know this is going to be a massive, massive one for me. Because I know that Cold Horizon would have been one of my top, but something weird happened with the paper.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And I think it might have been the coloring. But the way they look, I love the way they look, but I just don't really like using it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, see, okay. With Cold Horizons, you know what would be a perfect addition for me? Maybe this is one of those, you know, get off my lawn moments. Because I'm old and stuck in my ways or something like that. But the Cold Horizons edition, instead of making that addition, you know what would have been my perfect addition, and I would have bought 10 three-packs of them, is if they took that same blue color and just did like a solid turquoise, like one of the lighter blue shades that they used. A white field notes, you know, logo on the front, white print, and then just had a grid with the same turquoise graph lines in there. That would have been, that's like my ultimate addition. So I don't need the fancy-smancy edition.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You're not going to get what you want, Brad, because.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I know, but I think there's some field notes. I think there's some field notes fever blindness going on with this edition.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I feel like there's an expectation now that they have to create something that is visually or from a production perspective striking. And so they have to continue to one-up themselves now. Which I, as a purchaser, devout, fanatical purchaser, love. Because I get out of it what I consider to be an incredible, unique product.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And in all honesty, buddy, if they were selling these as one-offs, probably wouldn't care so much. Because I subscribe, sight unseen, I kind of want a special product. If I just had a, I think that you may not be a color subscriber if you got a single block color every three months.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' No, I agree with that. And like I said, the technical part of it and the design part of it, this run will get more press than any other run ever. I mean, for a lot of reasons. Number one, they're bigger than they, field notes is bigger than they've ever been. But to the technical achievement and the design achievement that they did for this, it may go down as one of the greatest product designs of all time. It doesn't mean I'm going to use it. I will never use this book. I just won't.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm so surprised that we have come to a head on this. Seriously, I'm genuinely very surprised. I had absolutely no idea that was what you were going to say. I thought that we were going to run off skipping hand in hand towards episode 100, waving around our Shelterwood together.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Hopping through Shelterwood on our way.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I don't know what to say. I mean, I'm definitely in the minority on this one. But the way I look at it is, you know, I have stacks of field notes. There's a dozen, if not more. This is the 22nd release. There's probably 15 of them I would pick up to use before this one. Just off the top of my head. Easily. And it's not close.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So that doesn't mean, you know, but on the, if I was ranking them by design scale and beautifulness, this one might be number one.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Functionality for me, it's at the bottom. And that's what it's about for me. You know, for the functionality aspect, I'm not going to use this book.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm not crazy about the cover stiffness.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm obviously don't, I'm not a fan of lined paper. You know, I don't know what to say. If I, it will be a long time before I put the first spot of ink in one of these books just because I'm going to pick something else ahead of it because I'll enjoy it more than I will enjoy this edition.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Our listeners are really, really lucky that next week's episode 100. Mm-hmm. Because otherwise, the podcast would be over forever.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, we'll see when you get them. I'm sure you're going to love them. I mean, you, you know what? You ordered five packs of these. I ordered five packs of the Night Sky edition.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. I wish I had more of those.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I ordered five packs of the Drink Local edition.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I ordered, I ordered some extra Drink Local. I ordered like another pack of each, like one ales, one. Yep. And I'm happy I did that. I really wish I got more Night Sky. Yep.