Furrow Notebook: A review.

This is a little bit weird.

So, my first post brought you the epic tale of how I came in a roundabout way to have a duck, and the sort of humorous way that I dealt with not knowing how to cook it. 

This installment brings you the roundabout way I came to acquire a prototype notebook. To clarify, this is a physical book with paper pages, not a laptop as most people assumed when I said "notebook", perhaps my vernacular is outdated. I should consult some local youths to aid in updating my vocabulary. But I digress. And my subsequent review of that book. Maybe not the most exciting thing to write about. Certainly, it's no Prison Planet Escape Tactics (coming soon), but I'll see what I can do with it. 

Anyways, to cut a long story sort of short; I am a colossal nerd, in all ways. As in, I like things most people would consider to be nerdy, and I tend to go way overboard on the nerdy things that I like. To demonstrate, here is a picture of a Carnifex that I assembled and painted so that I might crush and devour the living organic material of Space Marines, or Orcs, or Tau. et cetera, ad nauseum. 

Nothing screams excitement like a 10/0 sable paintbrush
and several hours of hyperfocusing your eyes

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, it's ok, that just means that you're normal and probably really shines a light on exactly how nerdy I am. 

The most recent focus of my nerdy obsessions has had to do with writing instruments, a mainstay of most nerds, but specifically, fountain pens. Which are amazing, but not the focus of this entry so I'll leave off on geeking out about them for now. But, due to the relative rarity of information on fountain pens, such as care and maintenance and things of that nature, I found myself joining several message boards and online communities in the interest of enabling my newfound obsession. And on one of these board I found a post calling out for product testers. This is how I came to participate in testing a notebook produced by new company: Furrow Books.   The books, which are not yet in production are the project of Aaron Zeller of The Zeller Writing Company, who aims to produce " unique notebooks made in America out of quality and sustainable materials which allow for fantastic people to use any ruling that they wish at any point in their notebooks through its versatile ruled insert cards." 

Much more excited than I probably should have been, I opened the package to reveal my spoils. And got together my favoured tools of stationary destruction:

The stamp is the only branding on the book at all
a very nice touch if you ask me*.

Ruler is for scale, the book comes with a sheet that is ruled on
one side and graphed on the other, rendering the ruler useless.

Graph on one side

Lined on the other.

The red blotches you see everywhere are because in my ridiculous enthusiasm I twisted the piston on the back of my pen, expelling ink everywhere. You'll see the results of that carnage throughout the first few pages of my tests. I'd like to point out that I don't mind ruining the guide-card at all, since one will be packaged with each book they are easy to replace if it becomes so stained that you can't see the lines. The guide is tough card stock, fits into the book tightly, without much fear of it sliding out by accident. Unless you're gesticulating madly with it all the time, in which case I might recommend an elastic, or some yoga. But whatever, the point is the card is mad useful both as a writing guide, and as a sheet to protect your unused pages from hysterical ink-spraying... 

Though messy, ink explosions are good photo opportunities. 

Moving on. 

I grabbed a bunch of pens:

This photo makes me feel all giddy and squishy inside.

And set about making a huge damned mess:

Much of my test writing amounts to so much gibberish
copied from whatever youtube video on cleaning vintage
pens and avoiding sunlight I had been watching at the time

Though I've used the book to help me solve puzzles in
Final Fantasy VI, which I've been replaying. 

Here I used Shakespeare to practice flex writing
and to check the durability of the paper,
and to be just a little bit pretentious 

Here I've consumed too much coffee, gotten ink all over
everything, copied emo song lyrics with different pens,
and drawn a self portrait. See above. 

I realized after I took this shot that I neglected to take a proper photo of the book before I started dumping ink all over it. Once again, that impulsiveness and lack of planning has thwarted my attempts to do a thing right. Oh well, boldly onward. 

Here is an arty shot of all my pens and what I've done
to the cover of the book. 

A book for all of my favourite things.

I devoted a page to my fountain pen nerdiness
We own a lot of Lamy Nibs. 

hashtag:omglookatmyphotographyskillz

This bit's for the paper nerds:

Turns out I really like this little book, and it's not just because I got it for free. It takes up a very small amount of space in my bag, but is as useful for multiple applications, the cover is nice and stiff and durable and the paper inside has a beautiful texture for writing on, it's not as smooth as Rhodia, but offers no resistance or feedback. There was only bleedthrough when I was getting thoroughly stupid with the ink. I got almost no ghosting with the Noodler's X-feather, and if you're using an F or EF nib, you should be able to use both sides of the paper no problem. 

The book is nice and light, big enough to be really useful, but not so big as to be obtrusive. It is an excellent book for rough work, taking notes, shaping ideas, or anything else you like to use paper for. And if fountain pens aren't what gets you consuming paper, I found that pencils didn't chew up the paper surface, and neither did erasers. Likewise on the cover, I did some heavy erasing and it didn't destroy it even a little bit. 

Given its size, and the enclosed grid/line guide card, I would deem these as excellent for people who like to hand-draw their own comics. I hear tell the final product will be a two pack of the large (5.5"x8") book and a three pack of the small(3.5"x5.5"). Kind of makes me want to take my Flash-Bang! concept to the next level... But I digress yet again. 

There it is. The convoluted tale of how I got a free notebook that doesn't exist yet , and my subsequent review of said notebook. They will be running a kickstarter for the project I think, in the next couple of weeks. I'll post the link here once it's up and running. Good book, I'll probably buy these, pending availability in Canada. 

 So, to Aaron Zeller, of Zeller Writing Co, thank you very much for the chance to help develop your product. And to everyone else, I'll see you next time when I discuss the value of deviled eggs and their long-term effects on the economy. 

Later.

 *In the final version, the Furrow Books logo, along with "Proudly produced in the heartland of America  • Omaha, Nebraska" will be printed on the lower center of the books. The front and interiors of the books will remain totally blank .