Atoma

[Sandy]

I bought two A5+ Atoma notebooks this week.

The general idea of the Atoma product is that you get a set of covers, with eight rings - like a ring-bound volume. The clever bit is that the paper is punched along an edge with a T-shaped hole. This allows the paper to be attached and detached anywhere within the volume. You can buy refills from Atoma, or buy a punch (which is quite pricey) that will allow you to add your own brand of paper.

The first book I bought was in their executive series, which came with polypropane covers, and plastic rings. The second was a Texon range which came with metal rings, instead of plastic. The paper I have is Atomas own A5+ 90 gsm paper. The books came with 144 pages (74 sheets) of paper, and I bought some plastic dividers and a ruler which can be attached to the book. Once they've been added, you can't fit many more pages into the book. To mix paper types, you'll have to remove sheets, before adding new ones. I've tried the paper with Waterman's Inspired blue and Havana brown and it seems fountain pen friendly enough. There is some bleed through at points where the ink flow is heaviest, but it is not across the whole page. A really wet ink on a really wet pen might cause a problem - but Parker. Montblanc and Waterman have not been problematic.

The plastic rings did not seem quite so durable for use on the road, so I bought the second book to carry in a bag. The paper is A5+ - which means the sheets are A5 size - plus an extra inch or so to account for the rings. This, plus the dimensions of the rings mean that these journals will not easily fit into a jacket pocket - they're light enough to be carried, or stashed in a bag.

I am a left hander - so the rings a real impediment to writing with a ring system, but the advantage of the system is I can remove the pages, write on them and put them back into the journal. To add and remove pages you have to be a bit gentle, because if you are too rough, the paper will tear or bend out of shape where the T is, and it will not easily fit back in. So, you have to be patient with this - it is not as quick as using a standard ringbinder.

The advantage of the system, like a ring binder is you can start writing and at the end of the session, put the sheets back in the order yo uwant them. So if you start on project A , and then digress onto project B - the papers can be arranged into their respective sections.

As such, this is a good system for free writing, and then moving the ideas into themes & concepts. You can also remove all the pages and spread them out before you to get an overview of what you are trying to do, which you can't with a notebook. I can look at the six drafts of a poem and work through them all to get one final idea.