Hi there—
How has everyone fared the first quarter of this year? I have been (mostly) keeping to my 2023 mantra of head down and writing a TON. You might have noticed this fair newsletter looks a bit different; that’s because I’ve recently migrated from Mailchimp to Substack. (Is it just me or is every writer on the planet starting a Substack this year? We’re getting incredible craft lessons from geniuses, and I couldn’t be more thrilled about it.) Anyway, the reason for my switch was a financial one. I loved Mailchimp, but it was costing me close to $1k/year. Substack is… free. I’ve imported all my previous newsletters from Mailchimp, so if every post before this one on my Substack page (is that what they’re called??) looks wonky, that’s why. This platform seems super easy to use, but I’m a baby Substacker so it’s possible this post looks wonky too. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ We’ll learn together!
I’m going to do a series on writing process, a topic of eternal fascination to writers and I think (hope?) one that’s often of interest to readers as well. With the new book I’m working on, I’ve decided to run some experiments and switch up my process. I thought it’d be interesting to document those changes here. Some elements will remain the same, of course. Here’s what I plan to cover over the coming weeks:
Keeping
My tools (part 1)
My organization (part 2)
Changing
Plotting vs. pantsing (part 3)
My schedule (part 4)
Part 1: My Tools
These are my tried-and-true tools that I don’t ever see changing.
Moleskine notebooks (lined) - If writing ever feels like a slog (perish the thought!), this is my go-to for making it fun again. I don’t know why writing by hand is fun—it just is. The notebook feels very low-stakes, like I’m writing a diary instead of a book that will someday be catalogued in the Library of Congress.
Scrivener - I live for the digital corkboard + index cards. (See image above.) I need a visual representation of the novel to keep it straight in my head. Every chapter gets a note card with a one-sentence summary.
Word - A few years ago I tried drafting in Scrivener and didn’t like it for no reason other than it’s not Word. When I’m writing I want my screen to look the way I’m used to it looking. I don’t need bells and whistles; in fact, I don’t want them. I want as non-distracting a canvas as possible.
ProWritingAid - This is a very handy Word plug-in (works with other applications too) that functions like a human proofreader. Word’s spelling and grammar checker sucks (I said what I said); this one is actually useful. I’m not a typo-heavy writer—like I can X out of a document with any red squiggles in sight, lolz—but I’m often guilty of passive voice, overused or redundant words, etc. Highly recommend.
The Emotion Thesaurus - I write with it by my side. Otherwise all my characters would do is smile, shrug, and raise their eyebrows.
Thesaurus.com - There is no single website I frequent more.
I’ll send Part 2 in a week or two. There we’ll discuss how I organize my work, which is the only aspect of my writing I am confident needs no improvement. Am I bragging about my ability to put documents in folders? Yes, I am.
Is there anything about my writing process not listed above that you’d like me to cover? Let me know in the comments!
See you next time,
P.S. Do you like my new header? My immensely talented sister-in-law, Taylor Wichrowski, made it for me! She drew my books’ spines by hand (!!), then made this perfect little banner. We love.
P.P.S. I know I’m supposed to come up with a clever newsletter name like all the other authors, but that was stressing me out, so I’ve left it as the hopelessly generic “From the desk of,” which should arguably be re-titled “From the couch of,” since that’s where I’m writing most often these days. I digress.