I was talking with a friend yesterday about how I’ve been making progress in writing, when the “write 1000 words a day” or “sit at your desk for the same 3 hours every day” advice doesn’t work for me.

One prosaic but absolutely key thing that I didn’t include in this piece but found myself saying? I bought a printer that JUST WORKS. In 2017, we splurged on an expensive printer and only refilled the ink last week. I buy high quality copy paper in bulk. I print as much as I want/ need and reread/ edit/ revise on actual paper. This has made a huge difference for my writing progress.

I also bought a ton of index cards and sharpies and folders and sticky notes and all things analog, and my mind is much happier than trying to keep track of all the things digitally. I use notebooks heavily and often and I’ve stopped worrying about how to ‘organise’ them so they look nice for the internet.

It’s not writing advice that I hear very often, so just in case you’re stalled and wondering how to proceed… maybe invest in good old paper and ink?

[And yes I do re-use the paper / let children color on it / use it to start the log fire/ recycle it.]