Welcome to The Vector, my twice-monthly craft, essay and writing process newsletter with longer, more in-depth pieces. I'm planning to experiment with this newsletter, so it will be a mix of more personal essays on the ups and downs of the writing life, along with deeply nerdy stuff like the article below.
I hope you enjoy reading this piece, which is an in-depth exploration of the tools, both physical and digital, that I use to write, publish, promote my work and otherwise do this thing day in, day out. Enjoy!
I've been following the screenwriter/producer Julian Simpson for a while, and one of the fascinating categories of writing he does is to review his 'app stack' - all the tools he uses to do what he does. He does this exhaustively and constantly, so it's actually a pretty good source of software and hardware recommendations for me.
My own 'stack' changes more slowly, because I'm quite wary of the switching cost of moving data and creative work around between different software, so I try to limit how much I do it. As I get older, I've also realised that a feature-heavy tool that has a lot of bells and whistles and possibilities is, about 80% of the time, the wrong choice for me - better to focus on simplicity and familiarity and reduction of friction. So the list below is a pretty stable one. I'd say I try out a new writing or todo list or brainstorming app once or twice a month, but I actually only adopt something new once or twice a year. A lot of auditions, but not a lot of parts, so to speak.