I write these posts partly as a record for myself — it's useful to look back and see what was working two or three years ago — and partly because I genuinely find other writers' setups interesting. Tools are never neutral; what you write in shapes what you write.
With that caveat: here's what I actually used this year.
Writing software
iA Writer for drafting. I've used it since around 2021 and haven't seriously considered switching. The focused mode is genuinely useful for long sessions. The Markdown rendering is clean. The file format is plain text, which means my drafts are not hostage to any particular application's continued existence, which matters to me more the longer I write.
I briefly experimented with Obsidian for research and notes in the spring, then abandoned it in August when I realised I was spending more time organising my notes than using them. I've since gone back to a flat folder of text files and a search function. The system that surfaces things when you need them is usually simpler than the system you design.
Scrivener for longer projects — I used it for the novella draft, primarily because I needed the ability to move scenes around without losing track of where they'd been. For shorter work I don't use it. It has too much surface area for a 3,000-word story.
Hardware
A six-year-old MacBook Pro that I keep meaning to replace and haven't yet because it still works. An external keyboard (a Keychron K2, no backlight, brown switches) for long sessions at a desk. A reMarkable 2 tablet for handwritten notes and for reading drafts — there's something about reading on e-ink that puts me in a different mode than reading on a screen, closer to how I'd read a printed manuscript. I mark it up with the stylus and then transfer the notes.
Also: a stack of unlined notebooks (I buy them in batches from a German paper supplier whose name I'm keeping to myself because they're often out of stock) and a Lamy Safari filled with dark blue ink. The morning pages happen in these. No other purpose.
Process habits that actually worked
The biggest change this year was writing before I opened anything with notifications. Phone stays in the other room until after the morning session. Email doesn't open until noon. This sounds simple and obvious and I managed it with partial success for about eight months out of twelve, which is better than any previous year.
I also started keeping a brief daily log of what I worked on and for how long — not as productivity tracking but as a record. It's useful for those periods when you feel like you haven't made progress and can look back and see: actually, you wrote for two hours on Tuesday and three on Thursday, and the draft is 3,000 words longer than it was two weeks ago. Progress in long work is invisible until you measure it.
What didn't work
Pomodoro timers. I've tried them four times over the years and each time they break my concentration rather than structuring it. The interruption at twenty-five minutes comes exactly when I'm in the middle of something, which is when I least want to stop. I know many writers swear by them. I am not one of those writers.
Writing in cafés. I thought I'd try it again this winter. The ambient noise is fine; the risk of being spoken to is not. I need a lot of silence for the kind of work I do, more than most places with good coffee are willing to provide.
The setup is boring and mostly unchanged from previous years. That's more or less the point.