Do you buy stationery you don’t need? 

Do you see a nice new pad with just the right smell and oh-you-just-have-to-stroke-it cover, and oh no that’s fallen into your basket and now you’ll just have to get it. 

Do you have a stack of lovely, gorgeous, sexy pads towering on your desk at home, waiting for you to fill them with lovely words but you just can’t write in them because you might make a mistake and tippex on those beautiful pages would be an actual travesty? 

Yes, ok it’s me, I’m talking about me. 

But in my defence, my handwriting is possibly the worst handwriting in the world. I mean, does it even count as handwriting if you can’t make out any letters or words? Is that perhaps some sort of abstract doodling instead of wording? It’s the sort of writing that suggests I should have been a doctor, but if you’ve seen how clumsy I am you’d know that I certainly wouldn’t be a doctor for long. And it doesn’t matter how much I write, or what pens I use (I even tried those old-school red handwriting pens to see if that helped – the answer, reader, was a resounding ‘no’). So, in fact, although I do like stationery, I don’t really like the physical act of handwriting. 

What I do like is typing. TYPING LIKE MY FINGERS ARE SECRETARY BIRDS STAMPING ON ALL THOSE KEYS LIKE THEY ARE WHACK-A-MOLE HEADS ONLY I LIKE MOLES SO MAYBE NOT MOLES MAYBE SOMETHING MORE LIKE DONALD TRUMPS OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT. *Leave the moles alone* 

And it’s probably a good thing I like typing, because that way I can actually read what I’ve written down. 

And what else do I love? Keyboard reviews. Who even thought that was a thing? Apparently, there’s a whole load of keyboard videos to deliver calming ASMR joy (“autonomous sensory meridian response”), although let’s be honest, youtubing “latex gloves and keyboards” might not have been my finest search moment. My favourite keyboard review is probably this video – the pure joy this guy gets from the clicky legs of a keyboard is the sort of joy I hope everyone gets to feel in their lives. 

So, if you’ve not got the picture already, I like typing – but at the end of the day it doesn’t matter what you’re using to make your marks, it’s all about getting those marks down. I was talking about this on Twitter, and of course y’all like to do different things – some of you are keen typerists like me, others have the loveliest handwriting that is both pretty and readable. Mark A. King (@Making_Fiction) also mentioned mind maps and Pinterest, which reminded me of his excellent author interview when his novel Metropolitan Dreams launched. 

Either way, whether you use a pen, typewriter or perhaps a feather dipped in the blood of your enemies (*methods not entirely condoned*), you just keep on scribing, keep on making your marks and getting those words down. 

Happy writing, whatever your weapon of choice.