In a renowned interview from two decades ago featured in the Paris Review, acclaimed author Haruki Murakami shared insights into his disciplined daily routine, which begins at 4 AM and involves five hours of writing, followed by a run, reading, and then sleep, only to repeat the cycle. His unwavering commitment to consistency is both inspiring and slightly daunting.

However, I do not embody the same rigid routine as Murakami. Alongside my work at The Verge, I am a novelist, and my second book is being released this week. While I respect Murakami's dedication to a fixed schedule, I have discovered that my most fruitful writing often emerges from a constant re-evaluation of my routines, processes, and especially the tools I employ. In today’s digital age, this involves a variety of software applications.

What follows might seem like a nightmare to those who crave seamless integration among their tools. The software I utilize is disjointed and does not work together in any cohesive manner. This may lead to redundancy, with overlapping functionalities across various applications. Rather than fostering a frictionless workflow, I believe that the essence of ambitious creative work arises from embracing this very friction. The process I describe is a journey, navigating through different pieces of software that cater to my evolving needs.

This method allows me to draw inspiration from diverse writing environments, each presenting a unique lens through which I can view and develop my work. Perhaps, this approach could resonate with you as well.

Idea Collection: The Spark of Creativity

The initial phase of writing a book involves the literal gathering of thoughts. It’s an exhilarating part of the process, filled with potential before the daunting reality of writing begins to sink in. Inspiration strikes in various forms—whether I’m engrossed in a book, watching a film, listening to music, or even on a subway ride, sleepless night, or during a meeting.

Everyone has their preferred note-taking apps, and I engage with two distinct ones, each serving a unique purpose. I utilize Bear for structured ideas like character sketches or thematic outlines, leveraging its tagging system for organization. In contrast, I turn to Apple Notes for more spontaneous thoughts, where I forgo formatting and context, capturing fleeting ideas quickly. Admittedly, I have a bit of an aversion to the visual design of Notes, but it’s the app my partner prefers for sharing grocery lists and streaming passwords, so I make do.

The goal here isn’t to endorse these apps as the best available; rather, it’s about having different environments to suit the type of ideas I wish to capture. One app provides a thoughtful space for organized concepts, while the other allows for rapid idea collection. In moments where I need to jot something down instantly, I often skip the apps entirely and text myself.

Neither Bear nor Notes interact with one another, necessitating future transfers of any valuable text out of them. Fortunately, both apps sync well with desktop versions, making the copying and pasting fairly uncomplicated, if a tad tedious. For me, the real advantage of note-taking apps lies in consolidating fragments of ideas that can later be transformed into a coherent narrative.

Drafting: The Creative Process Unfolds

Note-taking doesn’t cease once I dive into writing; rather, it amplifies as the narrative begins to take shape in my mind. The primary software that I rely on for the intensive work of writing is iA Writer—my preferred minimalistic word processor. This is the tool I open when it’s time to engage in the laborious task of crafting a novel.

Despite experimenting with various applications, iA Writer remains my go-to choice, even though it comes with a hefty price tag of $50 for mobile and another $50 for the desktop version. In retrospect, this seems extravagant for an app whose default font I simply enjoy. However, when you anticipate spending over 100 hours with a program, the investment seems justified. While numerous free applications provide basic typing functionality, selecting one that fosters comfort is vital. The first draft can be daunting, and any tool that simplifies that process is invaluable.

I primarily write on an iPad—not one of the latest models, but rather Apple’s entry-level version with a subpar keyboard attachment. My intention was to have a device solely dedicated to writing. In the past, I wrote my first book on a sluggish Chromebook that ultimately succumbed to e-waste when it became too slow to operate even Google Docs. On the iPad, I stripped away most default apps, keeping only the Kindle app and a few PDF readers. I steered clear of games and streaming services to maintain focus.

Unlike some writers who prefer a linear approach, my writing style is more chaotic; I tend to craft scenes in a non-sequential order. This can complicate the narrative structure, which is vital for storytelling. After accumulating enough words—typically around 60,000—I migrate my text into several Google Docs to begin separating scenes and chapters. While iA Writer serves to get my initial ideas on paper, Google Docs becomes my platform for editing and shaping the manuscript into a coherent story.

Google Docs is a word processor that most are familiar with, and it has been my constant companion throughout my life. This familiarity makes it the most convenient option for writing, especially as it’s widely utilized at The Verge. Using Google Docs for my book writing also blurs the line between personal and professional work, reflecting the reality that creating art can sometimes feel like a job.

The Role of AI in the Writing Process

The integration of AI in writing is a contentious topic, met with skepticism for various valid reasons. Many authors outright reject AI tools, while I personally find them to lack utility. My experience with AI at The Verge revolves around testing its capabilities, particularly for rough language translation. The primary function of AI-generated writing appears to be producing vast amounts of generic content—like mundane web articles or cheerful emails. I’m not drawn to using AI for my creative work because I genuinely enjoy the act of writing. As noted by author Ted Chiang, creating art is a series of decisions made by the artist, and allowing AI to make those decisions strips away the very essence of writing.

Revising: The Organizational Challenge

The revision stage introduces its own complexities. I’ve observed that Google Docs struggles with documents exceeding approximately 15,000 words, which necessitated breaking my book into large sections. I created an index linked to all chapters, maintained in a separate Google Doc. At this point, I transitioned away from the iPad and returned to my laptop, where my browser displayed tabs for each of the seven separate Docs comprising my manuscript.

For me, revising isn’t as daunting as completing a first draft, but it presents a significant organizational challenge. Balancing the intricacies of sentence structure, paragraph flow, and overall narrative coherence requires meticulous attention. Managing a manuscript distributed across multiple documents inevitably becomes cumbersome.

To address this, I opted for Scrivener, a specialized writing app designed for book authors. Its development focus on power users stands in stark contrast to the trend of user-friendly software. With Scrivener, the more effort you invest in customizing it, the more benefits you reap. Its layout—featuring multiple panes, structured organization, and dense information display—evokes software aesthetics reminiscent of the late 1990s.

Initially, I made minimal adjustments (the first was altering the UI to a preferable typeface). Nevertheless, Scrivener proved beneficial for organizing and rearranging chapters. Utilizing its customizable metadata fields, I categorized chapters by character viewpoints and monitored sections requiring revisions. The ability to visualize projects, akin to arranging index cards on a corkboard, greatly aided in interweaving multiple plotlines and solidifying the book’s structure.

Ironically, despite appreciating Scrivener’s organizational tools, I find writing within it cumbersome, which led me back to Google Docs for the finalization of my manuscript (still dispersed across several Docs). After another round of revisions with my agent, I submitted the manuscript to my editor as a Word document.

While I consider Microsoft Word somewhat clunky—particularly on a Mac—it became essential for the final manuscript. As the publishing industry standard, I wasn’t willing to request my editor to adjust to my preferences for a more aesthetically pleasing word processor. Additionally, Google’s ongoing struggles with maintaining compatibility with Word’s track changes often result in critical elements being lost during translation.

Pre-Publication: Navigating the Marketing Maze

A substantial amount of time elapses during a book’s production, and soon enough, discussions about marketing and publicity arise—a phase I find particularly unappealing as it diverts focus from the creative process towards marketability and sales, an aspect not traditionally favored by fiction writers.

Another app I have been utilizing, recommended by David Pierce, is Craft 3. The prior iterations of Craft, which I hadn't explored, were productivity-focused. However, the third version emphasizes writing, complemented by productivity enhancements. It has become my go-to tool for managing pre-publication tasks, such as drafting marketing copy, outlining events, and scheduling interviews. Utilizing Craft has simplified staying organized with deadlines, proving less cumbersome than similar platforms like Notion.

In conclusion, the trajectory of my writing process can be summarized as follows:

• Bear / Apple Notes ➡️ iA Writer ➡️ Google Docs ➡️ Scrivener ➡️ Google Docs ➡️ Microsoft Word ➡️ Adobe Acrobat

Despite the diversity of applications, they share key characteristics: each possesses reliable phone and desktop versions, ensuring accessibility regardless of where I’m working, and each is built around a core strength rather than attempting to excel at everything. While Scrivener is an exception, given its feature overload, it can become an advantageous tool with effortful customization (a community of Scrivener users exists, with many recommending Jaime Greene’s online courses).

With a third book under contract, I am prepared to embark on this entire process anew. However, as I’ve learned, I must reinvent my approach with each new project, which entails experimenting with various software. Even if a perfect app existed for capturing the entire journey of writing a book from inception to publication, I remain uncertain if I would choose to use it. The limitations of each tool compel me to reflect deeply on the requirements of the story at hand. While a streamlined workflow can enhance efficiency, it is the acceptance of disorder that often fosters true creativity in the writing process.