I have to write a first draft with a fountain pen before I type it up as a second.

I am violently untidy. My desk is overcrowded. I write my first drafts in longhand in a long notebook using a plastic throwaway fountain pen. Then I work on a word processor using a different desk and a different room.

I work by hand, with a fountain pen, in bound notebooks I buy in India.

I've always written by hand. Mostly with a fountain pen, but sometimes with a pencil - especially for corrections.

I don't want anything to do with anything mechanical between me and the paper, including a typewriter, and I don't even want a fountain pen between me and the paper.

There's something special about writing by hand, writing with a fountain pen, and there's something special about writing into a book, to take a blank book and turn it into an actual book.