On Writing Slowly
A defence of the unhurried draft: why the best sentences usually arrive late, and what a slower practice makes room for.
Blogga
Essays on craft, cities and the small details that make a life feel considered. Written slowly, by one person.
Featured
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Notes on a Quiet Interface
Subtraction, one typeface doing most of the work, and a single colour used sparingly — a few principles I keep returning to when I make things for the screen.
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Three Days in Lisbon
Trams, tiles and the quiet streets above Alfama — a slow long weekend in a city that rewards walking uphill.
Latest posts
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On Writing Slowly
A defence of the unhurried draft: why the best sentences usually arrive late, and what a slower practice makes room for.
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A Dispatch for Members: How I Edit
The unglamorous part: how a rough page becomes a finished one, with the marks I use and the order I use them in.
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Notes on a Quiet Interface
Subtraction, one typeface doing most of the work, and a single colour used sparingly — a few principles I keep returning to when I make things for the screen.
-
Three Days in Lisbon
Trams, tiles and the quiet streets above Alfama — a slow long weekend in a city that rewards walking uphill.
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Walking Home the Long Way
Forty extra minutes, one wrong turn, and a city I thought I knew.
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What a Pencil Teaches
Five small lessons from a tool that has not changed in four hundred years.
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Desert Notes
What happens to your sense of scale when there is nothing to measure it against.
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The Window Seat
A small argument for the best chair in any room.
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Gardening Is Editing
Pruning, thinning and the surprising overlap between a small garden and a draft.
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Night Train to the Mountains
Twelve hours, one sleeper berth, and the best view I have ever had of absolutely nothing.
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A Reading List for Autumn
Four things worth your time as the evenings draw in, none of them urgent.
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The Sea at Four O'Clock
On the particular hour when the day tips over and everything on the water goes gold.
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A Short Defence of Boredom
Why I have started leaving a little space in every day for nothing at all.
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Fields in Winter
A flat landscape, a single tree, and the case for travelling in the off-season.
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How I Take Notes
A deliberately small system: one notebook, three kinds of entry, and a weekly review.