I was writing along the other night, working on Cassie from The Vintage Wren, when it occurred to me that modern writers are an eco-friendly lot. After all, many of the things that are a part of the modern writer’s toolkit are digital! So, I thought I’d spell a few out–just to make Cassie feel better.

Note: Links in this post may be affiliate links and as such, I may receive a small commission at no extra expense for you.

5 Eco-Friendly Things for Writers

E-books: As much as I love an actual book in hand, when I think about the vast numbers of books that are read because of their ease of portability, lower cost, and how easy they are to find, let’s face it, e-books ROCK! They also provide the bulk of my income! As a writer, I also love e-books!
Online dictionaries/thesauri. Okay, confession time. I’m a nerd. Always have been. Or is it geek. Both. Neither. Whatever. I’ve always loved dictionaries. I used to mark mine up as a kid, underlining, marking every word I looked up. In fact, when I sat in the theater in Lancaster, California at sixteen and watched Say Anything with a very young John Cusack, I actually squealed when the main female character said she used to mark every word she looked up. I pumped my fist (and embarrassed my friend as Cusack flipped through the dictionary there and saw almost every word marked.
Let’s face it. Online dictionaries and thesauri are SO much easier to use. Crazy easier. You’re typing along, and BAM! Need to be sure you have the right word. One mouse click, a few typed words, another mouse click or two and voila! There it is! Ditto for the thesaurus! (and I clearly should have used that dictionary for geek/nerd).
Evernote: Seriously. This thing is so crazy powerful it isn’t even funny. My friend, Clark, is going to crack up when he hears me call Evernote the “Scrivener of note taking.” But that’s what it is. And if you don’t know what Scrivener is, well….
Scrivener: A lot of people make the mistaken assumption that Scrivener is a word processing program. Not hardly. If you took a writer’s entire office and placed it all into one little binder, you might have a picture of what Scrivener is. It’s the manuscript, the research, a corkboard (to rearrange entire files into better places), and even your bookmarks all in one thing. With Scrivener set up properly, you don’t actually have to leave the program once you’ve set up your work in progress. Just think. A virtual writing office… or a real one. Which one fills the landfill fastest?
Laptop: Look. Jane Austen’s candle, paper, dip pen… it’s all very romantic, but those papers clog landfills like crazy, right? (Shh… don’t tell Alexa! You’ll destroy her mystique in Fairbury!) And, with that laptop, you can use all the other things up there. We’re talking about a lot of eco savings here! Cassie would be proud.

But would she?

After all, Cassie does love her notebooks. And so do many writers. Including me. However, I consider that I’ve saved a ton of landfill stuff. So I can afford a bit of notebook usage, right? Of course right! (name that movie).

In honor of Cassie’s green machine… or whatever you call her current insanity, here are a few quotes from this week’s FREE episode!