Paper versus pixels, telekinesis versus typing, and an unexpectedly heated polemic against Charles Dickens that absolutely nobody asked for. In this episode of First Person Present, Josh and Dasha explore the tactile, vulnerable act of writing by hand in an increasingly digital age, and why the process of typing up handwritten drafts might be more valuable than you think.

Fresh off their first Hewes House community write-together session, they dive into the reading life: Tove Ditlevsen's incisive characterization, the mortifying experience of returning books to bookstores, and why one of them thinks Charles Dickens "just sucks" (spoiler: it's Josh, and he's ready for your angry voice memos). Dasha champions the radical act of marking up your books, while Josh makes a case for SparkNotes as a legitimate literary alternative to Great Expectations.

Then it's back to Reddit, where the questions get existential: How do you deal with the pain of transcribing handwritten drafts when telekinesis remains frustratingly unavailable? And what do you do when your suspense novel has so many interconnected plot points it requires an actual equation to explain? The answers involve Lauren Groff's ceremonial burning habits, the vulnerability of exposed handwriting in cafes, and a plea to just let things happen in the present tense already.

Plus: handbag subreddits, tree murder via excessive printing, and the atmospheric difference between writing on paper versus hiding behind password-protected documents.

Links:

• Dasha’s new Substack column

• The Case for Paper: Handwriting vs Typing

• If Your Novel’s Plot Is a Math Problem, Maybe It’s Time to Simplify

• The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen

• Flesh by David Szalay

• Pk: A Report on the Power of Psychokinesis, Mental Energy That Moves Matter by Michael H. Brown

• Peter Warren on IMDb

• r/writing subreddit

Theme music: "1982" by See Jazz

Dry January, the Year of the Red Horse, and the unexpected productivity of writing longhand in busy airports open Season 2 of First Person Present. When routine becomes stale and your home office starts feeling like a creative prison, what happens if you embrace the "scrappy performative energy" of public writing, even if it makes you feel exposed? (Exhibitionism, anybody?)

Josh and Dasha introduce their new format with listener voicemails, starting with Brian B.'s guilty confession about generating a thousand words in an airport versus struggling in his quiet home office. The conversation explores the tension between beloved routines and the creative stagnation they can cause, from writing in bars (not this month) to the strategic use of location changes as a tool for breaking through writer's block.

Then, diving into the science of habit formation and BJ Fogg's concept of habit anchoring, we examine why switching up small elements of your writing process (time of day, lighting, music, handwriting versus typing) can reveal something essential about the machine you're building. Plus: failed vampire novels, romance novels that turn into grief novels, and why Brad Listi's decade-long novel-in-progress should give us all hope.

Links

• The Vampire Novel I’ll Never Write (And Why That's Okay)

• Habit Chaining for Writers: How to Build a Sustainable Writing Practice Without Forcing It

• Beach Read by Emily Henry

• Otherppl Podcast

• Be Brief and Tell Them Everything by Brad Listi

• BJ Fogg's Tiny Habits

• Atomic Habits by James Clear

• Too Much Birthday - The Cut (not New York Magazine lol)

Theme music: "1982" by See Jazz

When brilliant ideas feel perfect in your head but turn "stale and ugly" on the page, is the problem your execution—or your expectations? Josh and Dasha tackle a writer's confession about motivation, world events, and the seductive comfort of ideation over actual writing. The conversation spirals into Ira Glass's famous gap between taste and execution, the dangerous pleasure of keeping ideas pristine in your mind, and why furniture acquisition has become an unexpected recurring theme on the podcast.

Then, addressing another Reddit user’s litany of writing struggles—from romance without relationship experience to repetitive battle scenes—the hosts explore how fight choreography reveals character, why description works in layers like painting, and what Lord of the Rings' Battle of Helm's Deep can teach us about sustaining tension across long action sequences. Plus: the Gmail-to-self era of note-taking, WikiHow illustrations, and why you shouldn't trust the magic of unwritten ideas.

Links

• When Loving an Idea Keeps Your from Writing It

• Why Action Scenes Get Boring (and What They’re Really About)

• Ira Glass on The Gap

• The Battle of Helms Deep

Theme music: "1982" by See Jazz