Otter is an absolute game changer! As an ex-journalist I used to (painstakingly!) transcribe my own interviews from cassette tapes, and this is an app, where you simply upload the video or audio content, and transcribes it within an hour. It’s fairly accurate for a non-human service, too. You record yourself speaking into the app so that it has a good idea of how you say general words, and you can download the transcriptions &/or edit them within the app, to ‘teach’ it how to behave better. There is a free plan but I get my videos and course content transcribed regularly so I use the basic plan which is about $100USD a year. I used to pay a transcriptionist $30 an hour to transcribe my cassette tapes once upon a time, so this is incredible!

I recently upgraded from a scratched iphone 6 to a new iPhone 13 and it has completely changed my life! The camera on these phones is worth the heavy cost alone. I use the camera (in Cinematic mode) for all my You-Tube videos and the phone for everything else. But make sure you buy a good case AS SOON as you get the phone, they’re precious! Also get them to put the plastic screen protector inside the shop – I think this is $50. I didn’t get one on my iphone 6 and it cracked when i dropped it. I use my phone – and walk and talk – a lot.

I feel like a news reporter when i wear my Rode wireless lapel microphone. It’s really good sound quality when it’s windy, or there’s a truck going past, and sometimes you just really want to record outside if it’s sunny. We spend way too much time indoors on our computers, so any equipment that makes walking or being outside easier and more professional is a plus! You can even record a podcast with someone while you walk. Again, with podcasts, people are pretty unforgiving with bad audio so if you want to get on more podcasts, invest in a good microphone!

Lighting a candle is such a beautiful ritual when you work in a creative arena. When I’m beginning a new project, I like to start a special candle, so that lighting it is almost a Pavlovian trigger to shift into the creative zone, whether it’s from looking at the flame or smelling the scent. These candles by Kerzon are 45 hours burning time and the perfect strength scent (not too strong, not too subtle). They really do make your space sacred for reading, writing or just being home. I love to honour the everyday magic of home and ritual with a special candle.

There are so many books on the craft of writing, but The Writer’s Journey is like an encyclopaedia of mythic archetypes in story, with a Jungian bent. I dog-eared this book when I wrote A Letter From Paris, and it helped me with the structure and character struggles I was having (I had to delete quite a few ‘bit players’ from the story, which meant I had to understand what role they played and if someone else played that role). I’ve blogged on my favourite memoir writing books but this is up there as one that I’d recommend over all the others.