What An Art Supply Store Taught Me About Writing Tools

If you're not practicing your craft, the fancy tools won't help you

watercolour by the author

I could’ve easily spent $200 on "better" brushes and paint, thinking they'd make me a better painter.

But I would have been wrong.

Beware the Expensive Brush Mistake

I'm standing in the art supply store dreaming of making beautiful art. The salesperson is showing me these gorgeous sable watercolour brushes.

"Professional quality," she says. "The difference is night and day."

I consider buying the whole set.

But I remember that I have brushes that artist friends and family gave me, gathering dust at home.

So I start with them.

Because I’m not yet anywhere near “professional.”

Fellow artists warn me about how expensive art materials can be. And I see their extraordinary work done with beautiful old brushes they’ve used for decades.

And I decide to take it slow. And learn enough to deserve such elegant tools.

Because, starting to paint at 60, the problem wasn't my tools. It was my complete lack of skill.

And now I’m grateful. I painted more with my cheap brushes than I ever would have with the expensive ones.

Because I wasn't afraid to pick them up.

Tools Don't Make the Artist (Or Writer)

This obsession with perfect tools isn't unique to painting, of course. Writers have it as well.

We convince ourselves we need the right software, the perfect notebook, total silence, or the right fountain pen.

Scrivener or Google Docs? Laptop or library? Standing desk or cozy couch corner? We spend hours researching instead of writing.

But think about Maya Angelou. She wrote many of her books on yellow legal pads in cheap hotel rooms. She'd strip the walls bare of artwork and mirrors, bring a bottle of sherry, a thesaurus, a Bible, poetry books, ballpoint pens, and a dictionary, and get to work.

The perfect setup was just her and the page. That was it, every day.

The truth is brutal: your tools are probably fine. Your excuses are the problem.

The Parallel to Writing Software

I’ve been there with my fellow writers, switching between apps like we're changing clothes. Trying out Notion, then Docs, then Roam, or whatever the latest online guru is suggesting this week.

Each switch comes with the same promise. "This will finally make me productive."

But it won't.

The app doesn't write the words. You do. The notebook doesn't generate ideas. Your brain does. That expensive ergonomic keyboard doesn't create compelling paragraphs. Your imagination does.

Stephen King wrote on a borrowed typewriter in the laundry room of his double-wide trailer. Did that stop him from writing? Doesn’t seem to have.

What Actually Matters: Showing Up Consistently

Here's what the art supply store taught me. Consistency beats perfection every time.

I learned more about painting in three months with a $5 brush than I did in a year of obsessing over the perfect paper and brushes.

The magic happened when I stopped preparing to paint and started experimenting more and watching what happened.

Same with writing. You find that delicious flow state when you stop preparing to write and start writing.

Your first draft will suck. Your hundredth draft might suck too. But somewhere between draft one and draft one hundred, you'll learn something the expensive tools can't teach you.

How to do the work.

As writer Steven Pressfield said:

“Don’t think. Act. We can always revise and revisit once we’ve acted. But we can accomplish nothing until we act.”

The Freedom of Working with What You Have

There's something liberating about constraints. When you can't blame your tools, you have to focus on your craft.

Start with whatever’s around your house. Or what you pick up in an op shop.

Write in the Notes app on your phone. Scribble in a 99-cent notebook. Use whatever computer you have.

The constraint forces creativity.

I know writers who produce thousands of words daily on ancient laptops. I know others who write on their phones during commutes.

They're not held back by their tools. The joy of creating itself frees them.

The Unconventional Advice

Stop shopping for solutions.

Instead of buying that new app, write for 15 minutes. Instead of researching the perfect desk setup, clear a corner somewhere in your home.

One of my favourite artists, Clarice Beckett, considered by some to be “an international master of modernism,” and “one of Australia's leading artists of the early twentieth century,” painted on the family kitchen table. And walked for hours on cold and dark Melbourne mornings along the beachfront, dragging her cart of easel and paints, to catch the morning light.

Instead of waiting for the right moment, start now.

The art supply store taught me that the best tool is the one you actually use.

An exercise book is better than Scrivener if you actually write in it. A napkin is better than a Moleskine if you fill it with your ideas.

The Real Secret

Here's what they don't tell you in the art supply store. Professional artists don't use expensive tools because they're good. They're good because they started with whatever tools they had and worked up to deserve quality implements. And know how to use them well.

The expensive brushes didn't make me a better painter. Painting made me a better painter. The cheap brushes that forced me to adapt, to learn, to keep going despite imperfection—those were the real teachers.

Your writing tools are fine. But your excuses aren’t.

(Believe me, I’m talking to myself here as well.)

Now, how about you stop reading about writing and go write something?

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