My Actual Writing Setup (Every Tool I Use to Write Romance Novels)

People always ask what tools I use. Not the vague "oh I use Scrivener" answer — the real, granular breakdown of what's open on my screen when I'm deep in a manuscript.

So here it is. Everything. The stuff that works, the stuff I've tried and ditched, and why.

The Writing Environment

For drafting: I write in Scrivener 3. I've tried every alternative — Google Docs, Ulysses, Novlr, Atticus — and I keep coming back. The binder structure mirrors how my brain organizes a book. Each chapter gets its own document. Each scene within that chapter gets its own section. I can rearrange, color-code, and snapshot versions without losing anything.

For series management: A master spreadsheet. Boring? Yes. Effective? Absolutely. I track character appearances, relationship status changes, plot threads planted vs. resolved, and timeline consistency across all five Hudson Dynasty books. When you're juggling Dante, Celeste, Mia, Jade, and Victoria across interconnected storylines, you need a single source of truth.

For quick notes: Leuchtturm1917 A5 notebook in navy blue. I keep one per book. Scene ideas hit at weird times — in the shower, at dinner, at 3 AM when I should be sleeping. The notebook lives on my nightstand. My phone is too distracting for capture.

The Research Stack

Writing billionaire romance set in Manhattan means I need to know things. Specific things. What does the view look like from a corner office on the 47th floor of a Midtown tower? What's the protocol at a hostile takeover board meeting? How does a forensic accountant actually trace shell companies?

For location research: Google Earth Pro (free) for street-level views of Manhattan. I "walk" my characters' commutes. I know which corner they'd turn, which coffee shop they'd pass.

For financial/corporate accuracy: The Wall Street Journal Guide to Business Travel and actual SEC filings. My readers include women who work in finance. They will catch you if you get the terminology wrong.

For relationship dynamics: I read psychology papers on attachment theory and power dynamics. Sounds academic, but it's the difference between a romance that feels real and one that feels like two attractive people standing near each other.

The Editing Layer

First pass (structural): I read the full manuscript on my Kindle Paperwhite. Something about reading on a different device from where I wrote it makes plot holes visible. I highlight issues and make notes, then go back to Scrivener to fix them.

Second pass (line editing): This is where my AI workflow system earns its keep. I run each chapter through my line editing and anti-AI pass workflow. It catches repetitive sentence structures, overused words, and anything that sounds generated rather than written.

Third pass (read-aloud): I use the text-to-speech function on my Kindle or Mac's built-in reader. Hearing the words out loud catches rhythm problems that your eyes skip over. If a sentence sounds awkward spoken, it'll feel awkward read.

Final pass (proofread): ProWritingAid for the technical stuff — homophone errors, missing commas, inconsistent spelling. Then a human proofreader for everything software misses.

The Publishing Pipeline

Formatting: Atticus for both ebook and print formatting. It handles KDP's requirements without me needing to think about margins, gutters, or font embedding.

Cover design: I work with a designer who specializes in romance. The covers for Manhattan Money Kings and Hudson Dynasty follow specific genre conventions — suited men, city backgrounds, typography that signals "this is a billionaire romance." Your cover is your first sale. Don't cheap out.

Metadata & keywords: I use Publisher Rocket to research categories and keywords. It shows you exactly what readers are searching for and which categories have the best visibility-to-competition ratio.

The Comfort Setup

Because you can't write a 90,000-word novel if your body hates you.

Chair: A proper ergonomic chair with lumbar support. I spent years writing on the couch and my back staged a revolt. The Herman Miller Aeron is the gold standard, but even a mid-range ergonomic chair will change your life.

Lighting: BenQ ScreenBar mounted on my monitor. No glare on screen, even light across my desk, and it doesn't take up desk space. I write early mornings and late nights — good lighting isn't optional.

Noise: Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones with noise canceling on full. I have a playlist for each book — Hostile Tender was written almost entirely to moody instrumental tracks and lo-fi beats. The headphones signal to my brain: we're working now.

Hydration: A 40oz Stanley tumbler filled with ice water. Sounds trivial. But dehydration kills focus faster than social media does. I refill it every time I finish a chapter.

What I've Ditched

• Notion for project management (too many features, too much setup)
• Google Docs for drafting (no offline reliability, formatting nightmares)
• Plottr for outlining (pretty but slow; a spreadsheet is faster for me)
• Grammarly for editing (too aggressive with style suggestions; it tried to flatten my voice)
• Standing desk (my knees disagreed after month two)

The Honest Truth

No tool will write your book for you. I could hand you my exact setup — every app, every workflow, every playlist — and it wouldn't matter if you don't sit down and do the work.

The tools remove friction. They organize chaos. They let you focus on the part that actually matters: telling a story that makes someone stay up past midnight because they have to know what happens next.

That's the job. Everything else is just infrastructure.

— Reese