The people who use our boards.

Who are you, and what do you do? What do you like to do outside of work?

My name is Cherae, and I write fantasy (and sometimes sci-fi) under the name C. L. Clark. I wrote the Magic of the Lost trilogy, which starts with The Unbroken, and if you’re an Arcane/League of Legends fan, I wrote the Arcane tie-in book Ambessa: Chosen of the Wolf. I also teach creative writing and write essays for different websites like Reactor Magazine and my own blog.

When I’m not writing or reading, I’m swinging swords or kettlebells, or I’m running. Lately, I’ve fallen in love with trail running. My current read is an excellent novel called The Shipwright and the Shroudweaver. I also love traveling.

I also enjoy playing video games and TTRPGs, like Dungeons & Dragons, and solo RPGs like Ironsworn, or a new favorite, Lordsworn. I love storytelling in any fashion, so these are as much an extension of my writing mind as well as something I do for fun.

What hardware do you use?

My tech needs are pretty simple, and in fact, quite low-tech. I have notebooks. Lots of notebooks. I have my bullet journal for the catch-all of daily life; a notebook for miscellaneous writing project stuff; a notebook for a specific projects when I have enough material and want to drill down; a little reading notebook where I keep notes on what I’ve read, how it made me feel, and what I thought about it craft-wise (I prefer this to Goodreads); even my workout log is a little notebook. There are also lots and lots of pens, including fountain pens (you might be able to see the stain on my desk from an Incident).

I have a Mac mini as my desktop and a MacBook Air for when I’m writing away from my desk, like on my couch or in a coffee shop, or when I travel for teaching. I have a flat Apple mousepad that sometimes lives between the split keyboard, and sometimes outside of it. My keyboard is the ErgoDox EZ. There’s also a Yeti mic for whenever I get roped into doing short story narrations.

I keep dice nearby to roll for more of that click-clack sound, though I also use them in the writing process to help come up with new ideas, putting a bit more of the writing process to chance.

I still don’t feel like I’ve got my setup quite optimized yet, but it’s a work in process.

And what software?

Scrivener (from Literature and Latte) is my primary writing software. It’s great for me to be able to keep all of my drafts for a novel in one place, while still keeping them separate from each other. I can move scenes and chapters around, take “snapshots” before I make major changes just in case I want to go back, put in images and research files and documents full of names and other ideas. It also compiles well into other formats like Word when I need to send things to my editors, or .epub when I want to send them as ebooks to friends—or just to read them myself, and get into the feeling of reading a book and not a draft. That said, when I get into later phases of the draft, I do have to switch to Word just to keep things compatible with the publisher files. But Word struggles with 500+ page documents.

I use Scapple, from the L&L family, for brainstorming in a freeform way whenever I’m not actually in a notebook, and the Notes app is my trusty on-the-go or right-before-bed sidekick. Every book I’ve ever written has a file for those random nighttime thoughts. My website is hosted on Ghost.org, which also has a nice blog writing interface, so I write all of my newsletters/posts there.

On the audio side, I listen to music on Qobuz. Ninety-nine percent of the time, I’m listening to music when I write. Even when it’s not a story—right now as I type this, I’ve got the Baldur’s Gate 3 soundtrack on. I even make playlists for my books: Here's one for The Magic of the Lost trilogy. For my narrations, I use Audacity.

What’s your keyboard setup like? Do you use a custom layout or custom keycaps?

My ErgoDox is black, with blank keycaps and Cherry MX Brown keyswitches. I got the blanks because I like touch typing but it’s also a bit of a gloat: Once, when I posted a picture of my laptop screen, a reader commented on the wear on the letters of the keyboard (some of them were completely gone—hundreds of thousands of words will do that)—so now that’s not a problem.

I got the Browns because I really wanted the click-clack sound, and that has been a great way to get me back to the keyboard on days when I don’t want to. I just like it. I’ll probably try other switches, but unless I have to go to a group office setting, I’ll probably stick to the noisy ones. The Browns are a nice level of noise. I may also get some different color caps for the nonletter keys just to add some intrigue to the board, and maybe help me remember what I’ve done with things like End and Home. I also have the tent kit, but found that I tend to prefer the board flat most of the time.

When I switched to the ErgoDox, I also decided to do everything at once, and moved from QWERTY to Colemak-DH. It took a couple weeks to get up to speed for novel writing, and it made it hard to use my own laptop, but I found a Colemak-DH workaround for that. (Now I’m just stuck whenever I have to use someone else’s computer.)

The layout is pretty standard—no wild macros for me—but I have tried to optimize for writing. I call it “A Novelist’s Layout.” One of the bonus keys on the keyboard automatically opens a comment in Word, and if I double-tap-hold the right letter, it works as CMD+[letter], so tapping and holding Z will undo, or T will open a new tab, and so on. (I also had this for vowels like CMD+A, but I realized it takes away the Apple accent shortcuts, and as a fantasy writer, I really needed those. ;))

I don’t really use layers, except for the standard media, though I have tried using the mouse scroll function for when I have to read large documents, like student work, but don’t want to have to keep moving to my mouse.

What would be your dream setup?

I’m pretty content with my setup, though as I said, I don’t think it’s quite optimized. I used to use my laptop as a second monitor, but I don’t really feel the need for that at the moment. Maybe a slightly larger one than the one I have, is all. I wouldn’t mind a proper webcam, though, as I now no longer have an integrated one. Maybe a ring light as well. I do a lot of virtual talks with classrooms, book clubs, and book stores, so those would be definite upgrades.

I’d also like to upgrade the mobile side of my life. Since I have to travel for teaching and spend a lot of time writing in coffee shops, a more portable ZSA Voyager is on the list for one day. Maybe with slightly quieter keyswitches, for everyone else’s sake.