I’ve got two things really cooking right now.
One I write exclusively on hard-copy, as in physical notebooks with nice paper, a mechanical pencil, and eraser. That’s fun, because top quality equipment (good notebook, pencil, eraser) collectively run about $20. Most of that is long term too. The pencil isn’t done when the story is, nor the eraser. The story will probably take a few notebooks, so maybe a few bucks more there.
Writing is interesting because the hard part, writing the damn story, is also the cheapest. Editing, more editing, layout, etc. are all reasonably expensive, but the really fun part isn’t.
In case you’re curious, Kuru Toga pencil, Pentel Hi-Polymer eraser, and Maruman notebook.
Those are all Japanese companies. Is notebook-writing big in Japan?
I like the Kuru Toga metal pencil bodies. Plastic ones are fine, but the metal ones have just the right amount of knurling so I can get a comfortable grip without it ripping up my fingers. The erasers on the pencils are terrible, so I use the Pentel ones. Those are about perfect.
The notebook is a N236ES with 70g/m^2 paper, which is perfect for pencil writing. I rarely use pens, so I don’t know how it is for that. They use a nice spiral binding. The other notebook I really like, Mnemosyne (also by Maruman, now that I look), uses a wire comb binding which keeps losing pages. Their wires are bent so each hole has two wires, but the wires stop to bend back. That leaves a little hole where pages can fall out. These ones have a normalish spiral binding.
The big problem with pencil writing, dragging your hand through a written line, is an issue, and the slick paper doesn’t help. I sometimes cock the notebook at an angle to avoid it. A rougher paper like newsprint might fix that, but I don’t like writing on newsprint.