I wonder what five things Shakespeare would say he needed in order to write—or Jane Austen or Edgar Allen Poe? They’d probably narrow it down to a pen and a brain. Allowing for changing tastes in literature, the craft of writing is much the same as it’s always been, but the mechanics of it have changed so dramatically I suspect the writers of the past, seeing my writing space, would be speechless. I’m speechless, imagining what it would be like to write a whole novel by hand with a quill pen. I’m glad I’m writing in the modern world. With that in mind, here are five things I need in order to write: