Quill — a journalEst. 2026

A quiet room for essays on craft, attention, and the slow work of making things well.

Quill is a personal journal by Mara Ellison. Mara writes about craft, attention, and the slow work of making good things. New writing lands here, and in the letter, most Sundays.

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Attention24 May 20268 min read

The quality of your attention

Why the work you make can only ever be as good as the attention you bring to it — and how to protect that attention like the scarce thing it is.

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Recent writing

Lately from the desk.

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Craft10 May 20266 min read

In praise of the rough draft

The first version is supposed to be bad. A defence of writing badly on purpose, and why the blank page is only frightening if you forget that.

Tools19 Apr 20267 min read

Notes on keeping a notebook

A paper notebook is a slow, lossy, gloriously analogue database. After fifteen years and forty of them, here is what they are actually for.

Craft28 Mar 20269 min read

The long middle

Every project has a glamorous beginning, a triumphant end, and a long grey middle where the actual work happens. On learning to live there.

Attention7 Mar 20265 min read

Against the feed

The feed is an extraordinary machine for making you feel busy while you make nothing. A small case for trading it, sometimes, for a single quiet page.

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