About twenty-five years ago I stopped composing at the keyboard and switched over to fountain pen on paper. Since then I have written many thousands of pages that way. The manuscript of The Baroque Cycle was a stack of handwritten pages 42 inches high, which for a time was on display at the Museum of Science Fiction in Seattle. With the exception of The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O., which I co-wrote with Nicole Galland by emailing Word files back and forth, every book I’ve written since then has been composed with fountain pen on paper.
I think this is a generally helpful guide and not spon-con. The g-2 pens he recommends are way better than the cheaper lookalikes that are usually on the same rack so I think it is good that he mentions the brand. Moleskine notebooks do have better paper in them than the store brands that look the same. How could someone recommend a specific product in a way that you don’t see as paid advertising?
They could mention it more briefly and maybe include that they aren’t sponsored to recommend this brand.
Which is actually a compliment to said brand i would take the recommendation more seriously if its explicitly since. but it also cannot be lied about without causing potential legal trouble.
Though i want to conclude i am in no way saying this specific named author is doing anything wrong. my critique is the general state of the digital world. It may not be slop, but it might aswell be and there is no obvious difference.