← SURYA HORA
21.04.2026
WRITING

the cost of a yellow page

On notebooks, ink, and why the most expensive thing about a piece of writing is not the time but the willingness to throw the first version away.

A page costs almost nothing. A good page costs a draft you were attached to.

I keep a yellow legal pad on the left of the desk and a black notebook on the right. The pad is for thinking out loud. The notebook is for sentences I am willing to defend.

Most of what gets written on the pad never crosses over. That is the point. The pad is not failure; it is the cost of the notebook.

Writing is mostly choosing.