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Emacs Writing Studio
https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/writing - Peter Prevos - Track: General
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Q&A room: https://media.emacsconf.org/2024/current/bbb-writing.html
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Notes, discussions, links, feedback:
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Questions and answers go here:
- Q: For writers who procrastinate, it's very tempting to fall into the time sink of configuring Emacs rather than simply writing, even with the optimal Emacs writing setup. Is this something you've encountered, and do you have any suggestions for how to combat it?
- A: As probably all beginning Emacs users I spent a lot of time tinkering. I decided that I should work with rather than on Emacs and thus EWS was born. My prod config is 99% EWS with some enhancements. My config developed by just starting with vanilla Emacs and only add what I needed, as the need arose.
- Don't try to develop the ideal system in your mind and then build it, let it grow organically.
- Q: How much success have you had getting writers to use Emacs -- and stick with it -- using EWS? I've had people ask me about using Emacs for technical writing and/or coding, and start off well, but move to another editor in two months. The main reason is when they want to do something with Emacs, can't figure out how, and find a plugin (for Obsidian or VSCode, say) that does the thing they want with no further setup or tweaking required.
- A: I have had some good feedback from readers, but I cannot attest to their personal success. The aim of EWS is to get things working without the need for much config. However, Emacs will never bny an easy point and click system such as the ones you mention.
- Q:When I was learining Emacs I bounced off it the first couple of times, after reading Mastering Emacs and hearing it was the tinkerers editor I got the right mental model to learn Emacs. Did you have that? and what made it worth using and teaching others?
- A: The best way to learn anything is to teach other people. So I used EWS as a project to imporve my understanding of Emacs. Not only did it force me to fully understand how things works, but also develop new fucntions and packages where I saw a need.
- Q: I love using org to write prose. For me, I like writing the final version of the text in org, and I prefer paper to brainstorm ideas and draft things. How was the brainstorming experience and the process to organize your thoughts to write the book using org-mode?
- A: I do my brainstorning in a paper notebook. The first EWS idea is a sketch in my notebook. In my weekly review I transfer notes worth keeping to Denote (scan graphic notes). Writing by hand has many advantages for idea generation. Denote is my reporsitory, not a thinking tool.
- Q:
- Q:
- Thanks for the great questions. Apologies for the technical glitch.
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