my blogging setup is my writing process

Any post begins as a TODO entry in an ideas.org file. The entry can be a tentative title, the thing I want to write about, or a list of sources I want to connect.

The entry sits there for weeks, months, even years. Whenever I think about something relevant, I attach a note to the entry. Or I jot something down in any of the notebooks I keep around—on the desk, in my bag, in my nightstand drawer.

Eventually I find myself thinking about the post when I wake up, or while I’m running, instinctively composing it in my head, one sentence after another. Then I know it’s time to start writing.

I don’t have a strict method for what comes next, which is for the better, I think. Sometimes I shuffle my notes into cohesive paragraphs. Sometimes I toss the notes and start with an outline. Increasingly, I go for a handwritten first draft. Whatever the means, my goal is to arrive at a sequence of paragraphs, with no gaps or placeholders, as fast as I can. When I get to that (if I get to that) I know the post will cascade into existence, even if I need to rewrite every line in the process.

I use writeroom-mode to get a centered block of text on a minimal interface. I increase the text size and set the spell-checking language. org-blog-new-post calls jorge post to initialize the file, then visits it in an org-blog-mode buffer. While I work on the file I keep jorge serve running on the terminal and the post open on the browser1. And I save my progress with Magit just as I would if I were programming.

Leave a Comment