I like plaintext tools and Markdown because it’s fast and relatively distraction-free. I don’t like it because as of yet I have not found useful tools to integrate illustrations into what I write. Or, at least, I haven’t learned how to use the many plaintext tools I have tried, and the several that I continue to rotate through.
I want to write fast. I want to write chunks and assemble the chunks easily. I want to be able to publish the chunks molecularly as I build the organism.
The urge to publish molecules and a desire to escape bloated WordPress (I was once reasonably familiar with WordPress including diving into PHP when necessary—no more) led to a leisurely exploration of static website generators, text editors, git, and many other exciting (!) tools. It lead to note-taking apps like Roam and Obsidian. All of this took me away from what I want to do: get stuff out of my brain and out on the web.
It’s back to Word on OneDrive. Let someone else get it from Word to HTML and onto a web host. Word let’s me outline easily. (Yes I tried innumerable outlining tools). Word lets me embed images easily: drag and drop.
The lesson is: so only what only you can do. I am good at diving deep—getting all the way wet—in a subject area, and I know viscerally when I have reached the bottom of the ocean for that topic. Research materials on one side and an open document on the other.
I am good at simplifying complexity into diagrams. Omnigraffle pretty, Visio ugly. This is truth, so don’t fight me on it.
My computer is slowly getting lighter and easier to carry around as I delete one application after another. Wally in Dilbert told me that deleting a file from the hard drive would make my computer lighter. It must be true.
But clutter is disappearing too. One book I am writing had a shitshow of disorganized files. Sweeping everything to one place, making that place OneDrive, and then methodically cleaning up the file tree made the project coherent again—and something I want to work on. The mess, and the pieces of the project in disparate places, repelled me.
Memo to self:
- Only do what only you can do.
- Solve the rest of the problems with money.
Irony. This website works for precisely the reasons I describe above. One tool: the WordPress app on my phone. The backend is WordPress but I don’t care and I put up with it.
Just like Word. One tool, good enough, tolerate the fact that it’s somewhat shit, and get on with it.
I will solve the conversion of Word to HTML with money. I will let technology come to me with well-considered alternatives and switch when it’s irresistible.
(The desire to leave Mailchimp is irresistible. I just don’t know where I’m going yet. Substack or Beehiiv probably, because of reduced friction).