Aside from considering the different types of writing I do, I've also been thinking about the mechanics of writing in Emacs. Sanding down the rough parts of my workflow makes writing more enjoyable, and sometimes a small tweak lets me squeeze more writing into fragments of time.
There are more commands I want to call than there are keyboard shortcuts I can remember. I tend to use M-x to call commands by name a lot, and it really helps to have some kind of completion (I use vertico) and orderless matching.
I'm experimenting with more voice input because that lets me braindump ideas quickly on my phone. Long dictation sessions are a little difficult to edit. Maybe shorter snippets using the voice input mode on the phone keyboard will let me flesh out parts of my outline. I wonder if the same kind of quick input might be handy on my computer. I'm trying out whisper.el with my Bluetooth earbuds. Dictating tends to be stop-and-go, since I feel self-conscious about dictating when other people are around and I probably only have solo time late at night.
Misrecognized words can be annoying to correct on my phone. They're much easier to fix on my computer. Some corrections are pretty common, like changing Emax to Emacs. I wrote some code for fixing common errors (my-subed-fix-common-errors), but I don't use this often enough to have it in my muscle memory. I probably need to tweak this so that it's a bit more interactive and trustworthy.
When I see a word I want to change, I jump to it with C-s (isearch-forward) or C-r (isearch-backward), or I navigate to it with M-f (forward-word). I want to get the hang of using Avy because of Karthik's awesome post about it. That post is from 2021 and I still haven't gotten used to it. I probably just need deliberate practice using the shortcut I've mapped to M-j (avy-goto-char-timer). Or maybe I just don't do this kind of navigation enough yet to justify this micro-optimization (no matter how neat it could be), and isearch is fine for now.
Sometimes I want to work with sentences. expand-region is another thing I want to get used to. I've bound C-= to er/expand-region from that package. Then I should be able to easily kill the text and type a replacement or move things around. In the meantime, I can usually remember to use my keyboard shortcut of M-z for avy-zap-up-to-char-dwim for deleting something.
Even in vanilla Emacs, there's so much that I think I'll enjoy getting the hang of. oantolin's post on his writing experience helped me learn about M-E, which marks the region from the point to the end of the sentence and is a natural extension from M-e. Similarly, M-F selects the next word. I could use this kind of shift-selection more. I occasionally remember to transpose words with M-t, but I've been cutting and pasting sentences when I could've been using transpose-sentences all this time. I'm going to add (keymap-global-set "M-T" #'transpose-sentences) to my config and see if I remember it.
I like using Org Mode headings to collapse long text into a quick overview so I can see the big picture, and they're also handy for making tables of contents. It might be neat to have one more level of overview below that, maybe displaying only the first line of each paragraph. In the meantime, I can use toggle-truncate-lines to get that sort of view.
If I'm having a hard time fitting the whole shape of a thought into my working memory, I sometimes find it easier to work with plain list outlines that go all the way down to sentences instead of working with paragraphs. I can expand/collapse items and move them around easily using Org's commands for list items. In addition, org-toggle-item toggles between items and plain text, and org-toggle-heading can turn items into headings.
I could probably write a command that toggles a whole section between an outline and a collection of paragraphs. The outline would be a plain list with two levels. The top level items would be the starting sentences of each paragraph, and each sentence after that would be a list item underneath it. Sometimes I use actual lists. Maybe those would be a third level. Then I can use Org Mode's handy list management commands even when a draft is further along. Alternatively, maybe I can use M-S-left and M-S-right to move sentences around in a paragraph.
Sometimes I write something and then change my mind about including it. Right now, I tend to either use org-capture to save it or put it under a heading and then refile it to my Scraps subtree, but the palimpsest approach might be interesting. Maybe a shortcut to stash the current paragraph somewhere…
I use custom Org link types to make it easier to link to topics, project files, parts of my Emacs configuration, blog posts, sketches, videos, and more. It's handy to have completion, and I can define how I want them to be exported or followed.
Custom Org link types also let me use Embark for context-sensitive actions. For example, I have a command for adding categories to a blog post when my cursor is on a link to the post, which is handy when I've made a list of matching posts. Embark is also convenient for doing things from other commands. It's nice being able to use C-. i to insert whatever's in the minibuffer, so I can use that from C-h f (describe-function), C-h v (describe-variable), or other commands.
I also define custom Org block types using org-special-block-extras. This lets me easily make things like collapsible sections with summaries.
I want to get better at diagrams and charts using things like graphviz, mermaidjs, matplotlib, and seaborn. I usually end up searching for an example I can build on and then try to tweak it. Sometimes I just draw something on my iPad and stick it in. It's fine. I think it would be good to learn computer-based diagramming and charting, though. They can be easier to update and re-layout when I realize I've forgotten to add something to the graph.
Figuring out the proper syntax for diagrams and charts might be one of the reasonable use cases for large-language models, actually. I'm on the fence about LLMs in general. I sometimes use claude.ai for dealing with the occasional tip of the tongue situation like "What's a word or phrase that describes…" and for catching when I've forgotten to finish a sentence. I don't think I can get it to think or write like me yet. Besides, I like doing the thinking and writing.
I love reading about other people's workflows. If they share their code, that's fantastic, but even descriptions of ideas are fine. I learn so many things from the blog posts I come across on Planet Emacslife in the process of putting together Emacs News. I also periodically go through documentation like the Org Mode manual or release notes, and I always learn something new each time.
This post was really hard to write! I keep thinking of things I want to start tweaking. I treat Emacs-tweaking as a fun hobby that sometimes happens to make things better for me or for other people, so it's okay to capture lots of ideas to explore later on. Sometimes something is just a quick 5-minute hack. Sometimes I end up delving into the source code, which is easy to do because hey, it's Emacs. It's comforting and inspiring to be surrounded by all this parenthetical evidence of other people's thinking about their workflows.
Each type of writing helps me with a different type of thinking, and each config tweak makes thoughts flow more smoothly. I'm looking forward to learning how to think better, one note at a time.
Check out the Emacs Carnival July theme: writing experience post for more Emacs ideas. Thanks to Greg Newman for hosting!
