Two things kept me busy: revamping my Emacs config (that’s one huge rabbit hole) and attempting to organize a book.

The Emacs config is probably relatable to many (if not most) folks who read this blog. Emacs is a text editor by definition, but an operating system by description. There is a lot to tweak in it, which is why the parody I pointed at at the top of this post several times. The short of it is that it’s going well, I’m learning a lot, and I’m really enjoying it. It’s one of the best (if not the best) educational experiences I’m having with AI, because1 it’s AI.

But I can imagine most of the eyebrow raises stem from the book part. I’ve had this idea in my head for a long time, and I owe it to one of the folks on Micro.blog (I can’t find the link right now). What I have in mind is simple: collect a few of my posts that create a certain theme, and add a few photos (I have a couple that could benefit from quality printing). To make it interesting, I want to add a few entries from my personal journal (edited for the general public) to fill in on my general state of mind during that time period.

The natural theme that came to mind was blogging itself, a book that talks about blogging, which is kind of odd, but I know I’d enjoy reading something like that. The problem is collecting posts into something that makes sense and feels like a story.

I wanted to collect texts from three major writing periods: starting to use Emacs org-mode, which is my writing tool of choice, starting my old blog, and starting my new blog here on Micro.blog. What was on my mind during these times? What did I learn? What were the choices I made, and why? I think that sounds interesting enough, so I went to search for those and… well, it’s not that easy.

While the texts themselves exist (for example, my first journal entry in Emacs org-mode, back in 2018, or my first posts on Micro.blog in 2023), the meaning is missing. These texts are mostly technical vents of a sleep-deprived and caffeinated brain, not stories. Which, when you think about it, makes sense: the first steps you take figuring out something new are not huge declarations (unless you land on the moon I guess) but mostly something along the lines of “Finally this shit works!” c’est la vie, right?

I have a couple of days off, so I have time to think, but I’m not sure how to approach it. I’d like to connect the dots myself and explain what I was doing, but that’s also technical and building on things I don’t remember fully.

Footnotes

1 : The AI points me to things that might be outdated or not true, which keeps me on my toes. As I keep asking it questions (“why are you saying this, when we can do this?”), it keeps pointing me to things that have me explore even further. It remembers what I’ve been doing so it gets an idea of what I’ll be more interested in, which is more or less the right direction.