"Vane, how do you write your books?"

published: 2024-07-07

With my fingers. Typing tests average me between 85 to 100 words per minute, although this is obviously also dependent on the keyboard I am using, my mental status, and if I am re-typing provided material (like in the tests) or writing works fresh from my brain.
On Android I use Markor as it supports both Markdown and plain text without throwing a tantrum about file extensions and its wide range of features that come built-in. On Linux I use Nano as it gets out of my way. My nano command is aliased to nano -ULSmix --softwrap to keep the text area fullscreen and enable softwrapping, so long lines appear to go over multiple lines instead of having the overflowing characters be hidden by the edge of the screen. I despise hard wrapping and, after leaving the Gopher community at large (which practically demands it) sometime in 2020, I will never use it again.
I keep a folder full of text files, one per chapter or poem, and add to it over the course of several months until I feel it is sufficiently heavy. The "one file per part" strategy means I don't have to worry about sync conflicts from writing on multiple devices that are not always online at the same time to check in with each other through Syncthing. It does mean, if the parts of the book I am working on need to be in a specific order, I have to keep mental track of what number I am on to avoid nasty entanglements later.
The majority of the writing I do takes place on my Onyx Boox Tab Ultra C, which is a mouthful to say that I use an Android tablet with an e-ink screen that is disconnected from the Internet most of the time. It lasts several weeks on a single charge, especially if I am working outside in bright sunlight and I can keep the backlight off. It is small enough to fit in my miniature backpack and large enough that the keyboard is comfortable to type on and I can prop it up in my lap without having to find another flat surface to place it on top of. Before you email me to admonish me for spending so recklessly in the face of low income: I got it used off eBay for a steep discount. It is in excellent condition, although I suppose the screen could use a good cleaning. Blog posts, if I anticipate they will require any amount of online research, must wait until my full-size ThinkPad is available as Android is still not very comfortable for multitasking. But this post is not about writing posts, and anyways I am not frequently in the mood anymore to complain about things online.
For the books, once they get sufficiently heavy, I compile them using Calibre and its .epub editor. Poetry I copy-paste each individual file where I want it and manually convert to HTML one at a time. Long-form prose I run through smu or another Markdown-to-HTML converter to do the heavy lifting for me before I throw the resulting files into the Calibre book editor.
It is a simple requirement of my personality. There is no Vane who does not write. Take away my digital typewriters and I will write on my phone; take away my phone and I will sneak onto the nearest computer in the middle of the night; lock me away from the rest of the world and I will fill up every notebook; take away all paper and I will cover my skin with scrawlings. When all else has been taken from me, my writing remains. I have survived every punishment, every admonishment, every termination doled out for my words. To quote Susan Sontag, emphasis mine, from Under the Sign of Saturn:

It is characteristic of the Saturnine temperament to blame its undertow of inwardness on the will. Convinced that the will is weak, the melancholic may make extravagant efforts to develop it. If these efforts are successful, the resulting hypertrophy of will usually takes the form of a compulsive devotion to work. Thus Baudelaire, who suffered constantly from "acedia, the malady of monks," ended many letters and his Intimate Journals with the most impassioned pledges to work more, to work uninterruptedly, to do nothing but work. (Despair over "every defeat of the will" - Baudelaire's phrase again - is a characteristic complaint of modern artists and intellectuals, particularly of those who are both.) One is condemned to work; otherwise, one might not do anything at all.