Editor’s Note: Seth Brown writes about extremely technical topics over at DrBunsen.org. His interests span from awesome vim overviews to personal productivity with some stop overs in whisky town. Virtually everything he posts I put straight into Instapaper. That is if I can wait to read it. Most of the time I stop everything to read each post entirely. Each post is a little technical course on a single fascinating topic..

If you like, please provide a brief bio

My name is Seth Brown. I live in the United States with my wife Katrina and our dog Stewie. By day, I’m a bioinformatician. I use statistics and computers to analyze big data and understand human disease. By night I use the same tools to build stuff, answer questions that interest me, and act deliciously geeky. Mark Twain said that work and play are two words that describe the same thing under different conditions—I feel extremely lucky to be able to agree with him.

Why did you start writing at DrBunsen.org

I started DrBunsen.org from a confluence of things that were happening in my life. I had just finished an enjoyable post as a visiting professor and I felt a need to continue educating after I left my position. Web development was something that I had no prior experience with and something that I always had an itch to learn. I wanted a public venue where I could continue to improve my writing, coding, and analytical skills as well as interact with other people who shared similar interests. Creating a website satisfied all of these criteria, so here we are.

How do you capture your ideas and research an article on your blog?

Capture is frequently precipitated by my own interests in learning something new. One of the best way to learn something is to write about it. This is one way I try to trick myself into being awesome. I get ideas by trying to answer questions that I think are interesting, pursuing difficult problems I’ve encountered, and writing about inspiring subjects.

I capture most of my ideas with pen and paper or on my office whiteboard. Lately, I’ve been using the Retro 51 Tornado for most of my paper capture. I digitize everything, so the irony here is not lost on me. I’ve yet to find another medium that rivals the speed, information density, or expressiveness of drawing for capture and idea generation. From these physical inputs, I use an automated system that I wrote to archive daily digital snapshots of my whiteboard and other drawings and images that I take with my iPhone camera. Apps like Prizmo make the iPhone a powerful capture tool in my workflow.

A nascent blog post begins when I create a new OmniFocus project and import an image of a drawing that I’ve captured into the project. I like to further develop my posts from within OmniFocus in the form of shallow outlines; simple bullet points mostly. I also add links, images, and sometimes audio data to the project. My best ideas occur at random times so I like to confine the development process to OmniFocus where I can quickly capture supporting ideas at my computer or remotely on iOS. When I feel that I’ve accumulated sufficient material, I use my OmniFocus outline as a guide for writing my posts. Most of my blog post ideas die at this stage when I come to the realization that either my ideas are poor or someone has already written something better than I could ever hope to produce. Once I’ve accumulated sufficient material within the OmniFocus project, I start the writing process.

How does this differ from your process for writing professionally?

The initial idea capturing process is similar between my blog and professional work. My work projects are larger and more complex, so I supplement my capture process by using a wiki system generated with Gollum and written in Markdown. I find that wikis are a great medium to organize, consolidate, and interconnect my drawings, with URLs, PDF files, visualizations, and other resources relevant to a given project. I frequently have impromptu whiteboard brain-storming sessions with coworkers that I capture with my iPhone and later add to my wiki. Drawing and image capture are very useful in these contexts.

You write a lot of code. How do you research and create code for your professional and personal projects?

I create personal and professional code similar to how I create prose. Coding and writing are essentially the same thing. I start coding projects by drawing diagrams of how my programs will work, how the individual pieces will fit together, and what data structures and algorithms I plan to use. If I’m creating a tool that other people will use, I think about the user interface first and work backward to write the implementation. Experience has taught me that diving into a project without thoroughly thinking it through leads to downstream problems.

I don’t research code per say, but I do like to read code to make myself a better programmer. I read great writers to understand how to become a better writer, so this seems like what I should be doing with code as well—the XMonad source code and Peter Norvig’s Sudoku puzzle solver are beautiful examples.

Whenever I encounter a useful piece of code, I add it to my snippet library if the snippet is short or refactor it into one of own my personal modules. I’ve always struggle with how best to keep small code snippets, but I’ve settled on using CodeBox. I have very large snippet libraries for several languages, so searching my own resources is usually the fastest way to find what I need. Symbol Hound and Hoogle are also handy tools for metacharacter queries and other special searches.

Can you provide an overview of your writing process?

It’s essential for me to build an outline in OmniFocus prior to starting the writing process. The outline is a way for me to evaluate whether I can write a cohesive body of text around an idea. The cornerstone of good writing is good ideas. I like outlines because they allow me to see how my writing will look and flow. Once I have the substance captured in outline form, I can concentrate on the flow and syntax of my words during the writing process.

Before I start writing, I like to read short passages from great writers. I write mostly technical material, so I try to read and emulate the styles of the best technical writers I know—Harold Varmus, Brian Kernighan, and Oliver Sacks to name a few. I try to absorb their styles and integrate them into my own. In the words of Paul Graham, copy what you like and in the words of Ausin Kleon, steal like an artist.

I write the final version of a document start to finish, paragraph by paragraph, until the final version is finished. I write in Markdown for my blog and initially Markdown for my professional work, which later gets converted to TeX and rendered with the XeTeX engine. I’ve never been able to write drafts and then iterate through revisions until a final version is produced. I rarely finish a post in one sitting. I like to write in short spurts over the course of several days. As I write, I like to read my words aloud. This technique greatly improves my writing.

If I get stuck while writing, I use a few techniques to help me. Sometimes I start working on another project for a few days then go back to writing. Switching working environments and input devices can help. I move from working on the computer at my standing desk to an iPad on a chase. If I get stuck more than once or twice while working on a piece, it’s usually a sign that my original ideas are flawed.

How long have you been doing it this way?

Since college.

What enhancements have you made to make writing and research easier?

Practice is the biggest enhancement I’ve made to my writing. The more I write, the better and faster I get. I use several tools I’ve written to help me automate steps in the writing process. I write a lot of Markdown and one of my favorite enhancements is a simple Markdown formatting tool that I’ve written called formd. I also make heavy use of TextExpander to simplify a lot of writing drudgery. TextExpander is especially useful for Unicode characters. I have an entire snippet group dedicated to Unicode, which greatly speeds up my professional writing where I use a lot of obscure math symbols and greek letters.

I’ve experimented with many different research enhancements over the years. Towards Effective Information Processing is kind of my manifesto on this subject. Learning to automate much of the initial research process has been the biggest enhancement that I’ve made.

Do you have a specific work environment or setup for researching and composing an article?

My home office is my preferred working environment because it’s where I get the most done. The lack of a commute and the distraction free environment make me much more productive than in a typical office. My work environment consists of a standing drafting table with a three monitor configuration and bias lighting. I spent my youth working on drafting tables and it remains my preferred work surface. My left display always has a full screen iTerm2 window running in it. I spend close to 90% of my time between iTerm2 and Google Chrome. I use terminal Vim inside iTerm for all my writing and coding.

Do you write from a mobile device? If so, how does this process differ from your desk computer?

I write with my iPad. My writing process really doesn’t change very much on the iPad, it just slows down. I don’t find that the iPad can even remotely substitute for my work station, but I do feel it plays an important role in my writing workflow. The iPad allows me to sit outside or in a remote location, which can sometimes help me write.

I use OmniFocus for the iPad since I use OmniFocus so heavily on my Mac. Dropbox is the glue that holds all my writing together on my computer and remote devices. I completely burnt-out on iOS Dropbox text editors sometime in 2009. There are just too many excellent iOS apps to keep track of. I just use whatever Federico Viticci recommends; lately that’s Writing Kit on the iPad. Thanks to your recommendations, I also use Terminology frequently while I write.

Does your workflow change based on the type of post?

No.

What parts of your workflow are you looking to change or improve?

Contextual awareness.

Location-specific functionality is an untapped area of my workflow. There is tremendous potential to leverage proximity sensors and WiFi location to carry out specific actions though a computer or mobile device. Every six months, I try to integrate contextual functionality into my workflow with little success. In an ideal world, my iPhone would open my garage door, turn the lights on in my office, and open a terminal window because it is aware that I am in the car, close to home, and at 11am there is a high probability that I will be working on the command line.

What parts of your workflow are you least willing to change?

Maybe I’m dodging the question, but I’m willing to drop any piece of my workflow if it makes me a faster or better writer. I have no allegiances. With that being said, it will take something special to get me to get me to move away from Vim as my text editor.

Anything else you would like to share about your workflow?

I write best in flannel surrounded by the The Goldberg Variations.

Editor’s Note: Michael Schechter first caught may attention over at BetterMess.com with some clever ideas about OmniFocus. He writes smart things about productivity, writing and blogging, which are unlikely topics for me to follow. But Michael writes regularly and he writes well. He writes honestly about things he cares about or is trying to figure out. His articles are generally long reads that say something meaningful without preaching or selling something. I read his stuff everyday. I also follow him on Twitter because he continues to say funny, clever and nice things there too.

If you like, please provide a brief bio

I’m Michael Schechter, the sole blogger over at A Better Mess and one of the two “Mikes” on the 70Decibels Podcast, Mikes on Mics. I also work in our family’s 65-year-old jewelry company and focus on the digital aspects of our business. I live in an insanely overpriced and cramped apartment in Brooklyn, NY along with my tolerant wife, two young girls and our dog.

Why did you start BetterMess.com

The truth here is that I’m a mess and I really, really want to get better. I benefit from thinking things through in writing and began publishing with the hope that both myself and others would benefit from a healthy mix of tips, tactics and self-deprecating honesty. The site started out as a personal blog on my personal domain MichaelSchechter.me. It went through several iterations, including being the 4,201,376th blog on social media and a highly unread life-streaming site (all of these god awful posts still live on the site for posterity). Over time, I found I really enjoyed the writing, but that I wasn’t going to keep at it unless I honed in on a subject that really mattered to me. I shifted my focus to creativity and productivity, two areas that I’m interested in yet constantly struggle with.

How do you capture your ideas and research an article for your sites?

I have the memory of a goldfish, so quick capture is essential for me. Because of ADHD, I can lose track of things at an alarming rate, so developing a system around capturing ideas was essential. I started by trying to keep all of my ideas in a task manager (at the time I was using Things, but I’ve switched to OmniFocus nowadays), but this was clunky. After a marathon day of listening to the Mac Power Users podcast, I discovered the first of Merlin Mann’s two workflow episodes and became a devout Simplenote and nvALT user for anything related to my writing. I useTextExpander snippets to name my files and capture a few lines to remind me of what I want to say when I have the time to write. The apps are synced with one another, so regardless of where I am, I can capture or expand on any of the ideas floating around in my brain.

As for the research side of things, my site tends to be well lived rather than well researched (read: my site is not very well researched). However, I do spend a good amount of my energy responding to the things I’ve read. This almost always comes from articles in Instapaper (which now lets me send text to Simplenote) or a podcast in Instacast (where I will open up a note in Simplenote and do my best to capture whatever thought I’m looking to respond to. I also appreciate well-turned phrases and capture these for future use or inspiration on a Tumblr blog.

How do you find inspiration and how do you keep track of your ideas?

The ideas I’m most excited by tend to hit me when I’m reading or listening to the work of others. Where many do their best thinking in solitude, I prefer to allow the words coming in to collide with whatever ideas have rolling in my head. In the past, this inspiration would leave just as quickly as it came, but thankfully my capture process in Simplenote on the iPhone or nvALT on either of my Macs has proven to be an effective bottle for storing my lightening. I don’t use any folders here, but carefully name my text files for easy recall. I also use a very lightweight tagging system to remind me what is posted, ready for editing, working, abandoned or just waiting for expansion. That arsenal of ideas has proven to be an invaluable asset on the days when I go looking for inspiration only to find it’s gone missing.

Can you provide an overview of your writing process?

I have two distinct processes, one for my blog posts and another for longer form projects like my monthly articles for a trade magazine in the jewelry industry.

Most of my blog posts are almost always written free form. The title or core idea will hit me and I will jump into Simplenote or nvALT to capture it. Sometimes momentum takes over and I write the piece on the spot (I find this happening more and more often on the subway); other times, I will go back to what I was doing and return to expand or eliminate the idea at a later date. The actual writing itself happens in Simplenote on the iPhone or in Byword on my Mac (with the files being stored in nvALT). Once I really dig into a post, I’ll tag it as “Working”, when I feel I’ve gotten it to the right point, I switch the tag over to “Edit”. I struggle from what’s known as “Chimp Grammar.” As in, I possess the grammar skills of a chimp, so my exceedingly patient wife is kind enough to read things over. She’s also more than generous when it comes to telling me when something I’ve written makes no sense. Even when I’m writing a geeky post, I try to keep it so a non-techie can understand, so she’s proven to be an ideal test audience for me. If needed, I reset the tag to “Working” and try to find a better balance of geekiness and clarity.

My process for articles or my geekier posts is a bit more structured. I don’t mind going down a rabbit hole on a blog post, but I can’t afford a lack of clarity in an article. These posts will start as a mind map in iThoughts HD on my iPad or MindNode Pro on my MacBook Air. In the past I would send my map into Scrivener as an outline to write my piece (I did this by using OPML, it’s a bit of workflow that I stole from David Sparks), but a recent change to iThoughts has me changing things up a bit. Everything I write, regardless of the app or the end use is written in Markdown. iThoughts now allows you to export your mind map into an outline in Markdown. I’ve been experimenting with putting that outline directly into Simplenote or Byword and bypassing Scrivener altogether. I don’t think this change would work well for someone writing a book, but I’ve found it a worthwhile shift for 700-1500 word articles.

I tend to not like to let formatting get in the way of the writing, so regardless of which workflow I’m using, I save this for last. Once my wife gives me the thumbs up, I open her edited text file in Byword and use a combination of their native tools, some TextExpander snippets and some Keyboard Maestro Macros to add links, emphasis and structure to the piece.

While this likely sounds crazy, the process feels invisible to me and provides a framework for not only capturing, but executing on my ideas.

How long have you been doing it this way?

I really only started pulling this process together about a year and a half ago after listening to that Mac Power Users episode with Merlin. The bulk of this process has been in place for just about a year now.

What enhancements have you made?

Using markdown outlines in Byword for longer form writing has been the biggest change. At first I was worried about the inability to shuffle text around, but thankfully Brett Terpstra pointed out some rather useful keyboard shortcuts for manipulating text in Byword.

I’m also always looking for new TextExpander snippets or Keyboard Maestro macros to speed things up, but at this point I’m feeling happily married to my process.

Do you have a specific work environment or setup for researching and composing an article?

I have a full-time job, a patient wife and two young children, so I’ve had to learn to be nimble with my writing process. In fact, I wrote this on my iPhone on the way to work. We also live in a small apartment in Brooklyn (or at least it feels small once you’ve shoved two kids’ worth of stuff in it) and have no steady workspace. It was these time and space restrictions that led me to seek out tools that could help me create meaningful work in whatever time or space I have. A lot of this has been inspired by Yuvi Zalkow’s videos on writing when you’re busy.

Does your workflow change based on the type of post?

At first, the type of piece (blog vs. article) drove the particular workflow I chose. As I grow more familiar with my process, I’m starting to find that it’s less about how the piece is published and more about my intent. A thought I want to examine goes into the first, more freeform workflow and things I hope to explain clearly get mapped out.

What parts of your workflow are you looking to change or improve?

I’m getting to the point where I’m weary about changing things. I’ve spent a tremendous amount of time creating and tweaking my process, but I find that I’m starting to get to a point where the time spent making changes is equal to or less than the savings of any improvements. The one thing I’m hoping and actively begging Brett Terpstra to bring to Marked is the ability to identify the words I overuse as well as the frequent grammar mistakes I make. To some extent, I’ve shifted my focus away from tweaking my workflow and am focusing that attention on being a better writer in general. Sadly, the tools will only take me so far on that front…

What parts of your workflow are you least willing to change?

Once something works, I am stubborn about changing. I know myself and I can easily get lost in trying new tools. While I attempt to leave myself open to new innovation, I also try to stubbornly shut myself off to apps that boast new features. The subtle differences between apps like Byword and iA Writer aren’t going to put a single extra word on the screen and an obsession with them is almost certain to guarantee that less words make it there.

Anything else you would like to share about your workflow?

The best advice I can give anyone who struggles to get their ideas out of their head and onto some sort of medium is to create a cohesive process. Take your strengths and weaknesses into account and make sure that your process factors in things like time restrictions or diverse writing environments. Experiment, but always protect the process once you create one that works for you. Knowing how you’re going to get your work done allows you to take your focus off the process and enables you to focus on the work. This is especially essential for those of us who lack focus. There’s no doubt that obsessing about your workflows is a form of procrastination, but not having a workflow is just as likely to lead you down the road of the undone. And know that no matter how many of these you workflow posts you read, your process will inevitably look different than anyone else’s (no matter how much you steal from them).

Editor’s Note: MacStories.net is one of the best Apple related news sites around. I also think it is one of the most credible sources for interesting and reliable Apple information and app reviews. I fully credit Federico Viticci with the MacStories rise to prominence. From what I can tell, it’s his darling and he pours an amazing amount of care into his work. His stories are well written, thoroughly thoughtful and heavily referenced. It’s one of the few feeds I check throughout the day.

It’s an impressive feat by a relatively new editor and I thank Federico Viticci for staying true to an ideal that I trust. I also thank him for generously participating in my Writer Workflow series.

If you like, please provide a brief bio

My name is Federico Viticci, and I’m the Editor-in-Chief of MacStories.net. I am 23, and I live in a small town in Italy called Viterbo. I started MacStories in April 2009.

Why did you start MacStories.net

There’s the real reason (I had been fired from my previous job, and writing was something I had always wanted to do) and the reason I gave myself as things started going well, which is to provide a different, more in-depth mix of Apple news, analysis, and software reviews.

How do you capture your ideas and research an article for your sites?

Typically, I’m one that likes to tinker with his workflow and always try new things, but in fact I think I’ve settled with a system that works for me for quite some time now. I mainly capture ideas in Evernote, using the iOS or Mac app, or by forwarding short bits of text to my Evernote email address using Captio (which is universal, unlike Note 2 Self, which is iPhone only). On the Mac, I had our writer Don build a series of scripts to automate the process of getting links and web text into Evernote for Mac using Keyboard Maestro. When I’m not using my Mac — most of the time these days — I like to write in Evernote for iPad, though I recognize the app is not perfect and could use a lot of text related improvements. The real difference, however, that I made in my writing habits recently is that I try to use Evernote for “research” articles like longer software reviews and things like this, while keeping the more “standard” posts or editorials in Dropbox. I think this kind of division makes me write better in that these articles require different, separate workflows, and thus different apps. When it comes to Dropbox, my editor of choice is Writing Kit, though I have been playing with a lot of iOS text editors. I prefer Writing Kit because it’s got better research tools — it’s not the same kind of “research” that goes into Evernote-based articles, but it still helps me when I want to get links into an editorial piece of fact-check information. Sometimes I wish Evernote supported Markdown.

How do you find inspiration and how do you keep track of your ideas?

Inspiration usually hits me randomly, though I have been observing a strange pattern in ideas forming very well when I take a shower (guess I’m a follower of Paul Graham’s theory that we have a “top idea” in our mind, mine being writing) or when I make coffee. Other times, I just see someone else on the Internet writing down his honest opinion and I’m prompted to respond and offer my take on the subject. Or, something I’ve been liking a lot lately, I like to look at a particular issue, and find viable solutions without just keep arguing “it’s an issue, and we can’t do anything about it”. To keep track of ideas, I treat these ideas as separate items from my OmniFocus todo list, so I use Dropkick for them (and again, I have been playing around with Todo.txt and TaskAgent for this, but I keep coming back to Dropkick for some reason).

Can you provide an overview of your writing process?

I let an article simmer for several days, sometimes even weeks, but I don’t write drafts. I build up what I want to say (and the best ways to convey it) in my mind until “I’m happy with my thoughts” and I’m ready to turn them into words. When “I don’t feel” an article, I just don’t write it because I know it won’t turn out any good. I know some people swear by their drafts and they even produce dozens of those letting their friends and coworkers read them — I only have one version of the article that is available in text. That version is the same my coworkers and girlfriend help me proofread. Also, all my articles are usually done in one session, though both the Sparrow and 2011 MacBook Air review took two days of writing.

How long have you been doing it this way?

Since forever. In high school, I would spend 30 minutes thinking, then I began writing. I was a fast writer — now I’m a bit slower because I’m not used to pens anymore. But I remember my Italian teacher thought it was a weird process — I think there’s no necessarily “right” process when it comes to writing. Just make sure you’ll eventually write something, and write it the way you want, and you’ll be fine.

What enhancements have you made?

If by “enhancement” you mean “tinkering”, then I guess a lot. But seriously I am happy with my workflow now, and like I said I can’t wait for Evernote to gain more writer-oriented features and support for better text editing. I guess an enhancement may have been learning Markdown — or better, learning how to use it consistently.

Do you have a specific work environment or setup for researching and composing an article?

I can’t write in public places because I feel like everyone’s staring at me. I do read a lot in public places though. I write at home, at my desk or on the couch or at the kitchen table, as long as TV is turned off and there’s some good music in the background. These days I’m into the latest Kasabian and M83.

Does your workflow change based on the type of post?

Yes. It’s mainly about the difference between news, breaking news, and all the other articles I’m working on. For the editorials and reviews, I keep my own schedule as long as it also works with any possible embargo I may be under, so sometimes I do have a deadline to meet. With the news, however, I need to be fast and accurate when reporting them, because let’s face it, no one enjoys the stupid rumor blogs unless you’re high. In that case it’s quite entertaining.

What parts of your workflow are you looking to change or improve?

There are so many apps and services I wish existed, but I can’t build myself because I don’t have the skills and knowledge. For starters, more powerful Evernote iOS apps would definitely improve my workflow. Figure out a better way to clip items from Safari, or supercharge the built-in browser with more research tools. Maybe just acquire Writing Kit, leave it as it is, but add some Evernote features to it. I don’t know, might be cool. Also, because Twitter is more than a social network in my workflow, I would love to see Tapbots consider a web view that you can dismiss, while keeping the webpage you’re checking open in the background. Or maybe, as Cody joked on Twitter, Tapbots should just make their own Browserbot. But aside from things I wish existed (and that no one will likely ever make), I would like to improve my workflow by remembering to use Greplin more (sometimes I fire up a Google search query through Alfred out of sheer habit, while I should just remember I love Greplin so much) and getting to use

What parts of your workflow are you least willing to change?

My Twitter client and Evernote. There is no way I’m switching from Tweetbot on iOS; I’m too committed to Evernote at this point to even consider moving these 6643 notes to another environment. It helps that the company seems to really be in it for the long haul.

Anything else you would like to share about your workflow?

I like to write at night, or before dinner. I can’t listen to podcasts while writing, but I do enjoy some quality tunes. I don’t have hundreds of keyboard shortcuts memorized, just the ones from Keyboard Maestro. I am quite fast at touch-typing on the iPad. I like to keep a glass of Coke next to me while I’m writing a software review, but iced tea in the summer. I hate coming up with titles, and I like the sound of the word “whilst”. Overall, I look forward to writing from my iPad even more in the future.

Editors Note

Sven Fechner is the force behind SimplictyIsBliss.com and one of the biggest evangelists of OmniFocus next to Ken Case. I am a regular reader because he says smart things and provides keen insight. He understands his simple set of tools and shares his discoveries in succinct posts. Sven doesn’t post about the latest cool apps or cute “tricks.” He writes about solving real problems with basic tools.
He’s currently working on a new OmniFocus book that I am anxiously awaiting. Based on how he uses OmniFocus, it’s guaranteed to be a valuable addition to my library.

How do you capture your ideas and research an article for Simplicity Is Bliss?

Capturing ideas is a pretty chaotic process for me and that often has to do with the tools at hand when I come across an idea. Many ideas are triggered by tweets and if they contain a link to a blog post I often throw it straight from Tweetbot for iPad into Instapaper for later processing. If it’s just the tweet itself or a link to an application I might want to write about, I send the tweet as an email to OmniFocus using OmniGroup’s Send-To-OmniFocus email service.

This is obviously my iPad workflow for capturing ideas. While I also use Evernote on all my devices, it’s more reference material (invoices and such) that is being kept in there.

Working on my MacBook Air, capturing is more OmniFocus-centric, but I also use Instapaper for blog posts that caught my interest. But generally, and as many would expect, I throw most things in my OmniFocus inbox for later processing.

Can you provide an overview of your writing process?

Writing a proper article can, but doesn’t need to start in MindNode Pro where I brainstorm key elements of the planned article. I also collect links I want to use or that contain background information in MindNode while I research.

Sometimes I export a OPML file from MindNode to OmniOutliner Pro to further detail my ideas into a proper outline. This is also where often the final structure comes to my articles.

Actual writing is either done in iA Writer on the Mac or on the iPad or using MarsEdit. While MarsEdit is a great blogging application, I use it less since I moved my blog to tumblr. MarsEdit currently lacks support for posting articles as drafts to tumblr and doesn’t allow you to modify the Twitter message tumblr sends when posting.
I really love Daniel Jalkut‘s work, but he better get working on some more tumblr features for MarsEdit.

At present iA Writer is my main environment to get actual writing done. I write exclusively in Markdown and while I also heard good things about Byword, I am quite happy with the feature set iA Writer is offering me, most recently it’s iCloud support.

How long have you been doing it this way?

This process is now in place for pretty much a year. Various elements of it have been there before and tweaked into the current setup by means of continuous improvement (other word for ‘fiddling around’).

While I am always keen to improve, I stopped changing tools too often as I ended up wasting time playing around too much. Forcing myself to stick with a specific tool or application for at least 6 months has helped me to appreciate individual applications and actually learn more about them, e.g. their keyboard shortcuts.

Do you have a specific work environment or setup for researching and composing an article?

The weakest part of my workflow is the research. It happens allover the place involving Instapaper, Evernote, OmniFocus, favourites on Twitter, MindNode Pro and possibly napkins. I am not happy with it and will have to change something as I am embarking on my biggest writing challenge so far: An ebook about OmniFocus for Mac.

Writing itself happens nearly everywhere: In the office, on the plane or at home. The more predictable element is time: It’s mostly in the morning that I write. My energy is simply higher than during other times of the day.

Does your workflow change based on the type of post?

I try to leverage -the uniqueness of- tumblr in terms of post types and so my workflow does change:

• Comprehensive articles get written in iA Writer and posted to tumblr through MarsEdit or directly by copy & paste into the web interface
• Link list posts are sometimes done using the tumblr bookmarklet or the tumblr web interface; Some of them, especially those where I have more commentary, are done using MarsEdit
• Video/audio and quote posts are exclusively done using the tumblr web interface

What are your custom tweaks to your workflow?

I guess there are many individual elements to any workflow, but I’d like to highlight three in mine:

1. TextExpander is something I heavily rely on in general. When it comes to writing TextExpander helps me with some Markdown syntax like inline links and images, but also has a group of snippets that represent menu navigation paths of OmniFocus (e.g. ‘ofview’ expanding into ‘Menu > View > Show View Bar or Command-Shift-T’) which I use often in my posts about OmniFocus.
2. Something I incorporated in my workflow just recently are Brett Terpstra’s Markdown Service Tools. A neat collection of Mac OS X Services that help you with some of the syntax and generally make writing Markdown more efficient.
3. A little Mac OS X service to create post slugs for tumblr which I recently built with help of the TextAutomation Action Pack, it’s author Ben Waldie and Mac OS X Automator; All inspired by this episode of MacPowerUser podcast.

What parts of your workflow are you looking to change or improve?

As outlined before, I am not happy with the lack of consistency in my researching. It’s likely not the missing application or tool, it is, like so often in live, change of behaviour and discipline that I need to apply.

Some parts of my workflow will need to change as I start writing my ebook about OmniFocus, working title: “Putting OmniFocus to Work”.

Writing an entire book is clearly different to composing individual blog posts. There will be a lot of outlines, content and research to manage and my current workflow isn’t really geared for this. My current intention is to publish via Amazon and iBooksStore and I have to figure out how I get my book into the required formats. So I will spent time looking at Amazon’s Kindle publishing tools and Apple’s recently released iBooks Author.

For the actual writing process I’d like to stick with a simple environment that allows me to continue writing in Markdown, but I clearly need a more powerful ‘machine room’ to keep things together. Whomever I talk to is telling me Scrivener is the thing and I never heard anything else being recommended. So seems I need to churn out the 45$ and buy it.

What parts of your workflow are you least willing to change?

For blogging I am happy with most elements. Still hoping for extended tumbler support by MarsEdit and maybe an iPad version of it including iCloud support. But these are maybe to many asks from a single developer.

While I was initially skeptical about writing Markdown, it has now become the single one thing that I don’t want to change in my workflow at all.

Anything else you would like to share about your workflow?

Looking at the collection of tools I referenced as part of this interview, I first and foremost like to thank all these independent Mac developers, big and small, that put so much dedication and passion into their products.

They surprise me every day by offering me more possibilities on pieces of hardware I already own, and are a very important element of Apple’s success, which is recently spoken about so much.

Editor’s Note

Justin Lancy is better known to me as Veritrope. He’s the man behind one of the most useful public AppleScript repositories you’ll find anywhere. His scripts are elegant and instructive. I’ve examined his work just to learn how to be better. His own scripts span a wide number of uses but he caught my attention with Evernote and OmniFocus scripts.

In addition to the geeky scripting stuff, Justin writes about real and culturally relevant things with a personal insight that is still rare. Veritrope is the only site I read that has an entire section dedicated to the arts (which says as much about me as it does Justin). More than that, Justin believes in real things that matter to real people.

“When meritocracy exists in this world, it is only because human beings have made sure that good works were supported — and that kind people were encouraged. No one person on their own can make the world into a decent place.” — Justin Lancy

About me

I’ve worked for the past eight years as a consultant in New York City, designing workflows for creative professionals: Most of my clients work in film/television, academia, writing, or journalism. My job, essentially, is to watch how these smart people create and then to build a supportive platform of technology around them so that they can do their work even better. Outside of New York, most people in the Mac community know me as the publisher of Veritrope.com.

Veritrope is where I share (among other things) tools and resources for people interested in the artful use of their Macs. Over the past couple of years I’ve published versions of AppleScripts and Services originally developed for my clients there, as well as examples of useful code from others. I’m hoping to return at least a little bit of the oxygen that I’ve received from talented and generous people in the Apple ecosystem over the years while, at the same time, helping to advance the notion that computing can be a more bespoke experience than it usually is.

I’ve also recently made a point of visiting new places whenever time allows. Mark Twain once wrote that “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness” and, as I wouldn’t mind seeing any one of those three things getting hit by a bus, I’ve already visited twenty-nine countries. Close to 250,000+ miles worth of planes and trains later, I still feel like I’m just getting started. And, you know, Twain was right: Seeing more of the world has changed pretty much everything I thought I knew about it before I first walked out my door.

As an outgrowth of that awareness that 1.) The world is so big and 2.) My brain is so small, I’ve been spending more of my time with Non-Profit organizations who are doing truly admirable and necessary work in some of the places I’ve visited. In 2011, I joined the Board of Directors for Village Science, a group which creates textbooks and initiates science education programs for people in developing countries. I think it’s been another wonderful way for me to dispel my ignorance, though I must confess it often causes me to visualize a #FIRSTWORLDPROBLEMS hashtag running across the foreheads of people who complain about the ordinary inconveniences of life in my presence.

All and all — it adds up to quite a lot of things to write about!

Why do you write at Veritrope.com?

Veritrope.com (and its Twitter feed) collects my favorite tools and bits of inspiration about Travel, Global Culture, and the intelligent use of technology. But at a more fundamental level, I write because it helps me be clearer about who I am, what I think, and how I feel about things. (Also, I find the mechanical act of dismantling sentences and putting them back together in a more elegant way to be intensely satisfying.)

Writing can be an incredibly powerful thing, as it holds within it the secret to de-bullshit-ifying your life. Take a moment and try to find the right words to frame whatever it is you’re thinking about. Write them down and look at them. Read them back to yourself aloud (do your best Morgan Freeman voice, if that helps). Repeat the process until you can’t hear that creaking sound coming from the rhetorical tree limb you were out on – but didn’t know you were out on – anymore.

Another reason I do it: Part of why this big, beautiful world isn’t a natural meritocracy is because everyone has a different idea of what is valuable. Writing is a great way to use whatever influence you have to ensure that your treasures — the “good people” and the work which you admire — are discovered by others.

Veritrope is my attempt at regularly putting these ideas into practice.

What are the applications you use for making a post on Veritrope.com?

I keep a updated resource page on Veritrope which has some of my favorite Mac / iOS tools for writers, but let’s see if we can’t do a truly Macdrifter-worthy drilldown into some of the items on that list! ;-)

I think of apps in an almost GTD-like way: Some are for finding and collecting ideas and some are for turning those ideas into action…

Finding and Collecting Inspiration:

RSS Feeds

I’ve been a diehard RSS junkie for years and some of the first AppleScripts that I ever wrote were for NetNewsWire. These days, I’m using Reeder for Mac and the iPad.

Twitter

Fresh content and concise delivery? Me likey!

I think one of the more “slept on” features of Twitter is Lists. I use Lists to quickly find content that I am only occasionally interested in, but where it wouldn’t be easy to get at it with a single hashtag or a simple search. Sometimes I like to look at, say, European Airline Twitter feeds for deals. Sometimes I want to know what my favorite Mac people are talking about. By creating lists around different areas of interest, I can maintain a high signal-to-noise ratio for my main Twitter stream (and quite probably save myself a fair bit of money because I’m not as tempted to buy plane tickets!).

To augment this approach of targeted attention, I also use multiple search columns in Tweetdeck to monitor topics and trends that I’m interested in. It’s a great way to meet people who are into the same stuff as you, but who weren’t on your radar before.

Oh… I used to think all of the talk about Tweetbot was overblown — until I tried it! Tweetbot makes it incredibly easy to collect your daily nuggets of Twitter gold and share them — or to sock them away in your Instapaper piggybank for later.

Instapaper

What else can I say about Instapaper that hasn’t already been said? It’s the web for people who like to read — and I use it more and more all the time. I put the things that I want to look at carefully in Instapaper. If I want to keep an article when I’m done, I “like” it and it auto-magically goes into Evernote. If there’s an article that I want my wife to check out, I often just send it directly to her Instapaper email address so she can have some good brain-food for her commute on the Subway.

Vis à vis my philosophy of “helping the good people win” — the man behind Instapaper (Marco Arment) is one of those people you’ll want to personally support by using his product. Marco provides a free version of Instapaper that is almost as good as the subscription version he charges USD$1/month for, but in spite of this (and perhaps because of it), many people are happy to pay him that dollar.

If you read his subscription page, I think you’ll see why.

Evernote

Speaking of “freemium services” that are almost as good as their paid versions, I’ve been using Evernote for so many years that I’ve lost count.

I came to it because I needed a cross-platform note-taking and paperless office application for my clients. With every month that passes, Evernote’s Mac client is catching up to feature-rich, Mac-only apps like DEVONthink Pro — and their iOS client is, in my opinion, the best in breed. I tuck away all sorts of stuff in Evernote, including all my research materials for things that I’m writing.

Their corporate philosophy of “building a hundred year company” is both refreshing and, based on my experience with people who work for Evernote, sincere.

OmniFocus

For me, one of the signs of a good app is that it scales well between simple and complex uses. My task manager of choice, OmniFocus, can be used for simple to-do lists, for outlining posts, and even for basic project management.

It kicks ass at all three.

Mind Mapping Tools

I sometimes use Mind Mapping Tools like Mindjet Mindmapper or OmniGraffle for the iPad to organize my thoughts, usually for more complex bits of writing. Kind of a “blue moon” thing for me…

Turning Ideas Into Action

iPhone 4S

For me, there’s currently no better tool for turning ideas into action than an iPhone 4S. I use it as a camera, to keep up with what’s going on in the world, to keep myself on task, and to dictate blog posts and notes.

And about a bazillion other things.

Matias Tactile Pro Keyboard

When I’m not dictating into my iPhone 4S, I’m making an absolute racket with my Matias Tactile Pro Keyboard. The Matias is a “clicky” keyboard (or using the proper terminology, a mechanical keyswitch keyboard) that gives tactile feedback for greater comfort and faster typing speeds. It also makes you feel like a old-timey fedora-wearing reporter, chomping on a cigar stub and racing to meet a deadline.

And when you really get going on a piece, it sounds like it’s Chinese New Year! (龙年吉祥！)

It’s a love-it-or-hate-it kind of deal — and I love it.

TextExpander

TextExpander is invaluable for when I’m writing things containing boilerplate elements (like formatting a new AppleScript, for example). I often combine it with AppleScript and TE’s own “Fill” feature to knock out huge blocks of text in a matter of seconds.

MarsEdit

If you write blog posts on a Mac, you should definitely give MarsEdit a close look.

Because it balances powerful functionality with a simple design, MarsEdit is really a model for Mac apps and, not surprisingly, its author Daniel Jalkut is a model Mac app developer. He connects directly with his customers and commits personally to making his products great.

As much as I admire his dedication to continually refining MarsEdit, I’m hoping he’ll release a new app soon so I can give him some more money. (Help. The. Good. People. Win.)

Scrivener

For some of the longer-form writing projects that I work on, I use Scrivener. Scrivener is the best kind of Franken-app, combining a word processor with project management tools… and an outline/corkboard… and, uh, a place to collect research. Its goal is to put all of these tools together in a way that gets you over the finish line on a “First Draft” and it does that job very, very well.

Script Debugger / BBEdit

Kind of a specialty item here but, if you write as many AppleScripts as I do, you’ll probably want to spend the money on Script Debugger. Always open on my desktop.

If you write all different types of code — or want a super-powerful, Markdown-friendly text editor — BBEdit is your joint.

Clarify

I’ve also started playing around with Clarify, an text/screenshot app designed to help you quickly create documentation and walk-throughs for people. I’m just getting into it, but I think it’s a well-designed tool and can already see its potential value in my writing workflow

Can you give an overview of your workflow starting from the initial idea through, researching and posting to the site?

Often times, it starts with a piece of paper and a pen. Sitting on my couch with a cup of coffee, listening to some music and writing out my most basic thoughts on a legal-sized yellow pad.

If it’s not an code-related post, I may continue writing that way for a while and do a first draft longhand. Sometimes, I’ll dictate a post directly into my iPhone to capture my raw thoughts about something and then I’ll go back and edit it into some sort of sense later.

I will then use MarsEdit or the WordPress web editor to start composing the web-ready layout. I begin to add hyperlinks at this point and to decide whether or not I need screenshots or images. If I need screenshots, I use a variety of different apps depending on how I want the final screenshot to look.

I tweak. And tweak. And tweak….

When I can’t take it anymore, I hit “Publish” and try to move on with my life.

The AppleScript posts obviously start from a specific piece of code. As a writing exercise, it’s actually pretty cool – sort of like going to the gym and doing an exercise set which gets at a different part of the muscle: I’ve created a thing, and now I have to explain what it is, what it does, what it doesn’t do, etc. There’s an added layer involved to make sure my technical details are attended to (like making sure that the “Open in Script Editor” links create something that compiles), but it’s not that different otherwise.

How long have you been doing it this way?

For a long time. Certain tools get substituted, but the general workflow is the same. Think, create, revise, organize, review, revise some more, post, exhale.

Do you have a particular process/tool for researching a post?

It depends on the type of post: if it’s an code-related post, I usually try to Google around to see if one of my other fellow Mac friends have already tackled a similar project. Often time, I find that Brett Terpstra or elasticthreads have already done what I’m thinking of and so I sigh, tip my cap in respect, and move on to something else.

Researching the other types of my writing usually involves me getting off of my ass and doing something good: traveling, reading a book, seeing a movie. I have a tendency to park myself in front of a computer screen and drift for hours unless I make a deliberate effort go do something else. (Personal inertia is no joke, people!)

As a writer, it can sometimes be difficult to straddle the line between being present in whatever you’re doing while, at the same time, also capturing your “writerly reactions” to the things. I use Evernote on my phone quite a bit to quickly capture text, snapshots, and small bits of information — although I find myself using Siri Reminders more and more for this since I got my iPhone 4S. (“Add to my OmniFocus List…. “)

What are your custom tweaks to your workflow that are tailored just to you (i.e. what’s your secret sauce)?

I have a huge number of AppleScripts that I’ve never published which tie my applications together in very tight, extremely customized ways. At this point, I’ve got about as much unreleased shit in the vault as Prince does.

One of my favorite custom tweaks is based on an OS X Service that I released publicly called the “Evernote List Builder”. Using it, I can highlight a bit of text anywhere on my Mac, and quickly direct it into a time-stamped scroll of captured items. I keep all sorts of lists this way: Restaurants I want to check out, books I want to read, etc.

A writing-based example: I’ve been collecting quotations to share once the new version of Veritrope.com rolls out (coming soon-ish!). Now whenever I see one that I like, I just highlight the text, select my List Builder and place the clipping directly to my quotations list in Evernote. When it’s time to publish them, I can use another script to format and load the all the quotes on the list into WordPress as separate posts via MarsEdit.

Collect the ideas. Turn them into actions.

What parts of your workflow are you looking to change or improve?

All of them. That’s the spirit of kaizen, baby!

What parts of your workflow are you least willing to change?

A good cup of coffee within reach makes everything better, especially writing. However, I tend to agree with Dr. Drang that beverages are meant to be consumed, not fetishized.

Make it strong, pour yourself a big mug of it, and get cracking!

Anything else you would like to share about your workflow?

Developing a workflow is really an attempt to understand how you think and how to do your best work with as little friction as possible. In many ways, it’s an attempt to think deeply about what makes you happiest and most productive and then turn that into a system.

I try to remember that this is a process — and it’s a different one for everyone.

Colleen Wainwright recently said something about workflows on the Mac Power Users podcast that I thought was really smart and on-point with that: “Anything that I can type into is a chance to start writing.” Sometimes I also use OmniFocus as a text editor and — you know what — that’s okay!

To me, it sums up what I try to remember when thinking about my own workflow. You should spend some time trying to refine your way of working but, in the end, you should never forget that systems and tools are less important than something else — actually doing your work.

Editor’s Note

Eddie is that ideal combination of intelligence, thoughfulness and generosity that I love about this community. He first caught my attention by saying smart things about OmniFocus but kept my attention with everything else he has contributed. I have not heard anything from Eddie that was not something I could immediately take advantage of to improve my work and I’m honored he agreed to participate in this series.

Bio

Professionally, Eddie is an actuary that works full-time on ginormous financial models of insurance and asset portfolios. He also instructs web-based actuarial exam seminars with a company called The Infinite Actuary.

When he isn’t building light-dimming spreadsheets and abstruse financial models, he likes writing about productivity, technology, and whatever else happens upon his consciousness. Most of his writing appears on his weblog, Practically Efficient.

Of everything he does, his favorite job and pastime by far is being a dad.

Questions

How do you capture your ideas and research an article for Practically Efficient?

I’ve experimented with lots of apps and techniques, but I keep coming back to the ‘Quick Entry’ button in OmniFocus. As much as I’m in front of a computer during the day, the iPhone is the one object that I always have with me.

The ‘Quick Entry’ button is always available. Immediately. There’s no waiting for an app to fully load or for data to sync.

Perhaps more importantly, since I review my OmniFocus inbox on a regular basis, I know that if I put an idea there, I’ll see it again—soon. It won’t disappear on some other notes list.

Can you provide an overview of your writing process?

The blimp cam view:

1. Capture idea
2. Draft in nvALT
3. Finish draft in Byword or TextMate
4. Publish in MarsEdit

Field level:

Once I start writing a draft, I’ll either finish in nvALT or switch to Byword or TextMate. I really enjoy writing in Byword. It’s a beautiful app with some really useful keyboard shortcuts, and it feels great in full-screen mode.

Geeky sidebar: I go to TextMate when I want to use tools in the Blogsmith Blogging bundle. A great example is inline web searching. Just select a word, type [ to wrap the word in brackets, then tab. Boom. Magic happens. Your selected word is piped into a web search, and a list of hits quickly appears. In sum: TextMate lets me do web searches and hyperlink words without leaving my text. Swoon.

As a draft nears completion, I almost always use Marked to preview the post in HTML. I like to align Marked next to whatever text editor I’m writing in. Marked updates very fast, so it’s easy to get immediate feedback and make changes.

Once a text draft is good enough, I convert the Markdown to HTML using Marked, or sometimes I just copy the raw Markdown right into MarsEdit’s HTML editor, where I use one of Brett Terpstra’s Markdown services to convert the Markdown to HTML.

It’s not unusual to make a few final edits in MarsEdit before (and, ahem, after) publishing it.

How long have you been doing it this way?

In 2010, I struck gold in three places. I discovered 1) John Gruber’s Markdown, 2) Notational Velocity, the wonderful creation of Zachary Schneirov, and then 3) the app that put it all together: Steven Frank’s original Markdown-enabled fork of Notational Velocity.

I was instantly hooked. Notational Velocity and Markdown, together, revolutionized how I write. I realized how much more I could create if I stayed in plain text. And I went from writing the occasional article in a word processor to writing hundreds of posts for PE.

What enhancements have you made?

Since discovering the efficiency of plain text, most of the enhancements I’ve made are simply things that make the process faster and more efficient. I owe a lot of thanks to Brett Terpstra. He played a big role in creating nvALT, he created Marked, and he also made the Markdown services that I use.

Do you have a specific work environment or setup for researching and composing an article?

Not at all. My life doesn’t let me have a single place in space where I can always go to “focus.” I write whenever I get the chance—often in 15-30 minute bursts when the opportunity presents itself. I’m a big believer in Yuvi Zalkow’s method for writing when you’re too busy to write.

If Apple hadn’t invented the iPhone, iPad, and created the instant- and ever-on MacBook Air, I honestly don’t think I’d be able to do what I do today—at least not with the intensity I’ve managed to maintain.

Does your workflow change based on the type of post?

Not really. Some posts get written in minutes; others in months. The longer it takes to write a post, the more likely I am to switch among the text editors I described above. Sometimes it ends up being a long journey to the trash can.

What parts of your workflow are you looking to change or improve?

I wish I had a better system for reviewing drafts. I create a lot of them, and sometimes they slip down the list in nvALT. Sometimes I’ll start something, that, at the time, seems pretty great, but it’ll get shoved out of sight by something else.

What parts of your workflow are you least willing to change?

I can’t imagine not writing in plain text. I think future versions of the iPad, especially, are going to revolutionize the workflow of writers, and we’ll see all kinds of apps appear for writing. But it’s extremely difficult for me to imagine an efficient workflow that isn’t rooted, in some way, in plain, boring, just-works text.

I’m not sure if Dr. Drang needs an introduction. He’s a mysterious super-hero engineer holed up over at Leancrew.com. I don’t know his true identity and hope I never will. He’s often inspiration for me here and one of the two guys that really got me thinking about how other people write. He’s also one of the most generous people I’ve interacted with on the Internet.

Why do you write at And now it’s all this?

First, I’ve learned a lot by reading blogs and other free content on the internet, and it seemed only right that I offer up the things I’ve learned in return.

Second, I need to write for work, and I wanted to get better at it. It’s not that I thought I was a poor writer, but it often takes me a long time to get my words in a shape that satisfies me. I thought that with more practice I’d get more facile, better able to bring the right words on the fly rather than laboring over every sentence. In this I’ve had mixed success, I’d say.

Third, I started out as a teacher and there’s still something in me that wants to explain. If you substitute “show off” for “explain” I wouldn’t argue.

How do you capture your ideas and research an article for And now it’s all this?

For the articles in which I’m presenting a script, the research occurs while I’m programming—I usually don’t have to do any more to write the post. And since I usually write the article within a day of finishing the script, the web pages I used are usually right there in my browser history.

When I run across something I want to write about but know I won’t be able to do so for a couple of days or more, I bookmark it in Pinboard or drag a .webloc link into Dropbox. Most of these “articles” never get written, either because I cool on the topic or because someone else writes a good post about it before I do.

The engineering articles (and no, I don’t consider programming engineering—I’m old-fashioned that way) usually come straight out of my head with no outside research. The information in, for example, the snap-through buckling post (still my favorite post ever) is material I’ve been working with for so long I don’t need to look anything up. Sometimes, as with the torsion spring post, I’ll dip into my library to look something up. I’ve had some of my engineering texts for over three decades; the familiarity I’ve developed with them makes them a much faster reference than the internet.

Can you provide an overview of your writing process?

If the post is about a script, I usually start with two TextMate windows: one for the script and the other for the post. There’s usually a Terminal window open so I can run the script and capture its output. And, inevitably, a Safari window with many tabs open. If the project involves AppleScript or Automator or TextExpander, those are open too. And Dictionary—very helpful when I know there’s a better word but can’t think of it.

I generally write a post from start to finish, in the order it’s read, and I almost never outline a post. Although I tend to be long-winded, even my longest blog posts aren’t so long that I have trouble keeping them organized in my head. This isn’t to say that I always know everything I’m going to say when I start writing. I often go back to add or rearrange things after I’ve reached the end of a post and realize that its emphasis changed as I wrote it.

Most of my “process” consists of my sitting and looking at the screen, trying to figure out why the thoughts in my head aren’t turning into coherent sentences. And there’s also a lot of drinking of tea and getting up to go to the bathroom.

How long have you been doing it this way?

The dates of my earliest posts got screwed up during one of my blog engine changes, so I don’t know my blogversary. But And Now it’s All This started up somewhere in mid-to-late 2004, shortly before I switched back to the Mac from Linux.

Do you have a specific work environment or setup for researching and composing an article?

No specific environment for researching. Composition is usually done while sitting in a Poäng chair with my MacBook Air resting on a Bräda laptop support. Feet up on a footstool, tea in Thermos stainless steel tumbler on the nightstand to my left. The same position I’m in now.

Posts are usually written at night, while the kids doing homework or sleeping. Weekend posts are sometimes written early in the morning.

Does your workflow change based on the type of post?

A little. Some posts require sketches, which I usually do in OmniGraffle before I start writing. Sometimes I have to take photos; again, I try to have them done before the composition phase. I’ve taken many of my blog photos at work, where I have access to big sheets of blue paper to use for a background.

There’s one post that’s had a very different workflow, a post I’ve been planning to write for two years. It’s a review of a paper, “On the Mathematical Theory of Suspension Bridges,” published in the Transactions of the Royal Society in 1826. It’s what you might call a narrow-interest topic, but it’s fascinating to me because both the math and the engineering in it are so foreign to the way we do things now. For example, the author, a Brit still under the influence of the Newton/Leibnitz calculus war, solved the differential equation of the catenary using Newton’s fluxions instead of differential notation. Even weirder, our modern notions of stress hadn’t really been worked out yet, so the strength of the iron chains in the suspension cable is expressed as a length: the length of chain that could support its own weight if hung vertically.

Anyway, I have lots of handwritten notes that I took as I read the paper and worked out what it was doing. I also have references to contemporaneous accounts of how suspension bridges were being built in the early 19th century, and a comparison with with what I was taught about 20th century suspension bridge design. I’ve been sitting on this stuff—which I did for my own amusement—since late 2009, trying to figure out how to fit in a bunch of material and make it as interesting to my readers as it is to me. One thing I’m certain of: no one is going to beat me to the punch on this post.

What are your custom tweaks to your workflow?

My workflow is all tweaks. TextMate snippets for Markdown reference links. TextExpander snippets for grabbing the URLs of Safari tabs. A Python/JavaScript/TextExpander hybrid for embedding tweets. Scripts for formatting tables. Scripts for Apple affiliate links. A script for taking screenshots and uploading to Flickr. To me, it’s the malleability of computers that makes them useful and fun.

What parts of your workflow are you looking to change or improve?

I’m experimenting with your system of inserting all the links at the bottom before writing any of the text. That’s a more premeditated way of working than I’m used to, but I like the idea of staying in my text editor as much as possible. Several of my scripts were written to avoid context switching when adding links; inserting the links first may be the best solution.

Several months ago I started using my Flickr account as a sort of CDN for the images I put in my posts—mostly screenshots. It’s worked well, but it’s left my Flickr account a bit disorganized. I need to figure out a better way to categorize the blog images.

What parts of your workflow are you least willing to change?

TextMate and the Blogging Bundle. Cold dead hands.

Anything else you would like to share about your workflow?

Developing habits is more important than what those habits are. I don’t need to sit in this chair or drink this tea (Twinings Earl Grey) in order to write, but making the tea and turning on the light over my left shoulder get me in the mindset of writing, even—or especially—when I don’t feel inspired. Everyone’s habits sound silly and precious to someone else, but if work becomes part of the habit, then your rituals are worthwhile.

Unless your rituals include fetishistic coffee making, which is loathsome.

This is the third installment of Writer Workflows and Stephen Hargrove graciously answers some questions about how he writes.

I stumbled across Stephen’s writing at Spirit of Nine when I was researching some small project. He writes about the geeky kind of stuff that piques my interest. For example, Stephen has developed his own blog archive system using Day One. Not to mention he has developed an impressive static blogging system based on Dropbox.

I choose very carefully when adding feeds to my daily reading and Spirit of Nine easily made the cut.

MD: Why do you write at Spirit of Nine?

I enjoy writing. It’s just a thing I do. A writer writes, so I write. I also write over at MyAppleAnd.me with Dave Metzener, although not as frequently as I probably should. (Sorry, Dave!)

MD: How do you capture your ideas and research an article for Spirit of Nine?

I don’t write many long form posts, so I don’t currently have a need for an extensive capture/research system. I hope to change this over time though. I’d like to write more long form and fewer “LOL HERE IS A LINK” posts (although there’ll always be a place for the short and quick links).

I typically bookmark a link in Pinboard and tag it something like research along with something else meaningful. I have a folder on Dropbox called research with sub-folders for each post I’m working on. This folder will contain all the images and usually a text file or two containing references and thoughts. Once I’m done with a subject, I usually delete the bookmarks from Pinboard because I’m anal that way. (I’ve just looked at my research tag and can see that I’m not near as anal as I need to be. Also, I either need to write those posts or delete the bookmarks. My Pinboard is getting cluttered.) Pinboard is a fantastic bookmarking service and I highly recommend it. Love it.

I’ve been using Remember The Milk for years and I have reminders set up there to keep me moving forward on various articles, ideas, and things I want/need to read. I consider RTM a foundation stone. I’ve tried other task managers over the years but have yet to find one that works as well for me. However, as with all things, I’m willing to consider alternatives. If I found something that worked better, I’d switch.

MD: Can you provide an overview of your writing process?

1. Find something that interests me.

2. Research if necessary.

3. Reflect/think.

4. Write/edit.

5. Does it suck?

   a. If yes, go to Step 2.

   b. If no, publish.

I think this process is pretty generic to anyone who writes (with the exception, sadly, of Steps 3 and 5). Step 1 is vital. I don’t like writing about boring things. Or if I feel something is getting enough attention (Apple’s iBook file format currently comes to mind), I won’t write about it unless I think I have a unique spin or something to contribute. This leads to fewer posts, but that’s fine. I don’t aspire to be an echo chamber.

MD: How long have you been doing it this way?

I’ve done it this way forever. When written out, it looks so boring. It could definitely do with some super heroes, car chases, or explosions.

MD: Do you have a specific work environment or setup for researching and composing an article?

Is this where I talk about hardware? Okay! I have a 27“ iMac where I do most of my programming and writing. I also have a 13” MacBook Air for writing. I love them both, fiercely. I have an iPad also, but I’m still trying to figure out how it best fits in the creative picture.

Almost all of my blogging and coding is done in TextMate. I use AppleScript Editor, too. (I could use TextMate for this, but I don’t code AppleScript often enough to care.) Sometimes I use Scrivener and am considering switching to it for all my writing because it lets me keep all my notes, etc., in one place. I’m just not comfortable with it’s syncing capabilities yet.

I store all my files on Dropbox. That’s kind of a no-brainer.

I’m a Markdown junky. While I’m writing a post, I preview it in Marked, which is one of my favorite apps. It’s so simple and so obvious. Using it makes me smile.

I use Acorn for processing images. I have Photoshop but it’s overkill for 99% of what I do on the website. Acorn makes me feel like I’m not an idiot. The guys at Flying Meat have some great AppleScripts for manipulating images in Acorn and I shameless borrowed from them when I was customizing my workflow.

MD: Does your workflow change based on the type of post?

Not really. By the time I start writing, I have most of what I need in front of me.

MD: What are your custom tweaks to your workflow?

I used to use WordPress and the fabulous MarsEdit for blogging. Over time, I grew tired of WordPress. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great blogging platform. But I grew weary of applying upgrades and updates. And I was running so many plugins … plugins that wouldn’t always work with the latest security update. So then I had to decide do I want the security update or do I want this plugin? Suddenly, I’m a system administrator and trying to keep my site secure. And just as suddenly, I’m not writing any more because I’m upgrading my site and chasing down plugins and, oh hey, maybe I should make a backup because I don’t want to lose everything.

It got to be too much.

So I started thinking about rolling my own site. And this idea bounced around in the back of head for a long time. One morning I read Brent Simmons’s New publishing system / tour of my head and I knew it was time to get busy. About 2 years later, I got busy.

I started by splitting my workflow into two stages:

1. Stuff I should do; and
2. Stuff robots should do.

I only want to concern myself with the work of writing: researching, thinking, writing, and editing. The sweat equity. The grunt work called “writing”. So I built my system with the goal of getting everything that is not the work of writing out of my way.

Once I’m finished writing, I hand it off to the robots and they do everything else.

My robots come in the form of Perl scripts, AppleScripts, Ruby scripts, Bash scripts, etc. Programs that do the tedious work of getting the writing online.

The guts of the system is too much to get into, but here’s the crux of what the robots do.

1. Watcher Robot (Hazel), gazing at my ‘new posts’ directory, sees a file ending with the extension .markdown;

2. Watcher Robot grabs the file and feeds it to New Script Robot;

3. New Script Robot:

   a. Makes a backup of the original post and images;

   b. Creates the new post;

   c. Creates the RSS feed and main page;

   d. Syncs the website to the remote host that houses Spirit of Nine;

   e. Sends a notification to Twitter;

   f. Sends a notification to my iPhone; and

   g. Updates Day One (my journal).

New Script Robot is actually made up of several scripts. For example, I have a script that generates my RSS feed and another that generates my main page. New Script Robot just calls these scripts.

I love the idea that my website is nothing more than a bunch of HTML pages. I keep the entire website on Dropbox, so I always have a local and remote copy. If I decide to move to another web host, it’s as easy as changing DNS, syncing my site and I’m done. Plus I don’t have to worry about getting fireballed (more system administration fun!) and my entire website is searchable through Spotlight or grep. The benefits of having your website on Dropbox and be nothing but a bunch of HTML pages are almost too many to number.

MD: What parts of your workflow are you looking to change or improve?

One of my goals is to find ways to increase the amount of time I reflect and think before settling down to write. It’s not something I’ve been committed to in the past, but moving forward I aim to change that. Nothing I post could be considered “time sensitive,” so I really have no excuse. Not thinking before writing strikes me as poor form. Reflection, thinking, meditating, whatever you want to call it, is sorely under-valued today. So many people just post whatever is on their mind with no attempt to examine the thought, poke it, play with it, see if it has value or can be improved. That’s what I hope to change about Spirit of Nine moving forward.

As far as tools go, I’m happy with what I have. I’ve written all the tools I think I need so, absent a few tweaks, I’m finished developing it.

However, I’m always open to trying new things. If someone says “Oh, you really should try this task manager,” I’ll give it a look. I’ll never be convinced that I have The Best System EVAR®. However, I do believe that my system is the best it needs to be right now. If it wasn’t, I’d be fixing it. Most of the fixes I’m interested in are the ones that push the system out of my way and let me concentrate more on thinking and writing. I think, for now, I’ve found that balance.

In the future, I’d like to expand into other programming languages. I’ve been impressed with how much Brett Terpstra can do with so few lines of Ruby. I rewrote one of his scripts in Perl and it was an offensive amount of code. Granted, I’m not the world’s best Perl programmer, but there’s definitely room for improvement here.

MD: What parts of your workflow are you least willing to change?

If it can be made better, I’m willing to change it. “Better,” of course, is subjective. I wouldn’t sacrifice accuracy for speed, but I’d sacrifice speed for accuracy. I’m not interested in page views or hits. I’m not opposed to advertising, but it’d have to be extremely unobtrusive.

What I’m trying to say is this: I’m not interested in doing anything that makes writing or reading less enjoyable.

MD: Anything else you would like to share about your workflow?

That’s it. Thanks for the chance to share. It’s been fun!

Clark Goble is the proprieter of the Clark Teck Blog. I’ve linked many times to his site. He writes about the nerdy scripting stuff that I love, like using mdfind with Mail.app. The content is chock-full of little gems of AppleScript and Python as well as well considered thoughts on technology. I think the best summary of his site is a quote from the About page:

I have a sense of “pay it forward” so that others don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

If that isn’t enough, Clark is also co-owner of Amano Chocolates. The guy’s pretty busy.

How do you capture your ideas and research an article for Clark Tech Blog?

Can you provide an overview of your writing process?

I do two kinds of posts. Short ones typically with a link to some other site and a pithy comment and then the longer ones. The short and pithy ones I generate as I read my news feed with NetNewsWire. I have some scripts that do most of the work for me. The longer ones typically arise out of me trying to solve some problem for my workflow and writing a script. Alternatively I prowl Stack Overflow looking for a good idea to expand upon. I have some stored search terms I check fairly regularly. (Primarily Applescript and Python) Sometimes I just decide to do some commentary based upon some post I read. Sadly I’ve been so busy that of late it’s been more commentary and fewer scripts but I hope to get back to my regular writing routine this week.

How long have you been doing it this way?

I have a philosophy blog that goes way back to around 2003 or so. There I wrote to force me to think through my ideas. When I started doing some scripting to help with some workflow (primarily automating mailing of packages via FedEx) I realized that for many of my questions there were no answers on the internet. Having used Google a lot in programming to find solution I knew the importance of stuff like that being out there. So I decided to write up my scripts with an explanation so others could learn from it. I realized this was pretty similar to my academic blogging – it forced me to think through the issues and end up understanding things better. My computer blog was born. It’s not that old – probably only about 3 years. However I think it does let me understand things better and let off a little steam.

Do you have a specific work environment or setup for researching and composing an article?

Not really. For scripting it’s typically just finding a problem and then spending time in BBEdit figuring things out. Applescript is pretty ambiguous and it’s surprisingly that there aren’t better resources on the net for solving a lot of problems. So I try to make it so someone like me could benefit from it. For the rest I just compose in MarsEdit with a few scripts to make life easier.

I learned to type in the old monospace days on a typerwriter so I’m habitually adding two spaces behind a period. I have a script that fixes that and an other that does proper title case for a selection. I used to have a footnote script but discovered I rarely used footnotes. So I’ve not kept it up. I used to edit purely in HTML but I’ve started using MarsEdit’s formatted text mode more and more.

Does your workflow change based on the type of post?

Yeah. What I call commentary is more me just thinking through things. I probably should leave it for a while before posting but often I just post and then edit it an hour later if I see something egregious. That means there are more typos than there should be. And the “document all edits” police probably are horrified. But it’s not like I’m a journalist.

For scripting I try to discuss the fundamental issue in the script but don’t add a lot of commentary. I figure most people can figure it out from the script and everyone else can just make a comment asking for help.

What are the custom tweaks to your workflow?

Primarily just the scripts mentioned before. I do have in my WordPress and nice plugin for source code that colorizes it based upon the language. Other than that not a lot.

What parts of your workflow are you looking to change or improve?

I’ve been so busy I’ve not been doing a lot of scripting. I’m hoping to change that this week. Less commentary which frankly has most blogs saying the same sort of thing. I’d like to see more comments, which goes against the tide in blogging. However I kind of miss the level of discussion and back and forth that was so common in the 90’s. (Minus the flame wars) In a lot of ways the internet is less sociable than it used to be. It’s probably naive and I know a lot of people just look down their nose and blogs. But c’est la vie. As I said I use blogs to force me to think through issues – kind of like how back in college you’d form study groups and try to have one struggling student in them. If you could get them to understand you really had to understand it yourself. It was amazingly helpful. Blogs are my semi-successful way to try the same thing. You just can’t take it too seriously.

I’d really like to therefore have a few issues I want to learn about better and then use the blog to do that. Thus far it’s been a bit too ad hoc in things. More a kind of escapism.

What parts of your workflow are you least willing to change?

I’m open to any change if I could find something better. But I’ve no desire to make it like everything else. I try to have good content and that often means I go a while between posts. Most blogs just seem to say what others say and I’m just not interested in that. My news feed has the vast majority of posts being “me too” like things but very few with good solid content. If anything I feel bad I’ve verged towards that the past while.

Anything else you would like to share about your workflow?

Nope.

Related Posts

Brett Terpstra’s Writer Workflow

Introduction to Writer Workflows