convert.py, iSH, and the second draft

I’ve started thinking about the book as a whole again. I’m rewriting the elevator pitch / logline / controlling idea first, so I can easily tell if a scene doesn’t fit before I write it.

I have this long laundry list of fixes in Things that I need to get to. A new map that fits the story. Non-placeholder names. A stronger sense of progression.

I plan on re-outlining the book before diving into the second draft. I don’t want to take forever, though. Hopefully I can get this done in the next couple weeks so I can dig into rewrites in September.

convert.py

Working in Obsidian has been great for a number of reasons. Markdown + git is great. Building my worldbuilding wiki alongside the manuscript is great.

I miss a couple things in Scrivener. The full screen no-distraction editing mode. And it’s harder for me to compile my markdown manuscript to multiple other formats.

It’ll be good to read my manuscript in different formats. Mark up a pdf with the Apple pencil on my iPad. Export an ebook onto my Kindle. Just to switch to a different mental mode so I catch more issues.

I wrote a convert.py script today… simple markdown to pdf conversion, after stripping some of the extended markdown features I’ve been using. I was able to import this pdf into GoodNotes, but the Preview app lets me annotate as well.

iSH

I started looking for a Virtual Machine solution for the iPad again. UTM requires an ancient version of iPadOS. I don’t even need MacOS; I just want a shell where I can run python and pandoc and golang for Hugo.

Then I found iSH, based on Alpine Linux. I installed python3, tmux, vim, openssh, and various other packages via apk. I got pretty excited about this: if it worked the way I hoped, I would reduce my need for a second machine.

…sadly, Go hangs on iSH and pip installing md2pdf crashes the shell.

I’ll keep an eye out for a more robust solution. Until then, I got convert.py running on push in Github Actions.