https://escapewindow.com/tags/writing/ Recent content in writing on Escape(Window) Hugo -- gohugo.io en Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2026-03-24-q1/ Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2026-03-24-q1/ A lull Massive amounts of progress in the new project, which is on track. We hit three major milestones in the past three months, the last two back to back in consecutive weeks. We’ve spent the last few days in a lull. The next milestone will likely come in early April. I’m finding it difficult to switch gears back to focusing on the book… I need to keep context around the new project in mind, which eats into my creative headspace. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2025-10-01-september-in-writing/ Wed, 01 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2025-10-01-september-in-writing/ Baby steps To cut to the punchline: I didn’t get anywhere near as much writing as I’d have liked to this month. I even debated whether to publish a blog post at all. Why publish a blog post that says “Not much to see here, not much happened”? But a lot has happened. And I’ve established the cadence, and until I officially change it, I should stick to it. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2025-08-31-august-in-writing/ Sun, 31 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2025-08-31-august-in-writing/ So much to do, so little time I finished nearly all of my draft 6 outline refactor, but progress has slowed to a crawl. I’m going to start writing and address the rest as I go. Ironically, mid-month I was champing at the bit to get to drafting. Now that I believe I’m ready, life has left me distracted and unfocused. Part of this is the fundamental disagreement I have with my developmental editor that strikes at the core of the book. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2025-08-01-july-in-writing/ Fri, 01 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2025-08-01-july-in-writing/ Manuscript progress In the first half of the month, I finished refactoring the 1st POV’s outline; I’m pleased with how it turned out. The story will be stronger for it. In the second, I received my developmental edit back! Lots of great feedback here: some that I enjoyed hearing, others that I needed to hear. I took some time absorbing it and responding. We’ll discuss in the coming days. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2025-06-30-june-in-writing/ Mon, 30 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2025-06-30-june-in-writing/ Manuscript progress This month I tried to keep my manuscript read-only to avoid diverging too far from my developmental editor’s draft. Instead, I’ve been brainstorming future books. I’m surfacing changes to make in book 1 to set up future books, plus it’s fun to think about future storylines. I’m pretty far behind in transcribing these handwritten pages to my wiki, but I’m catching up slowly. Also, I got beta reader feedback! https://escapewindow.com/blog/2025-05-31-may-in-writing/ Sat, 31 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2025-05-31-may-in-writing/ Manuscript progress I had named my end-of-April milestone 4.0b1; I needed to do a read-through to catch any issues before completing the fourth draft. I finished that read-through in May, but the changes were extensive: a number of chapter and scene reorders, with a number of major scene rewrites. I retroactively renamed 4.0b1 to 4.0, and labeled my latest changes the fifth draft. I submitted the fifth draft to my beta reader and developmental editor [! https://escapewindow.com/blog/2025-04-30-april-in-writing/ Wed, 30 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2025-04-30-april-in-writing/ Fourth Draft progress I finished the fourth draft’s initial manuscript pass, where I updated the scenes with my notes and rewrites from my third draft read…I think having a hard deadline made me way more productive than anything else. I don’t yet consider the fourth draft finished, but I’ll finish by the end of May :) Developmental Edit I made a serious push to find a developmental editor in April, especially since they tend to be booked out a number of months. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2025-03-31-march-in-writing/ Mon, 31 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2025-03-31-march-in-writing/ Fourth Draft progress I’m over the worst of my jet lag from my trip to Japan. I still woke up at 2am this morning, but I’ve been up and productive, so I’ll take it. I’ve finished reading the book. And I started the fourth draft. I’m going to try to finish this draft pass by the end of April, though that may be optimistic. More details below. Reading my book I focused too much on line- and paragraph-level issues, editing as I go, when all of the advice said to read the book at a high level. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2025-02-28-february-in-writing/ Fri, 28 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2025-02-28-february-in-writing/ Third Draft and Beyond It was a good February. I finished my initial 3rd draft manuscript edit pass on the 23rd, likely the first time I completed a milestone before my soft deadline. I had thought the 3rd Point of View would take the longest, because I had massively altered its outline and arc, but it turns out I had already addressed most of those changes in draft 2.5. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2025-01-31-january-in-writing/ Fri, 31 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2025-01-31-january-in-writing/ Third Draft The 2nd POV continues. At the beginning of the month, I was going slowly; I had hit the section of Act Two that I had heavily refactored, so I was largely writing scenes from scratch. I finally caught up to the parts that had largely stayed the same, and I sped up significantly. And then, as of the past week or so, I’ve slowed back down: I’m hitting Act 3 and the climactic scenes, which always slow me down. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2024-12-31-december-in-writing/ Tue, 31 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2024-12-31-december-in-writing/ Third Draft Progress is slow but consistent. The holidays provided this month’s distraction. Our local dog park is temporary closed, so we now drive to a larger but further park, which eats up a large chunk of daylight, but most of the time seeing Rye that happy is the highlight of my day. And we’re getting ready for a very exciting January distraction :) Finishing the First POV The climactic scenes took a lot longer, as usual. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2024-12-31-epic-fantasy-word-count/ Tue, 31 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2024-12-31-epic-fantasy-word-count/ I’ve been stressing about keeping my dark epic fantasy debut at less than 120k words. Looks like I might not need to: (From Thread Reader, which archived the thread from James Long (senior commissioning editor at Orbit)’s deleted Twitter account. Copying here because I don’t know if or when Thread Reader will go away.) Quick thread on word count for debut epic fantasy novels, because there’s a load of terrible advice out there and it’s hard enough trying to write a brilliant book without worrying about whether your manuscript is too short or too long. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2024-11-30-november-in-writing/ Sat, 30 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2024-11-30-november-in-writing/ Third Draft The third draft is going well. I had forgotten just how much I had refactored the first POV. I ended up writing a number of completely new scenes. And I ended up throwing out and rewriting most of the words in the existing scenes because a) the structure has changed significantly, b) I’ve focused a bit more on including sensory details, and c) my prose has improved to the point that the existing words were painful to re-read. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2024-10-31-october-in-writing/ Thu, 31 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2024-10-31-october-in-writing/ Ready or not There’s a lot more I want to do with pre-third-draft worldbuilding, outlining, and planning. But I’ve hit an enthusiasm gap – my productivity has fallen off drastically for a number of reasons, and I know I see a lot of this work as chores and housekeeping rather than creative work. I decided mid-month that I’m going to get back to editing and drafting come November, whether I’m fully ready or not. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2024-10-01-september-in-writing/ Tue, 01 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2024-10-01-september-in-writing/ Outlining Draft 3 I massively refactored parts of each POV: removing the first chapter, re-ordering the scenes, and/or changing the first quartile entirely. This removed repetition, resulting in more powerful scenes and a streamlined story. I almost finished moving the detailed beats from each scene’s metadata to the main outline. This consolidates the beats of the story, allowing for a high level overview in a single file. Plans for October Finish porting the scene beats to the main outline Add Questions/Promises/Reveals into the main outline Map side character relationships and the arcs’ tension levels as they change throughout the novel, to make sure they make sense Review the outline to make sure the arcs are clear and the beats are in the right order Get started on drafting/editing again Stats Again, the non-manuscript word count is somewhat inflated since I have multiple copies of the outline as I refactor. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2024-08-31-august-in-writing/ Sat, 31 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2024-08-31-august-in-writing/ Finished Draft 2.5 A little over halfway through the month, I completed draft 2.5! Which I was pretty happy about. On to Draft 3 I updated my scripts: I added epub support to my conversion script. I added a script to parse all the Questions, Promises, Reveals, and Goals out of my outline, so I can: spread out the dissemination of information, and ensure I don’t unintentionally leave any questions unanswered. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2024-08-18-draft-2.5-complete/ Sun, 18 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2024-08-18-draft-2.5-complete/ Just a little more than a year after completing the first draft. A few days, or a couple months, or 8+ months overdue, depending on which of my soft deadlines you go by. As usual, I found the final climactic scenes of the third POV slower going than the middle scenes, mainly because it’s easier to tell when it’s not working. I rewrote and re-outlined a couple scenes and wrote slower than I wanted to. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2024-07-31-july-in-writing/ Wed, 31 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2024-07-31-july-in-writing/ Tackling the problematic 3rd POV The 3rd POV has been the most problematic of the three. This month, I seriously considered dropping it from the book, and not for the first time. The outline for this POV changed so significantly from the previous draft that most of the previous scenes weren’t worth keeping. As a result, a lot of this felt like a first draft again. Writing completely new scenes. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2024-06-30-june-in-writing/ Sun, 30 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2024-06-30-june-in-writing/ Good progress I’m two scenes away from finishing Draft 2.5’s POV2. I’m a little over 72% done by scene count, and that’s after I cut two finished scenes. (To improve the story, reduce redundancy, and reduce word count.) My writing seems to slow to a crawl when I’m writing the climactic battle scenes. But I figured out how to get them to work, and what needs to change in earlier scenes to add impact. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2024-06-28-library-days/ Fri, 28 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2024-06-28-library-days/ (I thought I had written about these before, but I can’t find where.) I’ve long wanted to spend several days working from cafes, parks, public spaces, and libraries. Mainly to get to know Denver, its public transportation, and as a change up from working from home every day. Various crises kept me from following through for the past year and a half. I finally started a weekly library day this month, and I’m enjoying them. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2024-06-01-may-in-writing/ Sat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2024-06-01-may-in-writing/ Good progress From May 25: At this point in Draft 1, I could tell that POV 2 needed some major structural overhauls. At this point in Draft 2.5, I can tell POV 2’s prose needs some rewriting to work, but overall the structure seems to be holding up. Progress :) I wrote 18 scenes in 31 days, not my preferred pace but I’m getting there. I also reduced the total number of scenes down to 96. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2024-04-30-april-in-writing/ Tue, 30 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2024-04-30-april-in-writing/ Still slowly but surely From April 23: Since then, I edited 7 scenes from the 2nd POV, bringing me to 37 scenes out of 98 completed for Draft 2.5. At this average rate, I’ll finish sometime in August. But if I keep up the scene per day from the past week, I may finish at the end of July. First person I also dabbled a bit with converting the 1st POV from third-person limited, past-tense into first person, past-tense. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2024-03-31-march-in-writing/ Sun, 31 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2024-03-31-march-in-writing/ Slowly but surely I’m drafting again. Slower than I want to be, but I think the quality is higher. (Sometimes I’ve gone back to my first draft to rewrite a scene, and I’ve ended up throwing it out completely. Better to start from scratch on those than try to rescue any words.) The new structure seems to be working so far. The alarm bells that went off during the first draft, warning me that the story just isn’t working, have been relatively quiet. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2024-02-29-february-in-writing/ Thu, 29 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2024-02-29-february-in-writing/ I’m back My github activity shows I’m out of my December/January productivity slump :) One outline to rule them all In February I combined all of my small single-arc plot tables into one massive table spanning the entire book. While this was challenging, I now find the story exploding in my mind, a non-stop chain reaction of ideas. I can see the book in its entirety at a high level, and I can dig down to subtle details. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2024-01-31-january-in-writing/ Thu, 01 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2024-01-31-january-in-writing/ Fixing all the arcs In January, I continued drilling down into each of the arcs’ beats and structure, moving between index cards, spreadsheets, markdown tables, and good old bullet points. (Switching between these media also served as a way for me to review my previous work and ideas, often sparking ideas on how to fix or improve the old structures and scene ideas.) A number of the old Draft 2. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-12-31-complex-plotting/ Sun, 31 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-12-31-complex-plotting/ (December in Writing) My third POV is re-outlined in broad strokes, and I’m working on drilling down into the scene level. It does feel like the story and characters are coming back alive for me. However, most of December has been a struggle in writing productivity and focus. I have been improving my tools and outlines, so I’ll focus this blog post on those. GoodNotes 5 and templates I had purchased GoodNotes 5 for my iPad some time ago. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-12-01-november-in-writing/ Fri, 01 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-12-01-november-in-writing/ Summary I wrote and/or edited 28,786 words for NaNoWriMo before stopping failing. I struggled with my writing for two weeks, then a conversation with Finn helped point me in the right direction. I’m back to the outlining drawing board to try to solve some of the structural issues I’m hitting that are bogging down the second draft. (I could add the outlining wordcount to the month’s total, but I’m still nowhere near 50k. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-10-31-october-in-writing/ Wed, 01 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-10-31-october-in-writing/ Progress Summary The second draft is going slower than I want it to, but I’m making good progress. I now have a pretty good Act 1 for each of the three arcs, a beginning that will help propel each story into the second act. I’m not certain if writing the scenes in chapter order was the best idea at this stage – the first two POVs have gone fairly smoothly, but the problematic third POV kept slowing me down. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-10-01-september-in-writing/ Sun, 01 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-10-01-september-in-writing/ I had planned to tackle the 2nd draft of the 1st POV in September. I didn’t realize how much I had riding on this second draft. I wanted to: fix the overall structure of all three POV arcs, tightening them, increasing conflict, making sure they culminate in a satisfying climax; add description and depth where I had glossed over or skipped it the first time around, including many characters’ names; improve the prose, removing any modern day language, terminology, turns of phrase; adding depth to the world by the way characters speak and think; get into each major character’s head, so I would know how each would react, in specifics, to any given situation; have a better understanding of my world; improve my maps; be able to describe the architecture and fashion and currency and units of measurement; go further in depth in the religions, beliefs, rituals, superstitions, parables, ghost stories, … That’s a lot for a draft. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-08-31-august-in-writing/ Thu, 31 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-08-31-august-in-writing/ As mentioned earlier, I finished my first draft on August 15. I’ve spent the last couple weeks re-outlining my first POV, tightening the story, keeping the mystery intact by making sure every suspect has something that they’re hiding. In September I want to write the second draft for the first POV and possibly re-outline the 2nd POV. Re-outlining I’m going about this using a number of methods… I have an unpublished blog post draft about this. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-08-18-convert.py/ Fri, 18 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-08-18-convert.py/ 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. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-08-15-first-draft-done/ Tue, 15 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-08-15-first-draft-done/ Finish[ed] the damned thing. (Thanks to J. Michael Straczynski) The first draft of anything is shit. — Ernest Hemingway Every first draft is perfect, because all a first draft has to do is exist. It's perfect in its existence. The only way it could be imperfect would be to NOT exist. — Jane Smiley All great stories began as shitty first drafts. There are no exceptions to this. — M. Kirin https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-08-01-july-in-writing/ Mon, 31 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-08-01-july-in-writing/ July was a trainwreck. I had planned to finish my first draft by the 20th. Instead, I slowed down and even stopped my progress due to a confluence of issues. I’m barely past my end-of-June word count at the end of July. I’m hoping this is a blip. My plan for August is to finish the damned thing. And start the 2nd draft. Archer We had to put Archer down on the 14th, five months after his initial cancer diagnosis. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-07-13-restarting-the-3rd-pov/ Thu, 13 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-07-13-restarting-the-3rd-pov/ The past week, most of our energy and attention has gone towards keeping Archer comfortable and happy. That, combined with some other things, insomnia, worry, and the lack of an outline that I believe in, meant writing was my 4th priority that I kept skimping on. I did manage to rethink the new 3rd POV structure and outline, but I haven’t had the energy or focus to get all of those thoughts concrete in writing. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-07-06-revisiting-the-3rd-pov/ Thu, 06 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-07-06-revisiting-the-3rd-pov/ Confession: I’ve stopped most of the way through my first draft. Today will mark the second day in a row where I didn’t complete a scene, even though I’m only 16 scenes away from the end of the first draft. I realized that this POV arc is completely wrong. I can slog through writing these 16 scenes, knowing that I’ll throw away most or all of them. I’m going to change the 3rd POV character’s arc and character so drastically that I won’t be able to keep any of my draft. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-07-01-june-in-writing/ Sat, 01 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-07-01-june-in-writing/ In June, I finished writing the first draft of the 2nd POV character’s arc, and started on the 3rd and final POV character. I’ve written 77 of 97 outlined scenes; 41 1/2 of 48 outlined chapters. I averaged a little over a scene per day. At my current pace I will finish up the first draft by ~July 20. 2nd POV lessons The story was a little too disjointed in the second POV. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-05-30-may-in-writing/ Tue, 30 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-05-30-may-in-writing/ In May, I finished writing the first draft of the main POV character’s arc, and started on a 2nd POV character. First Draft Progress I’ve written 45 of 97 outlined scenes; 23 2/3 of 48 outlined chapters. I could try to power through and finish the first draft by the end of June, but life is rearing its head: jury duty summons, a family vacation, concerts, plus the Diablo 4 launch. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-05-27-first-pov-complete/ Sat, 27 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-05-27-first-pov-complete/ Today I finished the first draft for the first POV arc. (That means my overall first draft is ~1/3 finished. My previous analogy of Pulp Fiction is somewhat inaccurate. A better analogy might be Cryptonomicon, if I finished the modern day arc and wanted to go back to write the 2 main World War 2 arcs later.) I’m pretty happy about it. Safe ally I dropped the protagonist in the middle of a conflict ridden world. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-05-22-thoughts-while-drafting/ Mon, 22 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-05-22-thoughts-while-drafting/ By the end of the month, I will finish the first draft of one of my POV characters’ scenes, from the opening scene to the denouement. (One of three POVs, so the first draft will be 1/3 complete. Think writing Jules’ and Vincent’s briefcase arc, from Royale with Cheese to the final diner scene, and leaving the Marsellus Wallace’s Wife and The Gold Watch arc scenes for later. Though my book is not quite that non-linear. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-05-01-april-in-writing/ Mon, 01 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-05-01-april-in-writing/ In April, I finished my outline for Book 1. Detailed outline I weaved the rough scene list into ordered chapters and expanded the one-sentence description by specifying location; season; the list of characters; a general summary of what happens; the ideas and questions I have for the scene; (sometimes) the scene – goal, conflict, and setback; (sometimes) the sequel – reaction, dilemma, and decision; (sometimes) the hook and cliffhanger. While writing those scene details, I identified and fixed a number of serious problems with the story. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-04-01-march-in-writing/ Sat, 01 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-04-01-march-in-writing/ In March, I realized I had been overly ambitious trying to outline all 3 books before drafting. I found myself struggling with Books 2 and 3 because my grasp of Book 1 wasn’t yet solid enough. Rock bottom I had two problematic arcs that just weren’t working. The Last of Us Podcast reminded me about characters needing to hit rock bottom before the climax. Not just some hardship; rock fucking bottom. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-03-01-february-in-writing/ Wed, 01 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-03-01-february-in-writing/ I largely spent the first half of February continuing to garden my Obsidian project, and the second half delving into outlining books 1 and 2 of the trilogy. I’m readjusting my time estimates: ideally I finish the scene weave of all 3 books by the end of March or early April, and I can switch to drafting. Stats My Obsidian project now looks like: Manuscript markdown files: 11 Manuscript words: 5875 Total markdown files: 314 Total words: 103785 I wrote a python script that discards symbol-only words (like # or ## from markdown headers or - from markdown lists) from the wordcount. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-02-01-january-in-writing/ Wed, 01 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-02-01-january-in-writing/ In January I focused on outlining, using my Github activity to track daily progress. Obsidian vault My wiki is now over 95k words, across 205 markdown files and 47 characters at various stages of development, accumulated over the past ~8 calendar years. (Most of those years I was not focused on writing, and I’ve trashed more ideas than I’ve kept.) I’ve migrated it all to Obsidian. I’m hoping the Obsidian backlinks will help me keep track of characters, side plots, clues, and ideas: if I follow this arc does it make sense? https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-01-10-reading-again/ Tue, 10 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-01-10-reading-again/ “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” – Stephen King “Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write.” — Annie Proulx One metric for how stressed I am, generally from work, is what I’m able to read, understand, enjoy. When I’m reading complex novels I’m generally at a very low (for me) level of stress. https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-01-08-linux-mint/ Sun, 08 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://escapewindow.com/blog/2023-01-08-linux-mint/ On a whim I installed Linux Mint onto my 2014 Macbook Air 11". I had resisted using linux as my desktop OS for many many years: my last was a Fedora desktop back in 2008. My last non-work linux desktop was Slackware back in 1996. In part I stayed on MacOS to use commercial photo and music software that wasn’t supported on linux. And in part this was from all of the imaging and twiddly machine maintenance I had to deal with for work.