I've been asked what I use to write my stuff.

Primarily, I use an outdated version of GNU Emacs, a powerful but quirky text editor commonly found on Unix platforms. On both the Linux server that hosts eyrie-productions.com, where final edits happen, and my desktop and notebook Windows XP systems, where most of the front-end work gets done, I maintain working installations of GNU Emacs 19.34, the last version of Emacs to be released before the developers fundamentally changed the way the editor's text mode works.

Emacs 19 is very old (the Windows build I have an install archive for was compiled on Sept. 25, 1997), but it's familiar to me and I like the way it works. As I mentioned, the text mode of Emacs 20 and beyond is very different from the way it worked before, and I don't like the differences, so I've stuck with what I like. It's sort of the text-editor equivalent of using an old Underwood manual typewriter in the age of the IBM Selectric, perhaps, but there you go. You have to stick with what works for you...

I do some work in Word 2000, but not for the website. All my online work goes straight to raw text. The reason I got into the habit of using the hard-wrap text mode of Emacs, which limits column width to 72, is because I used to post everything to USENET, though I fell out of the habit of doing that midway through the Symphony of the Sword explosion in 2001-2002. Today, I keep doing it because it's still a good width for working in 80-column terminal windows (such as SSH sessions) and the like. I've considered switching over to HTML, but doing markup while writing messes with my groove, and doing it afterward is just a pain. Besides which, I don't like the fact that HTML forces blank-line paragraph breaks; I prefer the more conventional return-and-indent style except when I'm writing correspondence (like, say, an email message, or this post).

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/