Writing about Writing Part 4

Oh, no… here we are again! This can't be real!

The last time I went on a rant about this, I settled on Obsidian as my ultimate note-taking and writing application. It sounded pretty final… I mean, the last chapter detailing why was called Endgame. Can't be more final than that—unless you work at Marvel!

So, yeah. Here I am again, ready to switch to yet another note-taking and/or writing application.

Welcome back!

This time, we are starting from Obsidian.

John Titor: Terminal Deviation

I published on Paranormalis my first John Titor fanfiction. Nothing crazy, about 2 500 words, which is pretty short. 

It's mostly a rehearsal and proof of concept of my writing process. 

You're welcome to check it out here: 

John Titor: Terminal Deviation

Evernote, What Happened to You?

I remember when Evernote was my go-to productivity tool. I always had it open in a tab, ready to capture notes or compose a quick draft at a moment's notice. Those were the good times!

Last time I logged in a couple years ago, Evernote told me I couldn't sync more than ONE DEVICE. One device? That's not syncing—that's basically Notepad with extra steps.

Now, in 2026, I log back in to see if anything's improved and... BAM! Free accounts are limited to ONE NOTEBOOK and 50 NOTES. Are you kidding me?

Evernote went down the toilet harder than almost any product I've watched over the years. It's sad and kind of spectacular to witness. 

On Slowing Down to Write

 Man, do we live in a world designed for the “scroll.” Everything we consume (mostly online) is in fifteen second bursts. Clickbait headlines, comments, reels… You name it. 

But what about writing? I mean… Real writing? 

The creative process behind writing good stuff demands a serious gear shift. You gotta slow down and think. Slow down and write. Man, is it hard nowadays. 

Even if you’re writing short poems. Pretty simple, right? No overarching narrative, nothing special. Still, you gotta focus and invest time and effort to create something legit and genuine. 

You can’t “life-hack” your way into writing. Let alone use AI to fill the gaps and save some time. What do you want to create? Something real? Or yet another bucket of stupid AI sludge? 

In our day and age, slowing down to write and create feels like falling behind. There’s a constant pressure to go fast, post stuff and move on to the next thing. It makes it kind of unthinkable to close down everything, sit at a desk and write… And ONLY write. 

This is something I want to work on in 2026. 

To be continued… 

Writing about Writing Part 3

There's nothing like coming back full circle. And I did, again!

Last time, I was excited to share how I created my own custom writing environment by enhancing Dropbox Paper with the Stylus Chrome plugin. As you’ll see below, the final result is pretty rad and I love it. It's a good setup for long-form writing. 

Writing About Writing

I like writing. I often find myself fooling around in Evernote, Dropbox Paper, or Google Docs, trying to figure out which one of these editors offers the best environment for a writer. That doesn’t make me a writer, though. But apparently, it sort of makes me feel like one day, I could be one.

When attempting to write something, I always get distracted by little details, like the font and font size. Should I use Lato 12? It’s a nice font with good readability. Perhaps Garamond? It’s way more formal and serious but the characters are a little thinner. Isn’t it the font dictionaries are written in? Is my line spacing okay? Would 1.1 be better than 1? Is my Heading 2 big enough? Oh well…

In light of those distractions… Maybe I should use a totally distraction-free environment, like a basic text editor? Sublime Text is by far my favorite text editor ever. I’m great at using it for various tasks at work, like cleaning up messy text files and formatting data. Love the Regex engine, the multi-cursor mode, etc. Why not use that instead, to simply write?

Well, raw text editors are great when you need them. I love Sublime, I use it whenever I have a chance! But it's a little bit too raw for me. I'm surprised to say that, as I work in IT. I'm not afraid of editing stuff in Notepad, or of looking at walls of code. But for some reason, Sublime (and any other text editor, really) doesn’t inspire me. It’s a tool that’s great for a lot of things, but inspiration isn’t one of them.

When I talk about inspiration, it’s the inspiration to write something compelling, that comes from your heart and your soul. (Wow, apparently we’re getting pretty deep here) Sublime inspires me to write bullet-point lists for my next meeting and quick notes that I want to keep close. But that’s it. I don’t think I’m gonna write my memoirs there.

I kind of feel the same about tools like Writer by BigHugeLabs. Great distraction-free writing platform. But too arid for my taste. It does have a typewriter sound effect, which is cool. If you’re into writing tools and platforms, and also into typewriter sound effects, check it out though, it’s a great product.

Right now, I’m feeling pretty good. I’m writing this in Google Docs, Lato 12 in pageless mode. Feels good. Okay, between paragraphs, I switch the font to EB Garamond to see what my post looks like with “the dictionary font”. I’m probably kind of OCD, here, that can’t be good. Fine, let’s switch back to Lato for now. *sigh*

As I (still) fool around instead of writing anything, I’m reminded again and again that the tools you’re using are not relevant. Same for the fonts, font sizes, page format… They all come second to your content. They’re like packaging, to a product you consume. It’s cool that your favorite Doritos come in a nice, colorful bag. But in the end, you’re going to eat the Doritos, not the bag. Eh! I’ve known that for years, yet, here I am!

So in the end, find or create your writing environment. A place where you feel confident, inspired, and motivated to write. And write!

This is getting pretty long, isn’t it? A good sign, I hope.

Until next time!

--Num7