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Writerdeck
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2026-08-06
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An old ThinkPad, wiped down to headless Ubuntu Server: no desktop environment, no display manager, boots straight to a login prompt over SSH or a bare tty. The single purpose is longform writing, a novel draft, a poetry chapbook, a series of essays, one manuscript at a time, kept off the machine that also runs email and a browser.
I'm going to be using Micro for plain prose, as it has sane defaults and no modal keybindings to relearn. I'll use WordGrinder for chapters or scenes, it's a distraction-free word processor that saves to a portable format. See Micro ControlsMicro is the editor for plain prose on the writerdeck. No modal states to fight, every binding is a Ctrl or Alt shortcut you'd expect from a GUI editor. Everything below is rebindable via ~/.config/micro/bindings.json, but the defaults great as-is.… and WordGrinder ControlsWordGrinder hides its menu by default, Esc or a right-click brings it up, and every command lives somewhere in there. The shortcuts below skip the menu entirely, all of them are also visible next to their matching menu entry if… for the keybindings.
GitThe writerdeck pushes to a private git repo, one commit per session, and the same discipline as this site's own daily-commit habit. Commits are the only telemetry, there's no cloud sync or background daemon watching the manuscript folder. A post-commit… is how work leaves the machine, pushed from ~/manuscripts to a private repo. See Obscure Netlify SubdomainURLminder needs a public URL, which rules out anything private. The workaround is obscurity. Deploy the rendered manuscript feed to Netlify under a subdomain that's a long random string rather than a chosen name, eg. x7q2m9vb4k1p.netlify.app. No custom domain, no… for how to use Beeminder with it, and Monospace FontsA collection of favorite monospace typefaces designed for coding, terminal applications, and technical writing. These fonts prioritize legibility at small sizes and character disambiguation for programming environments. Programming Fonts with Ligatures Fira Code Monospaced font with ligatures for common programming… for the terminal fonts.