Trying to think of a way to generate an automated chronological update stream from an evolving roam graph to feed an email newsletter or blog
Also open to ways of doing this directly from a git repo of markdown files that generates a static site
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Basically want a random-access input, sequential-access output RAISAO workflow that’s as automated as possible. A mix of a wiki and a forward chronology auto-blog. For something like a novel + worldbuilding project.
Changelog-as-output still isn’t quite right but is a start
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There are 4 main current choices, all bad:
1. Wikis/Roam are easiest but nobody knows what you’re doing and sprawl can become unmanageable
2. Blogs/email are way too rigid even in CMS mode and produce garbled out-of-order output unless you force yourself to write serially
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3. Working in a traditional book workflow like Scrivener. You don’t get REPL type feel with a live-looped audience, plus it sucks for when you want to publish worldbuilding content + stories
4. Git+markdown static sites are flexible but incomplete on distribution and paywall
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I have a fairly clear spec in my head but don’t see anything that automates it enough that you can focus on writing a larger thing and also let an audience watch the work take shape live without getting disoriented
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The only person I know trying to wrote a true on,one book is but afaik he doesn’t have distribution set up or a way to REPL the audience in as he tweaks chapters or inserts out-of-order elements
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For audience REPL, I use RSS + email newsletter + twitter + on-site comments. Trad tech that's not great, but good enough. N.b. getting comments on a self-hosted site is a significant dev challenge nowadays:
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In a maybe-slightly-weird coincidence, I've been thinking in the past month about a payment model. This is a big problem for many people (we'd like to get paid to write, and that's hard). I have a new theory of how to do it.
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Sort of thinking I'll roll it out for myself and then productize iff it works for me.
OTOH, do I want to run a payments SaaS?
[Narrator: no, he does not]
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I suspect a lot of people want to write this way. Trad writers just don’t even realize it’s almost doable.
Drupal/Joomla/Wordpress is just too creaky for this though. You can make them work with effort, but I think this needs updated foundations. Roam checks off a lot for me.
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And yes, I do think seamlessly integrated email and paywall is a must-have. Unless someone is wealthy, any project that can use such infrastructure is too time consuming to take on without cash flow attached. It’s basically trying to replace book advanced with plumbing.
Trad book authors tend not to want this because between a fetish for trad workflows (“as close to longhand/manual typewriter as possible” seems to be Scrivener’s philosophy), and dependence on advances + starving artist dignity, this feels profane to them.
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