For January 2008, my assignment is to write a chapter on taking notes with Emacs. Here are the blog posts that I plan to write, each around 1000-2000 words long. This should give me plenty of material to edit, if I don't go mad first. ;)

 - [ ] Keeping Notes in Emacs
       Structured vs Unstructured (outline, free-form)
       Flat vs Hyperlinked
       Private vs Public
       File structure (one file, daily, snippets)
 - [ ] Outline Notes with Org, Blorg
 - [ ] Daily Notes with Planner
 - [ ] Hyperlinked Notes and Muse
 - [ ] Publishing Muse
 - [ ] Publishing Planner, RSS
 - [ ] Remember: quick note entry
 - [ ] Snippets with Howm
 - [ ] Blogging from Emacs - Wordpress, LJ, Blogger,Muse-Blosxom, EmacsAtomAPI
 - [ ] Encrypted Notes (full file, segments) - MOSTLY WRITTEN

I find that thinking of a book as a collection of articles works out well for me. Starting with a rough outline like this, I'll write 2000-word articles of the kind that I'd write for Linux Journal or LinuxWorld, and then I'd put them into my outline and add transitions. After I write all the pieces, then I can write the introduction and the wrap-up sections.

Slowly getting the hang of this writing thing... =)

Okay. 31 books. 15 days. Plus all the writing I still need to do. I may have made a bit of a miscalculation. No problem, it's the library, I can always renew or request books.

The only books I probably won't be able to renew are

• Open an Online Business in 10 Days
• Money Can Buy Happiness
• The Mid-Career Success Guide
• Make Your Contacts Count (2nd ed)
• How to Photograph Absolutely Everything

(Yes, I wander all over...)

I can do that. =)

One of these days, I'm going to revise my OPAC reminder script to also automatically deactivate all of my requests once I go over a certain number of books... ;)