This was a rough braindump on what I might want to write or do for the Emacs Carnival theme this month.

• Emacs Carnival April 2026: newbies/starter kits
• How I got into Emacs
  • Evolution of an Emacs user — reflection, linux
  • How I got hooked
• Start with why:
  • TODO: possibly a post about where people come from and typical resources, next steps
  • Obstacles:
    • A. Isolation
    • B. Overwhelm
      • Breaking things down into manageable pieces
    • C. Balance of time: tinkering with config vs doing actual stuff
    • D. Unknowns: different vocabulary, don't even know what's possible
      • What's close by?
  • Curious
    • Cool demo
    • Reputation
    • Someone else
  • Leisure vs wanting to be productive ASAP
  • Journey:
    • Outsiders
    • Newbie
    • Basic working environment
    • Intermediate
      • Packages
      • Configuration
    • Advanced
      • Writing custom code
• Stuff I work on / can tinker with
  • inspiration helps with isolation (A) and unknowns (D)
    • Emacs News
      • TODO: Add intro
        • how to use it
        • how to subscribe
        • resources for getting help, finding meetups, etc.
      • TODO: Add resources (esp. beginner resources) to map and EmacsWiki
    • EmacsConf
  • Meetups, Emacs Calendar
  • Videos, livestreams
    • Reading people's configurations, demonstrating workflow, showing how to incorporate them
  • How to Learn Emacs: A Hand-drawn One-pager for Beginners / A visual tutorial
    • TODO: Needs updates: URLs, etc.
• ‎Beginner map
• My Emacs configuration
• Starter kits
• emacs.tv
• Mastering Emacs
• Emacs Lisp Elements | Protesilaos