My latest YouTube excursion has a name: Writerdecks.
In the quest for creativity, people (like me) often look for distraction-free environments that leave room to think and create instead of scroll and consume. One of those solutions is the writerdeck.
The concept? Imagine a typewriter without paper. There you have it. A writerdeck is a super-simple keyboard-and-screen combination that lets you run one application: a bare-bones text editor.
Now, I’ve been a fan of Markdown editors ever since both @kdmurray and @cyberpunklibrarian introduced me to the simple secrets of Markdown editing. Never again will I willingly choose a word processor or text editor that doesn’t support it. The fact that you can format an entire document using nothing but your keyboard is liberating, to say the least.
So, five YouTube videos into my research, imagine my horror when I stumble upon some geeky lady who manages to mutate the simplicity of a writerdeck (“just write”) into a one-hour video where, instead of simply downloading the ready-to-go distro ISO, she decides to build the thing from scratch using Arch Linux.
Two videos later, another guy spends 35 minutes comparing various ready-to-build solutions that are available at eye-watering price points, while deep-diving into the refresh rates of different e-paper displays.
The funniest part of the story is that, at some point, we start talking about the “BYOK” solution ( Bring Your Own Keyboard.) The goal? Run whatever writing software you want… on your phone, and simply connect an external keyboard.
Because in the end, it’s not about the hardware. And it’s not about the software.
It’s about making the conscious choice that you are in control of your digital devices and what you do with them.
If you want to write, you write.
If you want to scroll, consume, and slowly rot your brain… that’s up to you too.
Sure, software can help. Of course, dedicated hardware makes the vendors happy (and turns you into the ultimate hipster geek at your local coffee shop). But ultimately, it’s your decision.
Want to know what my writerdeck is? It’s the same machine I use to surf the web, record podcasts, manage my notes, and occasionally scroll through Reddit.
It’s my 11-inch iPad running Obsidian.
The only difference: I turn off the Wi-Fi.
Because sometimes the solution to something horribly simple is… horribly simple.