Tom Ghostly @ Beachlandia

What Tom Ghostly is currently occupied with ...

Beachlandia, part I

Erster Draft: 100 % (fertiggestellt; Sept. 2011 – Jän. 2024)
100 %

Überarbeiteter Draft: 98 % (Jän. 2024 – heute; realistische Erwartung: Fertigstellung Herbst 2026)
○ Revision: Developmental editing (74 chapters done, 2 chapters to go)
97 %

Third Draft: 7% (second half of 2026)
○ Stylistic revision
7 %

Beachlandia, part II

early planning, outlining

Part Time Job

at an Austrian university library, 20 hours/week

Personal Knowledge Management & Software

Switch to as many open-source applications as possible, followed by the integration of Emacs into workflows starting in September 2026:
○ Loss of trust in proprietary, closed file formats and in corporate software or closed software with file formats that are not future-proof, that change their payment models, and that introduce GUI or interface changes in favor of AI or are cluttered with functions i don't need.
○ Coding my own modules for Emacs using Elisp, which can search through thousands of »Beachlandia« notes in fractions of a second using ripgrep; which can compile lists of notes that are displayed in live buffers, automatically link reference words to database files, save jump marks throughout the text, activate the Pandoc Markdown parser by hitting a single key (and much more). Altogether this is enabling me to make use of a word processor tailored to my very specific needs, one that can be expanded modularly at any time and that keeps the files in a future-proof, open text format.

Non-Fiction (Essays/Reviews/Blogs)

○ Writing blog posts for tomghostly.substack.com fuelled by my philological interests about literature – whenever there is time for it. Focus clearly has shifted in favor of completing »Beachlandia I» (which spans more than 1000 pages in Volumes 1 and 2).

Reading

○ Fiction (all genres as well as anti-genres)
○ Non-Fiction (research, inspiration, personal growth)