Frank Jonen has an interesting GitHub repository to help non-technical people use Spacemacs for writing. Jonen says that his interest in using Emacs for writing and the resulting repository were inspired by Jax Dixit’s talk for the New York Emacs Meetup on Emacs for writers.

As you all know, I’m always interested in the way non-technical people use Emacs so of course I had to check it out. The previous examples of Emacs-for-writers that I’ve written about all involved using vanilla Emacs so this instance is noteworthy for advocating Spacemacs.

The repository consists mainly of Jonen’s .spacemacs configuration file and a README that’s part inspiration and part installation guide. The installation segment covers installing Emacs, Spacemacs, and Jonen’s configuration.

I don’t know if Spacemacs is a good choice for a new user—not a Vim immigrant, where it’s obviously a good choice—but, say, a Word immigrant. Irreal is fortunate in having some passionate Spacemacs users as readers so perhaps one of them can weigh in on whether Spacemacs is the optimal choice for a new, non-technical user. Regardless, it’s a choice that’s working for Jonen and may work for other writers looking to escape the yoke of Word and its evil siblings. If you’re a writer who would like to experience the joy of text-based editing that doesn’t insist you do things its way, take a look at Jonen’s README. Perhaps you’ll be inspired.