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+---
+title: Autocento of the breakfast table
+subtitle: process narrative
+genre: prose
+
+id: process
+toc: "Process narrative"
+
+project:
+    title: Front matter
+    class: front-matter
+...
+
+## Hi.  My name is Case Duckworth.  This is my thesis.
+
+_Autocento of the breakfast table_ is an inter/hypertextual exploration of the workings of inspiration, revision, and obsession.
+I've compiled this work over multiple years, and recently linked it all together to form a (hopefully) more cohesive whole.
+To make this easier than collating everything by hand, I've relied on a process that leverages open-source technologies to publish my work onto a web platform.
+
+## Process steps
+
+1. Write poems.
+2. Convert to Markdown.
+    - Markdown, originally by [John Gruber][], is a lightweight markup language that allows me to focus on the _content_ of my writing, knowing that I can work on the _presentation_ later.
+    - The original `markdown.pl` program is buggy and inconsistent with how it applies styles to markup.  It also only works to convert text to HTML.
+    - Because of these limitations, I've used John MacFarlane's [extended Markdown syntax][], which lets me write richer documents and programmatically compile my work into multiple formats.
+3. Compile to HTML with Pandoc.
+    - At first, I used this code in the shell to generate my HTML:
+    ```bash
+    for file in *.txt; do
+        pandoc "$file" -f markdown -t html5 \
+        --template=template.html -o "${file%txt}html"
+    done
+    ```
+        but this proved tedious with time.
+    - After a lot of experimenting with different scripting languages, I finally realized that [`GNU make`][] would fit this task perfectly.
+    - You can see my makefile [here][makefile]---it's kind of a mess, but it does the job.  See below for a more detailed explanation of the makefile.
+4. Style the pages with CSS.
+    - I use a pretty basic style for _Autocento_.  You can see my stylesheet [here][stylesheet].
+4. Use [Github][] to put them online.
+    - Github uses `git` under the hood---a Version Control System developed for keeping track of large code projects.
+    - My workflow with `git` looks like this:
+        - Change files in the project directory---revise a poem, change the makefile, add a style, etc.
+        - (If necessary, re-compile with `make`.)
+        - `git status` tells me which files have changed, which have been added, and if any have been deleted.
+        - `git add -A` adds all the changes to the _staging area_, or I can add individual files, depending on what I want to commit.
+        - `git commit -m "[message]"` commits the changes to git.  This means they're "saved"---if I do something I want to revert, I can `git revert` back to a commit and start again.
+        - `git push` pushes the changes to the _remote repository_---in this case, the Github repo that serves <http://autocento.me>.
+        - Lather, rinse, repeat.
+5. Write Makefile to extend build capabilities.
+    - As of now, I've completed a _[Hapax legomenon][]_ compiler, a [back-link][] compiler, and an updater for the [random link functionality][] that's on this site.
+    - I'd like to build a compiler for the [Index of first lines][] and [Index of common titles][] once I have time.
+
+## The beauty of this system
+
+- I can compile these poems into (almost) any format: `pandoc` supports a lot.
+- Once I complete the above process once, I can focus on revising my poems.
+- These poems are online for anyone to see and use for their own work.
+
+[John Gruber]: http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/
+[extended Markdown syntax]: http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/README.html#pandocs-markdown
+[`GNU make`]: https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/make.html
+[makefile]: https://github.com/duckwork/autocento/blob/gh-pages/makefile
+[stylesheet]: https://github.com/duckwork/autocento/blob/gh-pages/style.css
+[Github]: https://github.com
+[Hapax legomenon]: hapax.html
+[back-link]: makefile
+[random link functionality]: trunk/lozenge.js
+[Index of first lines]: first-lines.html
+[Index of common titles]: common-titles.html