Palimpsest
A writing surface that remembers how the words got here.
What if the draft could remember?
Most writing surfaces show you where you ended up. I’m interested in keeping a little more of the journey: the sentence before it became this sentence, the detour that made the idea clearer, the thought that almost disappeared.
Palimpsest is an exploration of a writing surface that preserves writing’s evolution. Revisions, replay, and ghost text are ways into the same question: what becomes visible when we can see a thought changing?
Threads to follow
- Revisions: keep earlier language close enough to return to.
- Replay: retrace the movement of a draft over time.
- Ghost text: let traces of previous words share the surface with the present ones.
These are directions I’m exploring, rather than a list of finished features. This page is an early description; there isn’t a public demo here yet.
An open question
How can a writing surface remember without making the act of writing feel crowded?