Why I blog and stuff

2025-02-01 23:18

Brandon has tagged me to answer a few questions around blogging. I'm going to be as honest as possible. Get your sick bag ready for the cringefest.

Why did you start blogging?

In mid 2024 I was in a state.. not enjoying work, questioning everything I've ever done in life. I also got COVID for the first time. I run, but suddenly couldn't. Mastodon appeared. I googled it (I no longer Google). I signed up, quickly saw fediversse things and blogging things. Monkey see, monkey do. It was words of other bloggers that inspired, but moreso the idea of endless tinkering with website building. I had flashbacks to my mediocre late 90s MS FrontPage and mIRC scripting. It all just got me at the right time. I needed some output that was a bit more instant than what work was providing, and something I could do while recovering from COVID. I was also starting my journey into Linux so writing stuff into a terminal sounded delicious.I wanted to create again,, express myself in other ways.

What platforms are you using for your blog, and why?

I'm writing this now in markdown format in helix text-editor. I got there by typing blog in the terminal, which starts my own shell script which asks me if I want to do a blog post, quick-post or weeknote. After responding it loads the appropriate template for me to start writing. Once done, I save the file and run the zola static site generator which converts all my markdown to HTML. I publish to neocities, my website host, so folk (that's you) can see on the internet. I use all these things because I can access them all via the terminal and have a bit more control over how I do it, with my shell scripts.

Have you blogged on other platforms before?

Yeah I went full shotgun approach with learn fast fail fast. I was already using obsidian for note taking so I tried GitHub Pages, Quartz 2, Wordpress, Vercel, micro.blog and Pika, even self-hosting on my phone via termux and apache, generating HTML via hugo, 11ty or whatever else. I've still got active accounts on smol.pub, myGemini.space and who knows where else.. In the end I settled with my Zola and Neocities approach.

How do you write your posts?

At my laptop in helix text-editor, usually embedded in my "web" zellij workspace, which just has at the ready a few dedicated windows for running build, publish and git commands. I pull in some notes from my phone, which are captured in either Obsidian or markor and synced via syncthing. I used to post via my phone (micro.blog), but I kind of like not having that ability now.

When do you feel most inspired to write?

At the most inconvenient times. Usually when I'm running (I run a lot). I try and remember the ideas, but as soon as I hit the keyboard they're out the window. Probably because I get all dark on myself and think how stupid the ideaa is. I try to ignore that neggativity now. If I've got my laptop open and something springs to mind I'll just do a quick-post. I try and go as unfiltered as possible.

Do you normally publish immediately after writing, or do you let it simmer a bit?

Immediately. If I let it simmer, I will never publish it. I'll read it, tweak it, not be content, and eventually give up and delete it. So I just publish. Maybe a quick runover to fix links and stuff.

What’s your favorite post on your blog?

I don't like any of them. I cringe at them all. It's an internal battle I'm having with ego and identity and whatnot. But I enjoy writing weeknotes the most. It's a nice mix of reflection for me, plus it fulfills the tech part in me which appends multiple other notes and files from other areas.

I also enjoy wwriting activity-posts. Anyhting GIS relaated or with elevation profiles are fun.

Any future plans for the blog?

Shit yeah,, I do this for tinkering remember? Always some idea brewing. I'd like to revamp my crop-log, build a wiki, fix my elevation profiles page, improve my colour schemes, automate the header profile images, make elevation profile images align to user's dark/light setting, improve my posts and paages pages, build a death page, self-host, explore creativty via wriiting, drawing, coding. There'll be 10 more things tomorrow. There is no limit.

I won't taag anyone else to do this post, but rather encourage you to spark the disscussion, if you, or anyone close to you is still using Whatsapp or Facebook Messenger to post updates on life, then consider the little-bit-closer-to-DIY version by creating your own blog (Pika would be my entry-level best pick).