Blaugust 2023, here we come

Blaugust is a month-long event that takes place in August each year that focused on blogging and other serialized content. The goal is to stoke the fires of creativity and allow bloggers and other content creators to mingle in a shared community while pushing each other to post more regularly.

Last week I was browsing through the fediverse when I came across a concept and community called Blaugust, a combination of blogging and August and I couldn't keep myself away from such fun idea. In the past I've participated in such amazing projects as NaNoWriMo, Julython, Advent of Code and Bring Back Blogging.

Blaugust probably also brings a lot of new readers to this blog. If you're one, hello! I'm Juhis, a community builder, software developer, tech educator and public speaker who wants to help others make the world a better place through technology.

In this blog, I mostly talk about topics related to community and software development, sprinkled with a bit of personal stories, opinion pieces and video and table top gaming. There are over 200 blog posts in this blog so feel free to take a look at what I've written before! And if you're a software developer or dream of becoming one, sign up for my Syntax Error debugging newsletter.

My personal goals for Blaugust for this first year are:

• Write more
• Experiment with different type of content
• Learn from others and get inspired by the community
• Help someone get started or restarted with blogging

If the sudden influx of new blog posts bothers you, I'll move back to a weekly Wednesday pace after August so don't delete me from your RSS feed just yet ❤️️!

Theme weeks

I like themes and prompts and while I have my regular content coming out through August, I'm definitely looking into the themes more.

My rough initial plan is this:

• First week, "Welcome to Blaugust" I'd like to write blog posts about blogging itself, like preparation content for anyone who wants to start blogging or become more productive at it.
• Second week, "Introduce yourself" I'm planning to share each day a different project that I'm proud of and through those projects and experiences provide an insight into who I am.
• Third week, "Creator appreciation" I'll focus on other creators. Each day, I'm thinking of having a theme or category of content I enjoy reading, watching or listening and then writing recommendations for people to find new great content.
• Fourth week, "Staying motivated" I have no clue yet, luckily it's four weeks away.
• Fifth week, "Lessons learned" I'll blog about this experience and how Blaugust turned out but also of other things I've learned over the years.

Achievements unlocked!

A fun extra thing that the organizers have for us is Blaugchievements that are achievements you can reach by participating. With this first blog post + kickoff of Blaugust, I have reached the following:

Reading the Manual – By the time you have arrived at  this page, you have probably already completed this blaugchievement.   Essentially this is here to instill the importance of actually reading  the introduction to Blaugust post.

I sure did read the announcement post!

Joining the Cause – This one is gained by filling out the sign-up form and choosing to participate in this year’s Blaugust event. If for some  reason you cannot fill out the form, please contact me and I will  collect your information to register you directly.

Yup, I'm in!

Spreading the Madness – This one is gained by  promoting the Blaugust event either on your own blog or through any of  your favorite social media channels.  Again we are trying to get more  bloggers active to revive this art form.

This blog post + a few "getting excited" Mastodon posts got me this achievement.

Friend of Wumpus – This one is gained by signing up for the official Blaugust Discord.   While this Discord was created for this event, it stays surprisingly  active all year round and becomes a locus of our community.

This is the part I'm really looking forward as I really want to learn from and get inspired by other writers and creators this month.

Federation of Bloggers – Create a social media  account on any of the Fediverse platforms (Mastodon, Pleroma, Calckey,  Misskey, etc) and follow the official Blaugust Mastodon account. This account lives on Gamepad.Club which coincidentally is a lovely Mastodon Server if you don’t have one  already in mind. During the event, the Blaugust account will be boosting  posts made with the #Blaugust2023 hashtag.

I'm @hamatti@hamatti.org in Mastodon, feel free to follow me there for all sorts of things about blogging, technology, community building, events, life and philosophical ponderings.

Welcome Wagon – This one is gained by writing a  blog post based on the first week’s theme of welcoming folks to  Blaugust.  Hint, this may also count as the “Spreading the Madness”  achievement.  The idea is to get some activity in those early days of  Blaugust to potentially expand our members and have folks join  mid-event.

Hint: you're reading it!

Recruit a Friend – Convince another blogger to  participate in this year’s Blaugust event.  This could be a brand new  blogger but also could just be convincing another blogger out there to  participate.  Again much of the focus on Blaugust is to stir up activity  in the community and get bloggers active again.

A couple of my friends have mentioned they might join Blaugust based on my posts but so far, the only one I know for sure who has filled in the form is Lucia with a great software development blog at https://www.oh-no.ooo/. You should definitely head over there and add the blog to your RSS feed!

I've been luring Lehtu to start blogging for a while and I'm super proud he got his blog started for Blaugust!

That's a nice collection of achievements already! Let's see if I can manage to get all the way through to Platinum Trophy by achieving all the others.