Questions and answers about blogging

Varun challenged me to answer a few questions about blogging so here we go!

Why did you start blogging in the first place?

The first published blog post that I can remember takes me back to early 2000s. I had this completely hand written HTML site with my very own domain and I wrote two blog posts: one about small acts of kindness and another about castles.

I don’t remember a specific reason for why I started. Maybe I read other people’s blogs and wanted to get in to the fun. One thing’s for sure: I’ve always loved writing and there’s always been this fire inside me to get my thoughts written down and once I’ve written them down, why not share with others.

In the wide wide world connected by the cyber highway, you never know who’s gonna read your writing and learn something new or get inspired by something you shared and that’s a wonderful thing to happen so I prefer to default to sharing openly.

What platform are you using to manage your blog and why did you choose it? Have you blogged on other platforms before?

I’ve been running this blog with the current setup since 2018 and it’s a static site built with Eleventy. I chose it because at work I sat next to my friend Fotis and admired his wonderful blog at the time and wanted to do the same.

Over the past 20+ years, I’ve blogged on so many platforms. Hand-written HTML, custom built PHP sites, WordPress, Blogger, LiveJournal, DEV, Medium, Squarespace sites and probably many I’ve already forgotten.

Right now, I’ve been with the current setup for 7 years and I have no desire to move away. I absolutely love Eleventy: it’s a really good static site generator and I appreciate its simplicity and how I can start from absolute scratch and build things one step at a time if I want. Since it’s a Javascript tool, I can (and have) build a ton of my own tools around it to help manage the site and its content.

I use Notion as my CMS and have built a completely custom toolchain to download posts from Notion to my project. Previously I’ve written blog posts into Markdown files and have used self-hosted Ghost as a CMS but currently I’m using Notion. That part is likely to change multiple times over the upcoming years though as I’m always looking to improve things.

How do you write your posts? For example, in a local editing tool, or in a panel/dashboard that's part of your blog?

That’s a complex question.

I mentioned before that I use Notion as my CMS so that’s part of the answer.

However, I mentioned in a previous blog post How long does it take me to write a blog post? that the part where I open Notion and start writing is a very small part of the process.

I use Obsidian as my notes tool and a lot of my blog posts start as notes of ideas floating in my head and then advance to become blog posts at one point. I also write a lot in my paper notebooks so that’s another tool I use.

When do you feel most inspired to write?

In May 2024, I hosted IndieWeb Carnival on the topic of creative environments where I go more into this topic. In my own post, Nook of creativity, I shared how I like to write in pubs and libraries and in general, public spaces where I can get creative energy from the buzzing world around me.

During the NFL season, I also write a lot during Sunday Night Football as I find watching American football a great companion activity for writing: there are a lot of breaks and pauses in the game so I often write multiple good blog posts over 2 or 3 games.

Another moment when I like to write is similar to Sia’s:

I feel most inspired to write when I've just solved a really difficult problem or I've been mulling over some question in my head. Or even when I'm frustrated that I can't find other content easily that answers the same question.

I love to write about tech stuff when I’ve learned something new or solved a problem that required me to dive into documentation and discussion forums and put together a solution from pieces of scattered information.

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

Both, definitely both. As many of my posts start as notes, there’s naturally long moments of simmering before they even become blog post drafts. I aim to publish every Wednesday (plus extra posts here and there) — as you can see from my blog graph — so I usually write things into a publishing queue.

In that queue, I consider them already finished so it’s rare for me to go back and change something unless I learn something new related or find good new posts or other resources to link to.

What's your favourite post on your blog?

It’s hard to choose just one favourite because I’ve learned to like my writing recently.

I’m still gonna respect the question and only choose one. Shy introvert's (short) guide to speaking in conferences is one I really enjoyed experiencing, writing and coming back to.

I keep a featured posts collection in my 404 page so if anyone somehow ends up on a page that doesn’t exist, they can find some of my favourites.

Any future plans for your blog? Maybe a redesign, a move to another platform, or adding a new feature?

I’m always adding new stuff to the website and blog — often tools in the site management side invisible to visitors — as I see a need. One thing I love about knowing how to write code is that I can build whatever I need so I can keep iterating on the blog and improving it step by step.

The design of the site has been very similar since 2018 and I’ve been entertaining the idea of doing a complete redesign, freshen things up and be bit more whimsical in the web but since I’m no designer, I haven’t quite gotten far enough to specifics of what I’d like it to be.

Whenever I do add something new or build new tooling, I’ll be blogging about them. The best way to follow my blog is to subscribe to my RSS feed so you get all the new posts directly to your feed reader when they are published.

Who’s next?

I’d love to learn how fellow Blaugustans Nik and Jessica approach blogging. If you feel like sharing, consider this a prompt to get going. No pressure though!