Blog questions challenge

Kev Quirk started a personal blog challenge where you answer a few questions and “tag” a few people of your choosing to do the same. The questions are all meta in nature and I already have a dedicated meta page that talks all about it; but I thought it’d fun to join in although I wasn’t tagged directly and inspire more participants because I absolutely love reading meta content on people’s blogs and would love to see more of them.

So, let’s get right into it.

# Why did you start blogging in the first place?

I published my first blog post using Blogger about a decade ago as a form of public long-form note-taking for cool tech “tips and tricks” I’ve learnt every day.

Back then, I was only just getting into tinkering with technology as a hobby rather than a necessity. I realized that there were many little things I had previously ignored when it comes to the user interfaces we interact with everyday; so many opportunities for maximizing my productivity and technical knowledge that I could unlock by just paying more attention to the software and hardware I was using, and researching even just a little about them: finding out how it works under the hood, customizing and optimizing it.

I didn’t care much about how the blog looked or how posts were written. Only that I was recording my notes and publishing it for anyone who shared similar interests.

# What platform are you using to manage your blog and why did you choose it?

This blog is currently powered by Hugo, a static-site generator. I open up my terminal, make the edits, run a single command, and Hugo rebuilds my entire website from scratch. When I’m satisfied with the changes, I run another command which will deploy my website to Netlify.

I chose Hugo when starting my current blog because there were many similar blogs I liked I could reference. However, as my blog evolved I’ve started to reach the limits of what Hugo could do for me and have been experimenting with alternatives since. As of writing, I have not yet found a suitable alternative worth the switch, but I suspect this will change very soon.

# Have you blogged on other platforms before?

I’ve tried Blogger, which lets you write and publish everything within the web interface and provided you a free subdomain. Before this blog, I have also worked with Gatsby back when it was new and shiny, Django with its admin interface, Wordpress, and a couple of CMSes.

Since switching to Hugo, I have tried WriteFreely (which publishes to the Fediverse), bashblog (simple, automatically installed on tildes), smol.pub (which I still keep — it syndicates to Gemini and Gopher), and Bear Blog (which I’ve recently started trying out, and plan to keep as a secondary blog). Not to mention a whole lot of static-site generators such as Lume (which I still use for side projects), Eleventy, and most recently Astro.

# How do you write your posts?

I write drafts in Obsidian with a very minimal set up, in a vault that double-serves as my digital journal. This is useful because it allows me to write freely for myself and select from existing entries those I want to publish.

After the initial draft in Obsidian, I copy the markdown into my editor in the terminal, use Hugo’s live-reloading server to make minor edits before building and deploying to the internet.

# When do you feel most inspired to write?

Inspiration strikes when I read books, read other people’s blogs, have a long-form conversation with someone, and really any activity that makes me feel as though the ideas shared are worth recording and preserving.

There are unfortunately very few opportunities in my daily schedule to properly sit down undisturbed and write long posts in one ago. When I have a half-fledged idea, I would jot it down either in my physical notebook or on my self-hosted Memos instance to revisit later. I often begin drafting posts by writing an outline of things I want to include. This makes it easier to make context switches and jump back in when I’m able to continue the draft.

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

I usually publish immediately — bar minor edits and technical adjustments — after I’ve deemed a draft complete. However, it’s usually hard to get to this stage because I tend to edit too much while I am writing the first draft. I discovered that this is only the case when I’m typing rather than writing with a pen on paper so I’ve started to explore solutions to accommodate, such as using an unfamiliar editor or one where cognitive load is required to go back and make edits while writing.

# What’s your favorite post on your blog?

My favorite post will likely always be one that is sitting in my drafts folder — I’m passionate about the topic and I want to share it with the world, but for whatever reason, I’m unable to complete or publish it.

As for existing posts I’ve written, for now it would be The joy of feed readers and alternative ways to consume content.

# Any future plans for your blog?

Maybe a redesign, a move to another platform, or adding a new feature?

I’m constantly redesigning my blog. Moving away from Hugo is one of my priorities in my long list of website ideas. Some of which include:

• A glossary for common terms that might cause confusion throughout my blog, with links to the definitions when mentioned in blog posts. Inspired by Jeremy Friesen’s blog;
• A sitemap page,
• A page that lists books I recently read or my all-time recommendations,
• A /podroll for podcasts,
• A link garden for more permanent bookmarks within categories.

Lastly, I’ll add another question of my own.

# Why do you write? Other than your blog, do you write long-form content elsewhere?

I write to think, to relax, to make sense of my thoughts, and to communicate ideas. I think and plan a lot better when I can type away on an empty document or with a pen in my hand. I also write because I love reading books. I like to wonder about how the way words are placed makes me feel what the writer wants me to feel, see what the writer sees. Eloquence and articulacy are invigorating, and that power is contagious.

Digital journals are a great way to live more mindfully. It can also help with oversharing. I keep several digital journals around. They are accessible on all of my devices which means I can jot down ideas and reflections any time as long as I have a device with me.

I also keep several physical notebooks with different journalling purposes. I prefer notebook pages without any lines or dotted grids and a 0.7mm black ballpoint pen to write with. This way I can write free-form, include doodles alongside my writing, write sideways or in different handwriting styles of different sizes without being limited by lines and grids. Fortunately, I don’t usually have an issue with alignment and indentation or messy handwriting. Sometimes I would write with my non-dominant hand or use a different keyboard-layout when typing just so I could write slower.

# Your turn!

That’s all of the answers I will be including today. I never knew how much I could talk about my blog itself until I actually sat down and wrote it out. There are many tangents and side stories which I will save for another day, perhaps.

Now, I’d love to read your answers. I’ll be tagging Courtney, James, Joel, and Leilukin. Feel free to participate even if you aren’t tagged!