Blog Questions Challenge
Hey there.
It has been a minute since my last post. I was semi-recently tagged by Zach Leatherman to (optionally) participate in this year's Blog Questions Challenge. I had planned on doing it then. But life really hit hard as we entered this year and it has not let up. Energy dedicated to my personal webspace has been non-existent. I am tired. Hopefully this post can help shake off some of the rust, bring me back to writing and sharing with you lovely folks.
I won't be tagging anyone to do this challenge. However, if you're inspired to write your own after reading mine, I'd love for you to share it with me.
Why did you start blogging in the first place?
Blogging has always been a part of my web experience. Earliest I can remember is building my band a GeoCities website back in high school. I'd share short passages about new song ideas, how last night's show went, stuff like that. I also briefly had a Xanga blog running. My memory is totally faded on what exactly I wrote in there—I'm not eager to dig up high school feelings either—but fairly certain all of those entries are just lost digital history. Having an "online journal" was such a fresh idea at the time. Sharing felt more natural and real before the social media platforms took over. [blows raspberry] I've completely dated myself and probably sound like "old man yells at cloud" right now.
Anyway, I pretty much stopped blogging for a while after high school. I turned my efforts back to pen on paper, keeping journals of lyrics, thoughts, and feelings mostly to myself. My dev-focused blogging that you may be familiar with really only spans the last decade, give or take a couple years.
What platform are you using to manage your blog and why?
At the moment and the foreseeable future, I'm using 11ty. I published a short post about migrating my site to 11ty back in 2021. I still feel the same sentiments and still admire those same people. And many new community friends as well!
Have you blogged on other platforms before?
I've definitely used WordPress but I can't remember what the heck I was even blogging about during that time. Then I switched to just writing posts directly in HTML files and FTP'ing them up to some server somewhere. Pretty silly in retrospect, but boy did I feel alive.
How do you write your posts?
Always via laptop, never on my phone. I manage posts in markdown files, push them up to a GitHub repo and let that automatically redeploy my site on Netlify. Editing content is done in VSCode. I've debated switching to some lightweight CMS, connecting to Notion or Obsidian, but why introduce any more complexity and mess with what works fine for me?
When do you feel most inspired to write?
Typically I'll write up a post about something new I discovered while on my wild coding escapades, whether it's solving an issue at work or exploring new web features in my free time. If I have trouble finding solutions to my particular problem on the world wide net, I'm even more inclined to post about it. Most of my ideas are pursued on weekends, but I've had some early morning or late night weekday sessions.
What I'm trying to say is that anytime is a good time for blogging. It's like pizza when it's on a bagel.
Do you publish immediately after writing, or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft?
It depends. If I had been writing for a long period of time, I find it best to take a breather before publishing. When I feel ready, I'll post and share with a small group for feedback, find grammatical errors. Then I eventually add it to whatever social channels feel right. Used to be Twitter, but straight up screw that garbage temple. I'll likely post on Bluesky, toot on Mastodon. Other times I'll slap a new post on this site and not share it on any socials. Let the RSS feeds do their magic.
What's your favorite post on your blog?
I don't know if I have a favorite. Can I love them all equally? Well, besides that CSS Marquee one. Damn that blog post for becoming so popular.
Any future plans for your blog?
Once things settle down in life, I think I'll be ready for a redesign. I had a blast building the current version inspired by Super Mario Wonder. Until then? More blogging. It won't be super soon, but I do have a few zesty article ideas percolating in this old, tired brain.