Finding my voice — writing about writing
An idea I’ve had on & off over the years is to set up a blog. Somewhere I can write about the things on my mind. Somewhere I can share, or catalog the bits and pieces of information I pick up over time. I’ve even made a few attempts at it before, with various levels of effort and completion. Yet for the most part, I have not stuck with previous attempts long term. Most of them falling into inactivity not long after the first or second post was made.
Going through this process again, I’m not going to say, “this time will be different”. I will say that I’ve been very much enjoying this, and having fun with it. Something I’m not sure I did in some previous attempts. There are also several notable differences to me that seem to factor in to play here.
/dev/ncdulo feels like its mine
I’ve used various blogging platforms in the post. Namely Blogger, and WordPress, but I know there are some others I’m forgetting. They are great for getting a simple blog online in a matter of minutes. No web server configuration. No monthly fees (unless you want premium features). No real front- or back-end configuration. It’s all handled for you. But there’s always a gotcha. WordPress places their own advertising on your blog. Blogger leaves you somewhat limited into their specific ecosystem. The list goes on.
Yet if you go the route of rolling your own, you’ve got many more things to configure. Software to set up. Web hosting to acquire. This can all start to add up to full project within itself. Possibly requiring more work to maintain the blog than it does to actually write content.
No one side is 100% perfect for any individual or situation. And it can feel very challenging to decide what will work best for you. This might be where all my previous attempts at blogging came in to save me. I had a general idea of what I wanted, and was able to create it with relative ease.
My solution is Nikola to handle building the website, and GitHub Pages to host it. This provides exactly what I was looking for in my solution
Short, easy to remember URL.
I can modify, and more importantly understand the code which powers the back-end.
Can edit content easily, without digging through HTML/CSS.
Can update the HTML/CSS without touching content when I do want to work on the layout or theme.
Works well with my existing tools and work flow.
Those items combined, leaves me something which feels powerful and as if it is
my own, to work as I please with. If I need to tweak some generation code to
add new functionality? Sure thing. Want to re-skin the site and create a new
theme? The templates are right there. This blog lives and breathes on my local
machine, not on an unknown server halfway across the world along with half a
million other blogs. Well, maybe not that many, but you get the point. I can
do every bit of testing, modification, or update entirely on my own computer.
When it comes time to deploy, I simply push a copy of the output over
to GitHub and it’s live within minutes.
Fits my existing workflow
Due to how well /dev/ncdulo have fit into my workflow, and how incredibly
easy Nikola has made this process, I find it enjoyable to write. Every bit
of this content has been created right inside Vim. I know that mention is
leaving some of you groaning right now, but it’s where I feel comfortable. When
I spent 4, 5, 6 hours writing out a post. To do so in a browser editor, or
other place I am not at least moderately proficient would be almost torture.
When you’re having fun, the topics just seem to flow a lot more freely. Admittedly, my writing is not the best. While I’m comfortable in Vim, I’m not 100% comfortable actually writing yet. Especially not content this long. At the same time, I feel I can see some improvement over my very first posts here. And with regular practice, I have no doubt that things will get easier in time.
By this system integrating well into the tools and processes that I already use, getting over that initial hurdle felt much easier than times in the past. At this point it’s going to come down to me. Maintaining a consistent routine of generating new ideas, then getting them written out and published. I would like to aim for a post or two a week. To me that seems like a good balance of time spent creating new content versus time spent for myself, or other things.
Passion for the topics
Above all, I feel a lot more passion for the topics I am writing about than I did in years past. It might just be that I’m older. Or maybe because I have forged deeper interests into some of them, and maintained a more active role in keeping up-to-date.
Topics related to Linux, Python, and Aerospace have been captivating me for quite a while. That interest keeps me coming back, always searching to learn more, and wanting to share my knowledge with others. It kind of pulls me in and makes me want to write about these topics. So a blog was starting to feel like the natural choice here. If for nothing else, it may help me in the future when I have notes as to why I did one thing instead of another.
There is a saying that “Love your job and you’ll never work another day again the rest of your life.” It almost feels like it applies here. Not that I’m making money off this blog, if anything I would be spending it. The comparison to me is in that some previous attempts, it really felt like work. Like I was obligated to post, or write about certain topics. That feeling isn’t showing it’s head this time around. At least, not like it would have appeared in the past.
In the end though, I’m just having fun with this. I don’t know how long I’ll keep it up, or what all I’ll post about. I just want to share my thoughts with the world, and speak my mind. Thank you for coming along to share them with me.