Making blogging easier

Over the last two years, I have been blogging consistently here; this was something I last achieved in the early 2010s. Around 2011, I had a blog where I posted commentary on consumer technology news and the occasional tutorial/guide, which was used on and off until 2014 and is now lost to the internet. In 2016, I pieced together a portfolio website to have somewhere to link to when applying for jobs. I wanted to include a blog on the site, but I couldn’t muster up the creativity to write anything. Nothing I wanted to say was novel or worth sharing, so that part of the site was left empty for a while.

Lowering the Barrier to Entry

If you want to make a mode of transport more useful to a community, you have to make it more accessible. If you have to walk 30 minutes to the bus stop, no one is probably going to use it; if you have to decipher a complicated timetable only to realise the bus runs only on the 2nd week of the month if it’s a full moon, no one is probably going to use it then as well. It has to be easier to use than any alternative. It’s much the same with blogging.

Doesn’t have to be new as long as it’s useful

In 2021, I discovered TIL (Today I Learned) websites¹, where authors share things they’ve learned, usually snippets of code and notes. It doesn’t have to be something new to everyone else, just something new to them; the barrier for a post is low. It has the benefit of exercising the same writing muscle I had the itch to use and serves as a log that I can refer back to in the future. I then created one on a subdomain separate from my main website; I already had personal notes on how to do specific tasks that I could repurpose to kick-start the site. Soon, posts on FFmpeg, Git, and Linux made their way to the public. I not only found myself referring to my own posts in the future, but it also allowed me to link to certain topics when explaining a concept or approach to others in person or on other places on the web. The things I was writing about weren’t new, or even highly technical, anything that took me a while to figure out or search was a good candid for a TIL post.

Keeping posts short and limiting the focus

While I wrote TILs, I also started posting threads on Twitter² about railway technology and history, the first of which went up in 2022³. This was a by-product of reading large amounts of articles, papers, and press releases purely out of interest. Again, nothing I’m posting is new, but perhaps I can share points that are interesting to me that might also interest others. Posting on Twitter meant that I had to break down my thoughts into smaller posts, i.e. 140-character tweets. Keeping my posts short and to the point allowed me to write more by lowering the barrier to entry. In the past, when I wanted to share on a topic, I’d spend hours over the course of multiple weeks researching, create an outline, realise I needed more details, and go back to researching some more. It’s always good to make sure you’re posting accurate information, but keeping the scope broad prevented me from actually writing a post. Though I did amass pages and pages of notes; I guess that’s writing too. Finding something specific to talk about also helped focus my writing and produce better results.

Getting everything just right

Through trial and error, I’ve found just the right platform to write on, just the right tools to help me gather notes, and just the right environment in which I’m most productive. It’s not set in stone, nor will it ever be, but it works for me right now. I’ve read enough posts from Manuel Moreale’s series, People and Blogs, to know that the ideal creative environment and process differ for each person.

Finding the right tools

Over the last decade, I’ve gone through multiple blogging platforms and frameworks before settling on one that works best for me. My notes are scraped together in Joplin, divided by pages for each topic. From there, I craft a rough outline and begin writing. Using Markdown for my notes and blog makes copying and pasting sections easier. Once I’m actually writing a post, it’s done on the repository that has my blog content, where I create a new git branch for it, allowing me to track changes over time. After the draft is complete, I read through to pick up any errors; the branch is then merged into main, which kicks off the deployment.

Nothing ever goes as smoothly as I described, but the general flow has stayed the same. I’ve stuck with Hugo as my static site generator, as I’ve learned how to use it and developed my own theme for it, allowing me to easily make tweaks as I need new functionality. I particularly like Hugo since all I need is a single executable, my content, and the theme to build this site. Fighting with dependencies and Gem files turned me away from Jekyll, even though it was the first static site generator I learned to use. Also, being able to integrate git into my workflow was crucial to me; it was the reason I didn’t last long using WordPress, even though it was what I was already accustomed to using professionally. Difficulty with versioned writing and the overhead that comes with managing WordPress over a static website made me reconsider it.

Finding the right environment

Technology aside, allocating time to write along with a hot caffeinated beverage was also just as important. Putting together TILs and Twitter threads requires less commitment than writing a post like this, but finding the right time of day (usually early mornings) made this process easier. All of my writing is done at my desk, with minor exceptions.

Setting some goals

While posting TILs and Twitter threads ad-hoc helped build some familiarity in writing, I wanted to work towards a goal to encourage consistency and build a habit. In January 2022, I set the soft goal of one post per month on my blog. I didn’t think it would be a hard one to achieve, but a goal that would keep me engaged in writing without putting too much pressure. Two years later, and 74 posts in, I’m happy to see I’ve achieved it. Better yet, looking at an average of three posts per month (2.9 in 2023 and 3.3 in 2024), I’ve overachieved it. Setting this goal helped foster a habit of writing, one that I hope will stick for years to come.

Finding motivation

Finding the drive to keep going while staring at a blank page can sometimes be difficult. For some, their motivation to blog might be recognition in their field, attracting potential employers, sharing knowledge, or, in my case, I just like to write. If I like it, shouldn’t that make it easy? I more so like the outcome of what I’ve written; it’s getting there that’s hard. Tying myself to a post schedule of one a month meant that it also encouraged me to write more. The more I wrote, the more pleased I was with the outcome of my writing over time. It also allows me to improve the way I articulate my thoughts and explain concepts to others, so the benefits there are multi-fold.

Inspiration to get you started

Starting a blog might seem confusing, but there are others who have already trodden that path before. Whether it’s something you self-host or use an existing platform like Bear, Blogger, or a managed WordPress instance, the choices are endless. Matthias Ott, in his series Own Your Web, talked some more about picking the tools to get you started. You can also discover other bloggers and what they use through Manuel Moreale’s series People & Blogs, which I mentioned before.

Finding other people who blog also helps you find interesting topics to explore or writing styles to try.⁴ I stay up to date with blogs using RSS, and most blogging platforms and tools will come equipped with enabling a feed so your readers can subscribe too.

With that, I hope for another year of consistent blogging!