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The Blog Questions Challenge

Some answers to questions about my experience blogging here and in the past! Been seeing this elsewhere and found them great fun to read. I'm also writing this at a Homebrew Website Club Writing Hour in Edinburgh, which has been great fun!

Why did you start blogging in the first place?

Work mostly! In 2017 I dropped out of university and was attempting freelance web development as a career, trying to make something out of the hobby I had for a few years.

My first few clients came pretty easily through friends, former colleagues and neighbours but after a few months the leads started to dry up.

To try and get more work and get my name out there I wrote several blog posts targeted to small business owners. The goal was to convince them to upgrade/improve their website and introduce them to some of the concepts.

Here are some of those early blog titles:

  • The Web in 2017 and what it means for your Website and Social Media!
  • Introducing: Responsive and Mobile-Focused Web Design
  • Introducing: Content Management Systems

And they worked! Friends, family, and clients shared them mostly on Facebook and got me a handful more projects, including the big break that really drove my early career.

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

Currently my website is built with 11ty, a wonderful static site generator based on node.js. Reasons why I chose it:

  • It's really simple
  • Generates static HTML — easy and cheap to host and secure
  • I'm in full control over the page content
  • Blog content can be in markdown — super portable

Have you blogged on other platforms before?

My very first post was written on WordPress but never published on it. I'm a bit too extra sometimes so found that too mainstream for me.

I briefly used Subrion CMS for my first few posts as I was trying that out for the rest of my site, but quickly realised it wasn't great for blogging.

I then used PageKit CMS, a PHP+Vue-based CMS that hasn't been touched in about 9 years. No particular reason for this one in particular really, I just liked it and it was niche and a little weird.

From 2018 to 2020 I didn't have a blog, and then for a brief period I used dev.to before switching to my current stack in 2021. My blog posts are still cross-posted over on dev.to, hello if you're reading there!

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

Always local, the tool itself varies though. This post right now I'm writing in AnyType which I'm trying as a local note-taking tool, but I've also used iA writer, word documents, or just writing markdown straight into my code editor.

When do you feel most inspired to write?

Currently Sunday mornings end up being my writing time. Sunday tends to be my chill day and my partner gets up a bit later so I do an hour or two of writing with a tea after breakfast.

Previously it has been Friday afternoons with my work 'Personal development time', but that's been taken up by other stuff more recently.

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

Generally immediately. My partner is a great proofreader and editor so for some posts I may ask him to proof and give me some feedback, in which case it simmers for a few days. If I'm not getting it proofed though it goes live immediately.

What are you generally interested in writing about?

Front-end web stuff mostly, but I've done and will do some non-web posts when something interests me enough.

Who are you writing for?

Hmmm that's a tricky one!

I want to say it's all for myself and often it is, to put down my thoughts somewhere permanent so I can reference them later.

I enjoy sharing my knowledge and experience with others — it may be helpful and I tend to assume what I know everyone else does so it helps me stay on top of that assumption.

There's definitely a little bit of attention seeking, wanting people to see and recognise me. Also in my work it just makes good sense for my career — many of the people I want to network with, work with and be employed by care about blog posts. It's a good selling point!

What's your favourite blog post?

My all time favourite is probably SVG generative mountain ridge dividers, as thanks to Dave Letorey from State of the Browser it opened up the world of Conference talks to me.

Other top contenders for various reasons:

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

I currently have a complete redesign and rebuild in very early design stages. It has been there for about 14 months so far though so slow progress!

I'm struggling a little with the design but once I have that nailed it'll be all new gimmicks, themes, and features!

Whether it's a new platform I'm not yet sure, I love 11ty and it's super simple but have been considering a CMS for easier writing and editing on the go. I'm not convinced if I'm willing to give up the portability of markdown for that, we'll see!

Who's next?

I've seen loads of people doing this and honestly have no idea who has and hasn't. If you're reading this though and haven't written one then I tag you! I did it based on Sophie Koonin saying the same thing at the end of hers.

Thoughts or comments?

If you have any comments or feedback on this article, let me know! I'd love to hear your thoughts, go ahead and send me an email at alistair@accudio.com or contact me on Mastodon.