blogging Archives — Page 2 of 3

Blogging is fun again.

August 19, 2016

Today will mark the 16th consecutive day of posting here. Easily my longest streak. And you know what? It’s fun again.

Each day I post. Each day I feel good about it. Then I look forward to posting again tomorrow.

All of my favorite procrastination techniques have become null and void:

The pressure to Win the Internet is gone. There’s no time to wait around for an industry changing idea to write about. You’d better pick a topic and then figure out how to write about it.
I also can’t spend hours indulging myself with workflows or platforms or fiddling with different notes apps. There’s writing to be done. No matter how ridiculous or small or silly.
When I’m posting to my own site, I only have to worry about what I think. I don’t have to think about algorithms or recommendations or any of the other nonsense that only proves you know how to dress for whichever dinner party you’re attending.

This is all good. Progress! Defying the odds. Sharpening the grey-matter. All of that…

7 Days of Blogging

August 11, 2016

Today is my 7th consecutive day of writing and publishing online. This is the most I’ve ever done. Or that I remember doing.

After a difficult second day, things started to click.

It helped a lot when Russell and Erik both noticed what I was doing. That gave me a kick in the pants, and was affirming from the standpoint of “hey, people I really respect are paying attention!”

Finding topics has become fairly easy. I’ve been clearing out the dark, dusty corners of various drafts folders, as well as finally building out ideas that have been laying dormant between folds of grey matter, covered in cobwebs.

Writing about the process for 3 out of the 4 days probably means that I’ve cheated. But I have so many more ideas now than I did before, so even if the output was a bit focused on the process itself, I’ve seen real benefits in terms of idea generation.

Some of the new ideas have come from editing posts down for single-mindedness. But I think I’ve also managed to shrug off my internal topic sensor. My list of ideas has grown pretty long.

When it comes to the writing itself, knowing that there will be a new post to write tomorrow has helped to control the urge to bludgeon every post perfect for publishing in the New York Times. In the past, that perfectionism has stopped me from finishing a post, or even starting a new one, in the past.

Oh, and since I’ve been trying to actually write, rather than my usual links with pull-quotes, I’ve been spending much less time in search of interesting things to post. That time, which usually didn’t result in anything besides too much time in an RSS reader, has been put to much better use at the keyboard.

It’s also helping to prime-the-pump on my work days. It gets my mind turning, my fingers used to putting together ideas, and I’m free of the ridiculous pressure I’ve put on myself to do more writing.

I feel good about it so far.

Let’s keep going.

Let’s see what happens.

Day 2 Has Been Hard.

August 5, 2016

After making an inadvisable declaration that I would be posting every day for the next seven days, I was worried most about the weekend. When would I be able to find the time to write with the kids around and the activities of the weekend to contend with?

Well, it turns out that Day Two is an asshole. That’s right. Friday. The last day of the work week. The optimism of an upcoming weekend. The drive to get the week tied up neatly. None of it helped.

Writing hasn’t been the problem. I’ve been wrestling several ongoing ideas and haven’t been able to pin any of them down into something coherent.

I’m going to chalk this up to two things:

My brain is flabby after the summer.
I’m being too precious…still feeling the need to make each one into a head-exploding, uranium-enriched, knowledge-bomb.

But this is the point of the challenge. It would be easy enough to just hang it up for the day and try again tomorrow. Then tomorrow, it would be easy to push till Sunday. Then on Sunday, it would be easy to point to Monday as the right time to start, being the beginning of the week and all.

It’s the habit that matters at this point.

Writing everyday is nothing. Publishing everyday is something.

August 4, 2016

I've done a lot of writing this summer. You just haven't seen it, as I've hidden it away on 750words.com. I've really enjoyed it, but I am frustrated with myself for not publishing more here. I've been creatively blocked all summer, partially because all of my good writing intentions were crushed under the wheels of a moving truck, and partly because of my own creative hang-ups.

I've also done a lot of reading this summer. I've read a few books, and I've done a lot of reading online. As I've been reading online, I've been paying attention to what I've enjoyed reading, what I find myself going back to, and thinking about what I can learn from all of it.

The writers that I enjoy reading the most tend to post frequently. Sometimes daily.

They don't write in lists or keywords. Even when they have a topic for their site, it tends to come from a personal perspective. I read a few blogs that deal in topics I don't understand or care about, but I'm drawn to the people and their way of seeing the world.

These writers are never trying to seem "professional." It's never sanitized, overly rational, or some kind of step-by-step how-to for something that doesn't actually have a process. There is still humanity to it.

It's writing as thinking. A way to figure something out or to express some kind of opinion.

All who do it seem to find that it's helpful in their jobs and lives. It helps them to think. John Saddington is a huge evangelist of daily blogging. Seth Godin has been practicing and preaching about it for years. Elizabeth Spiers was one of the first that really brought it to my attention with the relaunch of her personal blog. I love reading M.G. Seigler's 500 Words.

Then there is Kottke, Fred Wilson at AVC, and of course, Russell Davies, who I blame for putting this terrible burden of blogging on me in the first place. But it was Jonas Ellison that sparked my interest with his post celebrating one year of publishing everyday.

Getting out of your own way

I've spent more than my share of time thinking about how to write more. I've shamefully read all of the shameful articles full of shameful tips and tricks out there. I've fussed with myself about topic and format. I've spent a small fortune on writing apps. And I've used more platforms than I care to admit in a public space.

Ultimately none of that matters. At least not for what I'd like this site to be.

For that, there are two things that matter:

The first Thing That Matters is showing up. Sitting down, making the clackity noise with a keyboard or a scratchity noise in a notebook. Getting thoughts out of my head, exploring them, discovering angles or lenses or topics that I didn't realize were there, then shaping them into something coherent.

The point of all of this, as Patrick Rhone illustrates with a quote from Vonnegut, is to "make your soul grow."

Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.

— Kurt Vonnegut, Letter to Xavier High School

The second Thing That Matters is shipping. Getting over the fear of putting something out into the world. Letting go of your braincrack.

Attending a magnet school for jazz percussion in high school, our instructors, all professional jazz musicians, preached about the importance woodshedding, disappearing for hours in deliberate practice, but even more important was actually getting in front of people to play. The interplay with the audience, the feeling of being watched, the exchange of energy with other musicians and the crowd, that's how great players go from good to great. You can't learn that in a practice space.

A foolhardy proclamation:

Even though I've been unsuccessfully trying to write daily at 750words.com, and despite my better judgement about making this proclamation, I'm going to give daily publishing a shot. At least for the next seven days.

Because writing everyday is nothing, but publishing everyday is something.

Squarespace redesigned on iOS

November 19, 2013

Whoops…spoke too soon.

After writing another post about the problems of posting to Squarespace from iOS the night before last, they went ahead and released some updates.

We’re excited to announce two brand new iOS apps for Squarespace customers – Squarespace Blog and Squarespace Metrics – as well as iOS 7 updates for Note and Portfolio.

As Squarespace’s functionality continues to expand, we’ve focused on creating an entire suite of applications around Squarespace’s core product. This lets us focus each app on specific functionality, providing a clear, targeted interface that helps you accomplish exactly what you need to do on the go.

I’m using the new iPhone app to write this. So far it’s working well. And wow is it great to look at. It seems to have the full functionality of the desktop website. Which probably wasn’t easy to do.

I was hoping for a URL scheme to work with or some kind of Dropbox integration. There’s a lot to be said for being able to write in a proper text editor. Though that probably makes me a bit of an edge case for their target users.

I’m afraid that after looking into so many blogging services that use Dropbox to publish markdown formatted text files as posts, any other method of posting seems a little bit inefficient considering that I’m already doing all of my writing in Dropbox synced text files.

Sven just wrote about moving Simplicitybliss to [Kirby] and I am incredibly jealous. Also, I’m happy to see that one of my favorite bloggers shares my inability to Stay. Put.