The fact that so many people publish their thoughts and share knowledge, is something I’ve always loved about the web. Whether it is practical stuff about how to solve a coding issue or some kind of opinion… everyone’s brain is wired differently. It may resonate, it may not, that’s also fine.
A personal website ain’t got no wrong words.
I can very much relate to what Craig is saying here.
I love, love, love this experiment from Matt—messin’ around in websites!
A very affecting short story by Ben. I look forward to reading more of these.
Violence is never the answer, unless you’re dealing with nazis or your inner critic.
The excuses—or, I’m sorry, reasons—I hear folks say they can’t write include: I’m not very good at writing (you can’t improve if you don’t write often), my website isn’t finished (classic, and also guilty so shut up), and I don’t know what to write about, there’s nothing new for me to add (oh boy).
Matt wrote recently about how different writers keep notes:
I’m also reminded of how writers I love and respect maintain their own reservoirs of knowledge, complete with migratory paths down from the mountains.
I have a section of my site called “notes” but the truth is that every single thing I post on here—whether it’s a link, a blog post, or anything else—is really a “note to self.”
When it comes to retrieving information from this online memex of mine, I use tags. I’ve got search forms on my site, but usually I’ll go to the address bar in my browser instead and think “now, what would past me have tagged that with…” as I type adactio.com/tags/... (or, if I want to be more specific, adactio.com/links/tags/... or adactio.com/journal/tags/...).
It’s very satisfying to use my website as a back-up brain like this. I can get stuff out of my head and squirreled away, but still have it available for quick recall when I want it. It’s especially satisfying when I’m talking to someone else and something they say reminds me of something relevant, and I can go “Oh, let me send you this link…” as I retrieve the tagged item in question.
But I don’t think about other people when I’m adding something to my website. My audience is myself.
I know there’s lots of advice out there about considering your audience when you write, but when it comes to my personal site, I’d find that crippling. It would be one more admonishment from the inner critic whispering “no one’s interested in that”, “you have nothing new to add to this topic”, and “you’re not quailified to write about this.” If I’m writing for myself, then it’s easier to have fewer inhibitions. By treating everything as a scrappy note-to-self, I can avoid agonising about quality control …although I still spend far too long trying to come up with titles for posts.
I’ve noticed—and other bloggers have corroborated this—there’s no correlation whatsover between the amount of time you put into something and how much it’s going to resonate with people. You might spend days putting together a thoroughly-researched article only to have it met with tumbleweeds when you finally publish it. Or you might bash something out late at night after a few beers only to find it on the front page of various aggregators the next morning.
If someone else gets some value from a quick blog post that I dash off here, that’s always a pleasant surprise. It’s a bonus. But it’s not my reason for writing. My website is primarily a tool and a library for myself. It just happens to also be public.
I’m pretty sure that nobody but me uses the tags I add to my links and blog posts, and that’s fine with me. It’s very much a folksonomy.
Likewise, there’s a feature I added to my blog posts recently that is probably only of interest to me. Under each blog post, there’s a heading saying “Previously on this day” followed by links to any blog posts published on the same date in previous years. I find it absolutely fascinating to spelunk down those hyperlink potholes, but I’m sure for anyone else it’s about as interesting as a slideshow of holiday photos.
Matt took this further by adding an “on this day” URL to his site. What a great idea! I’ve now done the same here:
That URL is almost certainly only of interest to me. And that’s fine.
Tending this website keeps me sane. I think of it as a digital garden, a kind of sanctuary. … And if my site is a kind of garden, then I see myself as both gardener and architect, in so much as I make plans and prepare the ground, then sow things that grow in all directions. Some things die, but others thrive, and that’s how my garden grows. And I tend it for me; visitors are a bonus.
A thoughtful and impassioned plea from Colly for more personal publishing:
I know that social media deprived the personal site of oxygen, but you are not your Twitter profile, nor are you your LinkedIn profile. You are not your Medium page. You are not your tiny presence on the company’s About page. If you are, then you look just like everyone else, and that’s not you at all. Right?
I think that working on your own website can be a good Forever Project.
It’s an open-ended topic that you can explore for a long time without running out of challenges.
Also, this is spot-on:
Compare two different situations where you tell a story at a party. In the first situation, you tell the story in a corner to one or two people, who are totally interested and smiling. In the second situation, you tell the story in the center of the party with a large group of people around you, but they’re almost all bored and uninterested, talking amongst themselves and largely ignoring you. The first situation sounds better, right? Well, that’s the non-obvious benefit of blogging. There are a load of people out there blogging, and almost all of them are better writers and better looking than you. Nobody is going to read your blog about frabulizing widgets unless they really care about frabulizing widgets. So it’s not going to be a big audience, but it should be an interested audience. And I think you’ll find that you get 90% of the benefits of socialization from a handful of readers as you would get from a sea of readers.
On your personal website, you own your work. You decide what and when to publish. You decide when to delete things. You are in control. Your work, your rules, your freedom.
Amber describes how she implemented webmentions on her (static) site. More important, she describes why!
My favorite aspect of websites is their duality: they’re both subject and object at once. In other words, a website creator becomes both author and architect simultaneously. There are endless possibilities as to what a website could be. What kind of room is a website? Or is a website more like a house? A boat? A cloud? A garden? A puddle? Whatever it is, there’s potential for a self-reflexive feedback loop: when you put energy into a website, in turn the website helps form your own identity.
Growing—that’s a word I want to employ when talking about my personal sites online. Like a garden, I’m constantly puttering around in them. Sometimes I plow and sow a whole new feature for a site. Sometimes I just pick weeds.
I like this analogy. It reminds me of the the cooking analogy that others have made.
Most of my favorite websites out there are grown—homegrown in fact. They are corners of the web where some unique human has been nurturing, curating, and growing stuff for years. Their blog posts, their links, their thoughts, their aesthetic, their markup, their style, everything about their site—and themselves—shows growth and evolution and change through the years. It’s a beautiful thing, a kind of artifact that could never be replicated or manufactured on a deadline.
This part of the web, this organic part, stands in start contrast to the industrial web where websites are made and resources extracted.
Zonelets is a simple HTML blogging engine with scrappy, DIY spirit! I made it because I really want everyone to blog, but I felt that the existing options were generally overcomplicated and commercially-focused in a way that made web creativity feel intimidating and arcane.
I love the philosophy behind this blogging tool, which actively encourages you to learn a little bit of HTML:
Plenty of services can help you to “create a professional-looking website without writing a single line of code.” Now, thanks to Zonelets, you can create an UNPROFESSIONAL-looking website by writing NUMEROUS lines of code!
I like the way that Simon is liberating his data from silos and making it work for him.
Some suggested that the digital garden was a backlash to the internet we’ve become grudgingly accustomed to, where things go viral, change is looked down upon, and sites are one-dimensional. Facebook and Twitter profiles have neat slots for photos and posts, but enthusiasts of digital gardens reject those fixed design elements. The sense of time and space to explore is key.
The “Adjust CSS” slider on this delightful homepage is an effective (and cute) illustration of progressive enhancement in action.
You might not think this is a big deal, and maybe it’s not, but I love the idea behind the indie web: a people-focused alternative to the corporate web. Seeing everything you’ve ever linked to in one place really drives home how much of the web’s content, made by individuals, is under corporate control and identity.
Well, this is impressive (and brave)—competing a 100 words for 100 days during lockdown …with a baby.
And remember, this isn’t writing and publishing at least 100 words every day; it’s writing and publishing exactly 100 words (that’s the hard part).
A wonderful introduction to the indie web—Ana really conveys her sense of excitement!