Blog Questions Challenge
Recently, a lot of my Fedi and blog friends have been doing the blog questions challenge started by Kev Quirk who adapted them from another blog.
I've been doing a lot of interviews and Q&A posts in the last few weeks, and I know they sometimes may be repetitive, but they are always fun to do since it's always easier to answer than to ask or discuss a topic 🙂
1. Why did you start blogging in the first place?
Ooh, this is a hard one. Originally, my website started as a Nord Theme inspired mess way back in January of 2021, and somewhere along the way, I discovered blogging and Fosstodon. From thereon out, I started reading Kev's blog posts and it was somewhere there I decided to start my own blog. It was then that I bought my domain and started actually thinking about what to write. My first few blog posts were related to theming projects I had been working on then. They were very short and not very interesting, but you have to start somewhere.
2. What platform are you using to manage your blog and why did you choose it?
I've been using Kirby, a content management system for a few months now. I discovered it, again, by reading Kev's blog post. It was hard to work with in the beginning, but I have since gotten used to it and really started to admire it. They also provide free licenses to open-source projects and students like me, which is very kind of them. Plus, the developers have been developing Kirby since 2013 now, without pause. That's dedication to me!
3. Have you blogged on other platforms before?
I can't even count how many blog platforms I've used before. My website used to use just pure HTML, CSS, and JS, then Jekyll, then Hugo, then it used I don't even remember what. I could never decide on the platform because none of them were right for me. I wanted to tinker around my website and have control over it while still having a simple interface to write blog posts all bundled in a neat package. Back when I used Hugo I always wrote my posts in VS Code, which was very clunky because I couldn't even preview or draft anything without complicating things.
4. How do you write your posts? For example, in a local editing tool, or in a panel/dashboard that's part of your blog?
As I've mentioned in my last answer, I use Kirby which has a panel interface for editing not only blog posts but every part of your website. The panel can be changed in every way so I can customize it to look however I want it to. This is the main thing that made me switch to Kirby, because it makes writing blog posts such a breeze.
5. When do you feel most inspired to write?
I just write when I feel like it. I realized that when I force myself to write something, I can't, and the forced post reads very boringly. In general, the more the topic interests me and the more I have to say about it, the more inspiration and motivation I have to write it. It also helps when my blog friends write about a topic that interests me too, so I can always comment on their posts and give my own spin on it.
6. Do you publish immediately after writing, or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft?
I usually write everything in one sitting, because if I start and let it simmer as a draft, I often forget what I was wanting to write in a draft and then the draft just sits there never to be published. That's why I write my posts all at once 99% of the time. I do know people, like Amin for example, who let posts simmer as drafts and they always have something new to add. Not me, though.
7. What's your favorite post on your blog?
In recent times I've took to liking my Nostalgia blog post. It really encompasses how nostalgia feels like and I give my own experience of it. And it's always especially interesting that it's a feeling that can affect everyone, and not just oldies, but us young people. Even though most people don't realize it's nostalgia, they always reminisce about old times. That's why it's a beautiful feeling. It's melancholic. Happy and sad at the same time.
8. Any future plans for your blog? Maybe a redesign, a move to another platform, or adding a new feature?
I've been wanting to redesign this website and blog for a few months now, but I haven't found the time to do it. I'm still happy with Kirby, so that won't be changing, but I sure need to give this website a fresh coat of paint and better manage how articles look. I also plan on adding a contact page (I don't even know how I forgot it when I was first making this website) and a Guestbook. Even though there are a ton of other things I plan on adding, I think I'm just going to be minimalist and add just a few things while keeping the design and everything else pretty simple and straight-forward while still keeping that feeling of freedom of doing whatever I want with this website.
Day 35 of #100DaysToOffload