I have been trying to blog for years, and over the years I have found that there is no magic or “silver bullet”1 Writing anything from a work memo to a grocery list requires you to plant yourself somewhere and start writing. Put one word after another till you get to the “The End” (figuratively or literally depending on what you’re writing). This seems like a simple endeavor though it often proves harder than one imagines due to life stressors and other factors.

There has even been a recent reflection on blogging having a resurgence given the recent upheaval in the social media space.

What I should do, however, is to stay true to myself and blog whatever the heck I want, even if it impacts my rice bowl.

And some retrospectives from those who have been blogging for numerous years.2

This all brings my attempts at blogging and writing into new/sharp contexts. I have had this domain for over ten years now, and I have been blogging (between this blog and prior instances for longer). I started the blog to create a professional voice (like my blog idol at librarian.net or the librarian avengers) though the blog has evolved over the years.

I still write to get ideas into the world though it helps me process and understand the world as it unfolds around me; it has never been easy and never as often or as well as I desire. Yet, I want to keep writing. I think this is partly because I am inherently curious and also a “tinkerer” at heart.

I am saying all this for context as I was disheartened to find draft documents for blog posts dating back years sitting ideally and not posted or started and never continued. Most on reactions to a news article or a half-finished idea and it pains me to post them now so I thought I should rework my workflow to try and prevent this from happening again. I have tried a few services over the years to host the blog3 and I like to write in a Markdown editor before posting to my blog rather than the native client. I think it is best to have a local copy of your posts saved as a text file as that means I have an offline copy.

The downside to this process is that the Tumblr app does not allow for native Markdown so I have to export the blog and then try to access Tumblr via the web to post via the web. 4 I used to use an app called Byword for years though that seems to have been abandoned, and there are other similar apps like iA Writer though they don’t have integration with Tumblr and don’t have plans to implement the service. I could look at different clients likeMarsedit though I really wanted a mobile client and Marsedit does TOO much. The reason I like Tumblr is that as much as I want to nerd out over the HTML and it simply allows me to post (in theory) without worrying too much about the backend HTML. There is also the Tumblr API though would be a stretch to create something to post natively (as exciting as that does sound in theory) so I think the technical solutions may not be worth the effort at this point.

I am not sure what a good solution will be at this point though I was thinking about creating a publishing calendar that would help me create a habit to blog and then also work on better tracking WHAT I’ve written about to help spur ideas. Though I don’t know if that will only further convolute the process. I know that writing and creating are important human endeavors and it feeds the soul. I feel as though I write some version of this post every year though yet it is important to keep trying, and trying.

  1. I am not sure where that statement comes from though it seems pertinent in this case.  ↩︎

  2. I came across this recommendation from Jeff Perry (@jeffperry@social.lol) on writing, which is a discussion between Jason Kottke and John Gruber on the The Talk Show ep. 370 - ‘Fine Hypertext Products’, with Jason Kottke - Jeff Perry  ↩︎

  3. I have used Rapidweaver to self-host, then Blogger, and now Tumblr, which has been my home for several years.  ↩︎

  4. Also the Tumblr Markdown they’ve implemented does not allow for some Markdown functions like footnotes so I need to export the text as HTML.  ↩︎