blog questions

Why did you start blogging in the first place?

If you count Tumblr as blogging (and I only kind of do), then I started because that's where all the distinctly uncool kids were when I was in middle school, so I very politely asked my mom to please let me sign up for an account when I was thirteen.

If we're not counting Tumblr, then I started because I was on Tumblr. Tumblr, for those not familiar with her glory, is a microblogging site that has never made a profit and which is owned by Automattic,^[1] which bought it off Yahoo, which apparently bought it thinking it was going to be the next PDF, whatever the everloving fuck that was supposed to mean. So the site's an unprofitable hot potato that no corporate entity knows what to do with and every year or so, everyone who loves it realizes that, panics, and tries to come up with a collective plan for what to do when the Titanic finally sinks.

For the last few years, a resource post has been going around explaining how to start your own site with Neocities, complete with blinkies. At some point I got bored and decided to give it a go.

What platform are you using to manage your blog and why did you choose it? Have you blogged on other platforms before?

None platform! This is all me. I made a framework for my blog, based off a fork of an existing framework but rewritten for my purposes. I chose the DIY approach because (a) coding is fun, (b) I am cheap, and (c) I've tried like half a dozen SSGs and every one of them has pissed me off in one way or another.

And again, the answer to the second question depends on whether or not you count Tumblr.

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

I write them in Markdown in VSCode! I have a Python script which converts Markdown to HTML and inserts it into a template blog page—it's all marvellously convenient, now that I have it set up.

When do you feel most inspired to write?

Usually right around when I should be going to bed.

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

Most of them get posted right after, unless it's one of my longer pieces. Some of the more scholarly/essay-esque stuff I send to friends or my mom to proofread. Plus, I sat on "how the freshman class needs to read" for more than two weeks before I posted it because I was so pissed off and because I was making what were, in my opinion, fairly serious accusations,^[2] so I wanted to be sure I could stand by what I said.

What’s your favorite post on your blog?

I think I did a good job with my "how the freshman class needs to read" and "what the freshman class already reads" duology last yeah, but honestly, I just find the whole thing depressing as hell. I think I was right; I framed it as convincingly as I could; it changes absolutely nothing.

So, as for favorites, I really like my Slaughterhouse-Five post, which coincidentally comes right after those two. It was just a quick little thing that I churned out on a plane ride, but I think I got what I was going for and it doesn't make me, like, despair for the state of academia or journalism or anything.

Who’s next?

I'll tag Victoria and Aster, if they're interested!