Let me quote excerpts of somebody’s blog to you. I’m not going to link to it, for reasons which will very quickly become obvious.
Its very first post is on the 20th May 2012, “Redesign notes and switching to Octopress”:
“When I set out to redesign this site and start blogging, I knew I wanted it to be a static HTML generated weblog (also commonly known as “baked”). Coming from WordPress, this publishing workflow is a dream.
Content, which is just static HTML, is created in Markdown in a text editor, saved into version control (Git) and pushed to GitHub to deploy. This means no database (MySQL) — a potential security nightmare and single point of failure, no page caching (goodbye WP Super Cache and W3 Total Cache), no FTP and super fast page loads – all good things.
I evaluated some great systems including Octopress, Middleman, Nesta CMS and I’m keeping a close eye on Calypso (built on Node.js and MongoDB), but in the end I opted for Octopress as it fitted my needs. I’m still ironing out a few kinks with Octopress, but overall I’m very pleased with how its worked out.”
Their next post is on the following day, the 21st May 2012. It’s called “My 2012 front-end web development workflow”:
“So far 2012 has been a big year for me in progressing my front-end web development skills, tools and process. I’ve also been busy learning new languages and frameworks and getting up to speed on the latest advancements.”
Excellent work.
Their next post is over three years later, on the 25th October 2015. This one is called “Site Design Refresh and Blog Reboot”:
“A lot’s happened since my last blog post three years ago in May 2012, which partly explains the lack of updates.1
[…]
Process has been another factor towards my lack of writing. I love using static site generators like Jekyll and Middleman for prototyping, but as blogging platforms they don’t work for me. There’s too many steps between writing and publishing – opening a terminal, running rake commands to generate a post, editing markdown files, committing to git, and running rake build/deploy tasks. This gets in the way when all you want to do is write, and creates friction when trying to create posts on mobile devices whilst travelling (although there’s tools like Prose.io).
I’ve been tempted to reduce my site to a single page calling card and move my writing to Medium, but that goes against the Indie Web principle of POSSE (Publish on your Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere). With a personal website you retain control and ownership of your content. But there’s no denying that Medium has raised the bar in terms of the writing experience on the web. I’m currently in the process of rebuilding the back-end of this site in Ruby on Rails, and I’m planning to use Made by Many’s excellent Sir Trevor content editor (see the demo) for a great writing experience. This will inspire me to write more.”
The post then concludes:
“I’m excited about my own little space on the internet for the first time in years and have lots of blog post ideas that I can’t wait to share.
Next time I won’t leave it three years…”
This is the last post on their blog, at the time of writing. Over six years ago.
And in that one post, there is a triple-whammy of all my favourite things. An excuse for not writing. An announcement of a new blog design.2 And a promise of loads of posts to come, which never happen. Most people only manage two of those things in any given blog entry, so that’s quite an impressive achievement.
* * *
OK, enough of all that. There is a particular reason why I didn’t link to the actual blog posts which I quote above. Because this isn’t really meant as a specific criticism of this particular person. Far from it. I see this kind of thing everywhere.
You know the type. The kind of person who only blogs about not blogging. Or the person whose redesign will finally make them want to blog, if they ever finish it. Or the person who does actually launch their new design… and then their blog languishes, never to be updated again. Well, until the next redesign, anyway.
All ways of writing a blog, without actually writing a blog.
And I recognise it because: I used to do the same. I mean, seriously, worse than anybody. If you want to call this post mere projection, let me save you the trouble: I’m explicitly framing it as such. It was thoroughly ludicrous.
I did endless blog redesigns. Endless wiping the state clean and starting again. All in the service that the idea of blogging was something worthwhile in itself, rather than actually doing it.
Let me be extremely clear. I speak from personal experience. Pretend blogging is a waste of your time.
* * *
The solution to all of this is simple. Write. It doesn’t have to be much. It certainly doesn’t have to be every day, although I know that suits some people. But if you want to have a blog3, then you have to write something.
Our friend who I extensively quote at the top of this piece is obsessed with technical detail and process. Hey, that’s understandable: they’re a web developer. Of course they are. But in getting obsessed purely with those details, all they’ve done is put barriers in the way of their writing. They admit that in their final post: that for all the cleverness in how their site was designed, all it did was get in the way.
But their solution was… “rebuilding the back-end of this site in Ruby on Rails”. Hmmmm. And it didn’t even work: they never posted on the site again.
Dirty Feed is a bog standard WordPress install. With a custom theme built entirely from scratch, admittedly, because I can’t just leave shit alone. Now, WordPress is many things, both good and bad. But one thing it excels at is just letting you write, quickly and easily. There’s no point rolling out a clever technical solution for your site, if you don’t then actually use it for anything.
Last month, I wrote this article. Stupid or not4, it’s an extraordinarily complicated piece of work, by the standards of most blog posts. And it was all done by typing it directly into the browser, in a normal WordPress install. But to write something like that, you actually have to be interested in something other than messing around with your backend.
There’s one line which really makes me laugh in our friend’s blog post above. After a list of yet more technical stuff, we get the plaintive: “This will inspire me to write more.” As though there’s some perfect setup which will suddenly make them a writer.
Life should inspire you to write more, if you actually want to write, and have the time and means to do so. Anything else is excuses. And an obsession with the technicalities of your site above all else just makes me suspect that you don’t really have anything to say.