Changes to the blog and newsletter
2022-02-22 11:45:00 +07:00 by Mark Smith
Towards the end of last year, I stopped posting to the linkblog. It wasn’t by choice, I still enjoy reading and curating content, but life configured itself for me in such a way that it was basically impossible to do in any meaningful way. I had just reached the 10 year anniversary. I’m glad I made it that far, but the world said no, loud and clear.
I have no way to post privately using the linkblog tool. I never had the chance to build that feature. It was on the roadmap, but there were always more important features that popped up, and I had made the decision to implement that feature later to try to make things a bit easier. There was already so much to worry about, and it seemed to me that storing less private data would eliminate a whole class of security concerns for my little sass web application.
With no links, I didn’t have any material for the newsletter, so that had to be put on hold. I eventually did send out a short new year’s edition. It was fun putting it together, and to be honest I quite liked the brevity. I put out another, and another. I also started adding a short unique one line title to each edition. The idea was to have something memorable, a sort of virtual hook to hang it on, so it doesn’t just fade into obscurity of time. I’m liking the new format.
I also have a bit of a goal of writing more blog posts, but I want it to be fun, and not get too stuck in crafting the perfect post each time. I might check out some writing tools I keep hearing and readibg about like Grammerly and Hemingway at some point. Until then though I’m just going to try writing and editing quickly. So expect the posts to be a bit rough around the edges, with spelling mistakes, and annoying repeated bits. Sorry. Those bits annoy me too, but I think quantity and general narrative is more important than minutia at the minute. Hopefully my writing will get better over time. It’s a somewhat different way of thinking to writing code, and my brain just doesn’t do it all that well yet.
I’m still liking the idea of publishing on Saturday, but I’m going to be more flexible. I might sometimes do a week day issue, and I’m not commiting to every Saturday, life is too darn complicated at the minute. I’d love to have a consistent schedule, everyone says that’s the best way to increase readership, but it’s just not realistic for me right now. It’s the "if the world allows" attitude, I’m going to try but I’m not going to kill myself over it.
Ok that’s it, nothing Earth shattering but I’m feeling good about the changes. I hope you like the sound of them.
Update - Wow I just noticed how many 2s there are in today's date. Hello world! 🤷♂️
TODO add links when world allows