Blog Questions Challenge

Sara and Reilly and Jo and now Tracy did them. I enjoyed these questions, and reading those and other fellow bloggers’ answers. They all have things in common, and all have things that are very specifically them. My turn.

1. Why did you make the blog in the first place?

In the late 90s I became convinced everyone would have a website. I had one! My website opened up so many incredible opportunities professionally and personally. Who wouldn’t want that? Blogs were a way to share–writing, links, photos–regularly.

I was good with HTML, and was good with making images. Websites were (and are) great.

2. Why did you choose [the blogging software/platform/tool you use]?

When I learned that Blogger.com had a way to publish a blog to a website via FTP.

That was February of 2001. I could have my site, and include the blog as an Apache server side include.

3. Have you blogged on other platforms before?

I changed to WordPress in 2004, after blogging on b2 on San Diego Blog. I also set up internal blogs using Movable Type to track work internally for an employer.

And others. AOL Journals. LiveJournal. Tumblr. GreyMatter. TextPattern. And of course Blogger. And Drupal. And others I can’t remember off the top of my head.

tl;dr: YES.

4. Do you write your posts directly in the editor or in another software?

This post I’m writing in a browser on my laptop. Sometimes they’ll start as an email I send to myself then cut and paste into the site later. Some start as a text file written in BBEdit. I’ve experimented with some other microblogging tools, and the WordPress app. And some other tools with export or API linkage to WordPress but none of them ever stuck.

5. When do you feel most inspired to write?

When something angers me. Or amazes me. Or makes me feel hope. It’s probably big emotion that’s the impetus, usually.

It’s irritating when I get inspired and the weather is great and the surf looks good but I need to get some writing down.

But I’m happy and thankful when inspiration strikes.

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

I don’t have the discipline–usually–to simmer.

After pushing “Publish” on a long piece I will often find things I want to fix, whether that’s spelling or grammar or phrasing.

It’s the times when I take my time that the posts turn out stronger.

7. Your favorite post on your blog?

I gave this a lot of thought.

Mr. Roth Caricature, 1987. It’s a caricature of my high school physics professor and a short recollection. It’s not a great post, but it’s honest, and respectful. Every few years, someone who had him as a teacher will leave a comment remembering the man. Or send me an email. It makes me so glad to have a website that’s findable and searchable and open to the world. My website connects me to the wider world and I have tangible proof that I’ve contributed something of value. That’s the best of the web to me: our collective memory.

My late Mom’s favorite post was Shoe Photoshop. I got an email the day she read it. She said she’d printed it out and was so proud I had a way with words. She was an enthusiastic booster of my work, and that’s a good memory. And that’s the piece I chose to read at L.A. Bloggers Live back in 2007.

8. Any future plans for your blog? Maybe a redesign, changing the tag system, etc.?

I’m always tinkering. Because of my indieweb ethos anything I can do to get social media, checkins, music scrobbles, whatever onto my site is always the plan. But also, probably new headers and color schemes.

Thanks for reading. This was fun.