Just start blogging

Even if you think you have nothing new to say, you can still blog about the old things.

Right when I was going to start this blogpost, Kev published Blogging for the hell of it (update: The blog was actually written by Whiona, Kev’s post is a short response to it!), which seems to be about the same thing—so I decided not to read it until I’m done writing this.

I started this blog in February of 2021, I did so, because I stumbled upon yet another blogpost by Kev, about setting up a website with Jekyll and SimpleCSS, I didn’t even understand how CSS worked—not saying I do now—but that website and other blogs, as well as Mastodon, made me aware of the “small web” and a new community to be a part of.

All of this was during the rise of the pandemic, I started to have a lot of free time, because I was home all day long, therefore, when I learned about 100 Days To Offload, I retroactively decided to make my current blogposts a part of the challenge and everything’s history from there. Since this is now my second run of the challenge.

Anyway, I’ll try to get to the point.

When I begun many blogs I saw were kinda niche, “How to do X in this Y unknown programming language” or “Developing A using B framework” and things like that. Seeing those kinds of posts made me think “I don’t really know if I have a say regarding X or Y”.

But, thanks in part for the encouragement I got when I begun the challenge, I realized there is no point in worrying about that, no post will ever be useful for everyone, you don’t need to prove anything, you can just write, and you don’t need to have a fully fleshed out article in order for it to count.

Sometimes I worry “people may not know this term”, “I should add a fancy graphic “ or “having a thumbnail would be nice”, but honestly—if they care enough—people will not mind, they may not even realize something’s missing.

All of those things are just extras that are stopping you from publishing your article, ignore it. In fact, don’t even call it an article, that’s too serious, it’s just a post.

Just publish something, even if it is bare bones and incomplete, rather than waiting for that spark of inspiration or will, that may never even come. As long as it’s authentically yours, you’ll be fine.

Besides, if you truly think you needed to add something, you can just edit things later and call it a day.

Now, the main problem is probably finding how to start a blog at all. I have heard Bear Blog is a good start, but I’ll follow my advice and publish this as is, since I am too lazy to look for other alternatives that you can find by yourself. 😉

Also, the Ask Me Anything is still open—you can go ahead and email me your questions or something.

This is post 73 of #100DaysToOffload. Have a good rest of your day, fellow reader. 😊

https://fosstodon.org/@joel/111250636882047512