I've seen this Blog Question Challenge going around for a while now, and recently Brandon was nice enough to challenge me! I have no idea where or why the whole thing started, but here we are. I think this came at a perfect time, as I'm trying to re-establish a blogging practice. It's nice having something like this since writing on a fixed outline is easy, almost like eating a cookie. It means I don't really need to think much about what the post will be about, as that has already been decided and outlined for me.

Why did you start blogging in the first place?

I've had many blogs, and all of them started for the same reason: the desire to write. Especially this last one, on which I write under the name of Meadow, I began because I felt this immense internal pressure to create something. I felt like I was going to burst. Serendipitously, around that same time I discovered Bearblog and I decided to jump right into it. Most influential at this moment were the blogs of eve and tiramisu, who just wrote because they wanted to, without any specific agenda. Eventually I found many other awesome blogs, but these two were honestly the reason why I decided that blogging would be a good outlet for this energy I was feeling, and also the reason why I discovered Bearblog in the first place.

All my other attempts at blogging have followed a similar vein, but in none of the others have I found a community of other bloggers that I (mostly) felt a part of. Also, in none of my other attempts was I focusing on being honest and authentic so I ended up writing people pleaser posts, or (worse) stuffy wannabe academic "philosophy". Having a focus on authenticity since starting Meadow really did help me avoid these traps in the long run, though at the beginning I was kind of lost with regards to what to write. Eventually things fell into their place once I stopped worrying about them.

What platform are you using to manage your blog, and why do you use it?

Well, this post actually comes at a moment when I'm transitioning from having my blog on Bearblog to moving it to my own custom site.

I loved (and still love) Bearblog. It's an excellent platform and the minimalism of it really helps when you have no idea what to do with your blog, as mostly the only thing you can do is write. The community that has formed around the platform is really nice, welcoming, and all around wholesome (though perhaps this can be said of most of the IndieWeb as well).

I ended up moving over to my own site because I wanted to do other things with my blog that (by design) weren't really possible on Bearblog. Foremost among them were having separate categories for my posts (each with their own RSS; still WIP), and a nice photo log (see it here). But there were also many other small things I wanted to do, like an automatic blog front page with my latest posts and a nice archive page (though both of these are technically possible in Bear as well). I talk more about my switch, and my reason for it, in this other post.

Right now, I use Astro as my static site generator (you can see my site's code here). The site itself is hosted on GitHub Pages.

For writing I do everything in Obsidian. I mostly write from my laptop but have the notes synched to my phone with Syncthing (though I'm seriously considering paying for Obsidian Sync as a way to support the product). Every night at around 3am I have a cron job that runs on my Android phone and uploads the whole Obsidian folder to a git repo. My site reads from this git repo when building itself (which happens automatically every morning), and so everything is connected.

To actually manage my posts in Obsidian. I use a very handy plugin called obsidian-kanban which allows me to create a board with columns for the different states my posts can have. The nice thing is that the cards themselves link directly to the Obsidian files so it's all very nice to manage. This is the current status of my "Writing Board":

Previously, I was using folders to manage the different states, but I like the board approach better as I can see everything in a single flat interface (no need to go digging around folders) and I can also order the items inside each column so I can prioritize which post is more close do being ready, or which idea is more exciting. I now have only two folders "Writing" and "Published". Once I publish a post I move it to the "Published" folder and then the code that builds my site picks up the posts from said folder.

I also keep a "Journal" folder where I write every day. These notes never make their way to the blog proper, but they're tightly integrated with my blogging process. On a given day I can talk about many posts, and then I can see everything I said about a post in the "backlinks" (I love Obsidian) of that post. This makes it so that I don't need to stress about where I keep ideas! I can just keep them in the day where they happened and reference the post in question.

For example, here's what I see when I look at the backlinks of this current post you're reading (some of them hidden for privacy):

If you want to know more about how everything works then let me know! I feel there're already too many "hey look at my cool blogging flow" posts so I haven't done one. But if there's interest then I might do it.

Have you blogged on other platforms before?

Absolutely. I think I created my first blog when I was around 13 or so, on Blogger. I wrote on that one quite a bit, but eventually I fell into the trap of numbers and ended up feeling like a failure and abandoning everything. I've tried multiple times to find this blog again, but haven't been able to do so. Too bad, since I would love to read what my pre-teen self was thinking about! As you can see, I started blogging a long time ago (~15 years), but haven't really blogged that much as there were big gaps in between.

I think that's the only other blog of note, but I have started many other blogs where I never wrote, or only wrote a couple of posts. I started another one on Blogger, and then one on Wordpress with my brother (on which we did write a bit, though it was mostly him). I also wrote a couple of posts on Medium but I really disliked that they asked everyone to "sign in to continue" reading, so I quickly closed that one.

For a while I also had a personal blog (with my real name) made with another static site generator called Gatsby. It was nice, but I pretty much spent ALL my time working on the site itself rather than making content for it. Many fall into this trap where they use a custom site before they're mature enough writers to actually use it. I think I wrote one developer post about some library or other, but didn't like it that much and desisted. I also found that using my real name was a turn off for me.

For Meadow I actually started it on Substack (🤢) and it began as a semi-philosophic blog. I wrote like 5 posts or so until I decided I didn't like the current direction I was taking, nor the Substack platform and how they were constantly pushing me to "get more views". I then moved it shortly to Tumblr before finding my home in Bear. Tumblr is fun. It has very nice customization capabilities and the app is quite decent. The main reason why I didn't stay on Tumblr was because I just didn't understand the platform. The stream of posts felt very messy, and the ads were just too much. However, I liked the app so much (the schedule feature is excellent!) that I still have and use an account were I dump all the funny memes I find. I don't use it except as a dumping ground though.

For a very short while I experimented with writing posts on Bluesky (long form content in short form format). I thought it was a neat idea but in the end it didn't really go that well (example). I decided I was just kidding myself and recognized my fear and aversion to writing on a real blog. Bluesky felt more informal so it removed quite a bit of my fear of failure. In the end this helped me change how I view myself in relation to my own blog, and made me realize I was just taking myself (and my blog) waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too seriously.

How do you write your posts?

I mostly write in the mornings. I usually wake up around 5:30am, go to the kitchen and make myself a coffee, then write until the kids wake up around 6:40am or so. For a long while I wrote everything in the evening just before bed, after the kids fell asleep. But then I discovered morning pages and decided to try to do them properly, first thing in the morning. I was surprised to discover I had a lot more energy in my writing, and things would in general flow better. In my mornings I now do a mix of morning pages and blogging, or sometimes I end up writing a blog post in my morning pages. I've found that the less I stress about this the better it turns out.

I very rarely sit down with a specific idea about what I want to write. It does happen, but mostly I just start writing stream of consciousness and then eventually something will pop up that ends up being a blog post. I try to see my blogging as similar to growing a plant: I create the conditions for it to happen and then it just happens all by itself. With a plant, you take care of weeds and water it and make sure it's in a nice sunny spot, but you don't really have any control on its actual growing. Writing is similar: you create the time and the space, clear your head of distractions, water it with coffee, and it happens.

I alternate between writing on my PC and writing by hand. Right now I'm in a phase where I prefer to write on my laptop. But a couple of months ago I was writing everything by hand (even my blog posts!) and then transferring it to digital format with my Longhand tool. Here's a pic from some months ago. I like to have a big cup of coffee when I write ☕️

What’s your favorite post on your blog?

Ahh good question. I can tell you which ones I don't like that much, but saying which are my favorites is harder. Let's see...

I have a soft spot for stories, as that is something I've been trying to do more of since I first started this blog (though it hasn't really happened yet). I'm fond of all the stories I've published here.

Of my other posts, perhaps some that I personally like are:

• On the origins of fear and art as the antidote
• Just because it’s all in your head doesn’t mean it’s not real
• Taking refuge in the digital space
• On the need to feel productive
• Master of disguise
• Have you looked at the moon tonight?

Any future plans for the blog?

Continue writing! That's foremost among my plans. Continue being authentic.

Perhaps the kind of content I'll post here will change as the things that I'm interested in evolve. That's another key goal I have for the blog: not to let it keep me from growing as a person. It's easy to fall into this trap I think, where one is so identified with one's own image (especially if that image is conditioned on an external thing like a blog) that we're resistant to growth and change. I feel that, for me, my blog can either be an anchor that holds me down, or wings that help me soar.

I've been thinking of starting to experiment with writing in a more constrained way. Maybe sit down and pick an idea out of my list of ideas and train myself to write about it no matter what. I think it's a great skill to have and one that I haven't really developed. I'm also interested in experimenting with outlining my posts before writing rather than just "discovering" what it's all about as I write it. It's true that most (all?) of my posts are explorative/reflective in nature so this might not work, but I can't know for sure until I try!

For my site, I want to add a "now" page (which seems to be all the rage these days), though I haven't gotten around to it yet. Also, I need to clean up my photolog page. Right now when you click on an image it just takes you to the Bluesky post for that image, but I want it to instead open up it up in a pop up, and maybe show the original text posted with the image. I've also been toying with the idea of adding comments to posts (through Bluesky or Mastodon or both), but I'm not sure if this will actually be a smart move. Maybe add a link to the thread? That could be it... Though at the same time I like my blog being entirely separate from social media.

Who will participate next?

I'm nominating Lars-Christian!

Edit: here's the link to Lars' answer :)

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Thanks for reading!

~ 🌿