A lot of bloggers that I follow have responded to the ultimate Blog Questions Challenge and I thought I would give it a go myself.
Why did you start your blogging in the first place?
Funny enough, this question was supposed to be what my first blog post answered, but at the time I had no idea, so I didn't make the first blog post post.
However, now I can say I blog to talk about observations and opinions I have concerning:
- The web
- Life events
- Tech (of course)
- The cosmos
- Music
- Poetry
- Christian faith and religion
- Random stuff
I always allude to the fact that everything is just ramblings in my head that are trying to get out, and my blog is that outlet.
What platform are you using to manage your blog and why did you choose it?
I use a custom stack I like to call the FUN stack: it includes Flask, uWSGI and Nginx.
Flask is a micro-framework for building web applications in Python. uWSGI is a production-ready application server primarily used for deploying Python web applications. Nginx is a web server. Each of these technologies run on my Vultr Virtual Private Server (VPS).
So the flow is like this:
- I write my blog post in a Markdown file and upload it to the VPS (with
rsync). - When a user visits my website, Nginx receives the request and forwards it to the uWSGI process.
- uWSGI manages multiple websites that I run on my VPS (using Emperor). uWSGI forwards the request to the Flask application responsible for the website.
- The Flask application pulls the data from the Markdown file, converts it to HTML and sends the full HTML page down the chain again until it gets back to the user.
It may seem like a long process, but all of this happens in milliseconds. Everything else (like image resizing, image format conversion etc.) is handled by custom Bash scripts I wrote.
I like this way of writing blog posts the most because:
- I understand each part, making it simple to set up. Most of the setup requires configuration files that are set-and-forget.
- Each of them is open-source and have been maintained for a long time.
- I don't have to use CMSs and JS frameworks.
- It's flexible, I can have it my way (like Burger King 🍔).
- There are NO BUILD STEPS! I just push to my server and reset the running processes. (I know, magic. 🤩)
Have you blogged on other platforms before?
I used to blog on Google's Blogger back in 2016. I also tried to set up the Ghost blogging platform back in 2020. In both cases, I got distracted (which happens to me more often than I could count).
I'm happy that I don't use these platforms though; I love to own my data!
How do you write your posts?
When I'm inspired to write, I open Markdown file template (that I created and customized myself) in my Vim text editor and let my fingers wiggle. I don't post it until I've read it a couple times and I'm satisfied with my editing. If I'm not satisfied enough, I let the post sit for a while until I get to that point. That could range from a few minutes to a few weeks.
When do you feel most inspired to write?
Almost never 😜. Inspiration comes so randomly. It usually comes when I'm watching a YouTube video, or I'm reading a book, or I'm lost in thought.
To remedy this issue, I try to journal every morning to get me more into the spirit of writing.
Do you publish immediately after writing, or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft?
It depends on the post, but I'm more likely to let it simmer, especially if it's a pretty long post. I'm also not afraid to make updates to my posts after the first couple hours/days of release.
What's your favorite post on your blog?
None; I hate them all equally 🙃.
Any future plans for your blog?
Yeah, I really need to work on my About page and the frequency of posting. I also want to add a couple new pages for the books I've read, what I'm doing now etc.
Why do you write? Other than your blog, do you write long-form content elsewhere?
I like to write because:
- I like to express my opinions and observations. It is very liberating. It makes me process my thoughts better and helps me to get better at expressing my thoughts for people to understand, a very important quality for a webmaster to possess.
- People can tell me I'm wrong when I'm wrong, or just criticize me in general. I'm not an island of knowledge; I think that the feedback from visitors can really help me to see the world in new ways.
I don't write long form content anywhere else (for now).