Writing from home

I’m not saying that this is a trend (the sample size is far too small to draw any general conclusions), but I’ve noticed some people make a gratifying return to publishing on their own websites.

Phil Coffman writes about being home again:

I wasn’t short on ideas or thoughts, but I had no real place to express them outside of Twitter.

I struggled to express my convictions on design and felt stifled in my desire to share my interests like I once had. I needed an online home again. And this is it.

Tim Kadlec echoes the importance of writing:

Someone recently emailed me asking for what advice I would give to someone new to web development. My answer was to get a blog and write. Write about everything. It doesn’t have to be some revolutionary technique or idea. It doesn’t matter if someone else has already talked aobut it. It doesn’t matter if you might be wrong—there are plenty of posts I look back on now and cringe. You don’t have to be a so called “expert”—if that sort of label even applies anymore to an industry that moves so rapidly. You don’t even have to be a good writer!

Writer Neil Gaiman is taking a hiatus from Twitter, but not from blogging:

I’m planning a social media sabbatical for the first 6 months … It’s about writing more and talking to the world less. It’s time. I plan to blog here MUCH more, as a way of warming up my fingers and my mind, and as a way of getting important information out into the world. I’m planning to be on Tumblr and Twitter and Facebook MUCH less.

If you are used to hanging out with me on Tumblr or Twitter or Facebook, you are very welcome here. Same me, only with more than 140 characters. It’ll be fun.

Joschi has been making websites for 14 years, and just started writing on his own website, kicking things off with an epic post:

I know that there will be a lot of work left when I’m going to publish this tomorrow. But in this case, I believe that even doing it imperfectly is still better than just talking about it.

That’s an important point. I’ve watched as talented, articulate designers and developers put off writing on their own website because they feel that it needs to be perfect (we are own worst clients sometimes). That’s something that Greg talks about over on the Happy Cog blog:

The pursuit of perfection must be countered by the very practical need to move forward. Our world seems to be spinning faster and faster, leaving less and less time to fret over every detail. “Make, do” doesn’t give any of us license to create crap. The quality still needs to be there but within reason, within the context of priorities.

And finally, I’ll repeat what Frank wrote at the cusp of the year:

I’m doubling down on my personal site in 2014. In light of the noisy, fragmented internet, I want a unified place for myself—the internet version of a quiet, cluttered cottage in the country. I’ll have you over for a visit when it’s finished.

On Transient Slash Pages • Robb Knight

This is a great idea that I’m going to file away for later:

I like the idea of redirecting /now to the latest post tagged as now so one could see the latest version of what I’m doing now.

The Free Web - The History of the Web

I am going to continue to write this newsletter. I am going to spend hours and hours pouring over old books and mailing lists and archived sites. And lifeless AI machines will come along and slurp up that information for their own profit. And I will underperform on algorithms. My posts will be too long, or too dense, or not long enough.

And I don’t care. I’m contributing to the free web.

Noodling in the Dark – Lucy Bellwood

How RSS feels:

I have a richer picture of the group of people in my feed reader than I did of the people I regularly interacted with on social media platforms like Instagram.

POSSE: Reclaiming social media in a fragmented world

This rhymes nicely with Mandy’s recent piece on POSSE:

Despite its challenges, POSSE is extremely empowering for those of us who wish to cultivate our own corners of the web outside of the walled gardens of the major tech platforms, without necessarily eschewing them entirely. I can maintain a presence on the platforms I enjoy and the connections I value with the people there, while still retaining primary control over the things that I write and freedom from those platforms’ limitations.

Coming home | A Working Library

While one of the reasons oft declared for using POSSE is the ability to own your content, I’m less interested in ownership than I am in context. Writing on my own site has very different affordances: I’m not typing into a little box, but writing in a text file. I’m not surrounded by other people’s thinking, but located within my own body of work. As I played with setting this up, I could immediately feel how that would change the kinds of things I would say, and it felt good. Really good. Like putting on a favorite t-shirt, or coming home to my solid, quiet house after a long time away.

Mandy’s writing positively soars and sings in this beautiful piece!