What’s the purpose of the blog?

Ultimately, this is an experiment. A sandbox for me to write—hopefully even edit—thoughts about subjects that I’m passionate about.

But that doesn’t give a satisfying answer. In order to properly understand, I’ll need to explain a bit of embarrassing history.

The Past While

I’ve been wanting to start a blog for awhile. Okay, maybe a bit more than awhile. It’s too easy to get caught up in analysis paralysis and never start. On the other hand, you might jump right in without a plan and stop only a week after. Neither of these are a good idea.

Initially, I had the vision of starting off with four or five blogs, each spanning their own unique niche. Having a lot of unique interests, I found it almost impossible to stick to one. Reading time and time again that the best way to create a successful blog is with a strong niche.

Here were a few of my undeveloped ideas:

• Alternative programming, focusing on the quirky side of computer science
• Mathematics, and how it affects us in our real, everyday lives
• Modern art critique and discussion, even though I don’t know how to draw myself
• Simple living, even though I’m pretty sure that’s a myth

It was a few years ago that I initially started trying to make this happen. I was going to start my own blogging network. Go by-the-book on marketing, and do it all myself, spamming as much social media as possible without spending a penny.

I focused primarily on blog design, which I admit was handy. I learned a lot about web development—specifically HTML5 and CSS3—along with what makes good UI/UX along the way. I purchased a few domains that were never put into use and were eventually repurchased by the usual shady TLD hoarders.

I researched heavily in different ways of generating income, both passive and actively. I compiled lists of different affiliate networks, learned how to network with others myself, and even wrote out a financial spreadsheet of how much money I’d need to make daily in order to break-even with hosting costs.

What Happened?

Luckily for me, I have a passion for long-form writing and memoir-based prose. So you could say that’s what this blog is centred around. It might be naive to say, but I believe that’s what blogging should be about.

Even though there seems to be an infinite amount of information about ‘how to’ blog, it’s been difficult for me to find advice on how to write good content.

And I don’t mean content that’s eye-catching, that’ll appeal to a ‘target audience’, I mean content that is meaningful. Writing something that benefits the world, even in a small way. Not the same advice regurgitated in a way so that it looks falsely unique.

What is this blog?

I have an idealistic vision for this blog, and a pragmatic one.

Idealism

Idealistically, I’ll use this blog as a vessel for essay writing. Non-fiction writing is something I have an interest in, the best stories are the ones that are stranger than fiction. But that’s also a topic for another entry.

What’s actually important to me is to attempt to personally reclaim this medium. As the internet has evolved over the past decade, blogging has regressed. The original content people once created has been replaced with . I believe that there can be something that can be done about this. I believe that authentic and original long form prose can become mainstream again. Medium rising in popularity is a great example of how this is actually happening.

But like I said, it’s ideal. The majority of what’s going to be written here isn’t going to be a romantic advocate of turning the definition of blogging on it’s head (mostly because that would become boring after awhile).

Pragmatism

Pragmatically, this is going to be me writing intangible and random, on a daily basis. I’m not really going to be writing anything insightful or in a specific topic, this is just a dumb sandbox for me to experiment with, so I might actually get good at writing.

It’s really more of space for me to archive what’s important to me, and allow me to figure things out and then be able to reflect and review previous entries. I’ve been using Buster Benson’s 750words on-and-off for the past four years and while I’ve never been good at maintaining writing as a habit (my longest streak lasted ten days), but it’s always been a good host for my current state of affairs.

In all honesty, my written entries on the website are almost identical to this post. I always find myself beginning, renewing something that barely started to begin with. Unnecessary and redundant recalibration.

Rules and Regulations

In order for me to not fall off the wagon (as quickly), I’ve written up a few rules that I’ve taken an honor vow to follow because there needs to be some sort of organization to this blog.

These rules were actually written a while ago on a previous journal project I had.

Daily

• First and foremost, writing to every day.
• Write at least 750 words per entry.
• If I fail at either of the above two, I will not detract my future writing by apologizing for it.
• Figure out useful tagging and categorization (still something I need to do)
• Save a .doc on LibreOffice every day for local storage.
• Sync to Evernote on a daily basis, making sure to tag what I already have.
• Sync to Dropbox and Drive on a weekly basis. (More about weeks below.)
• Write things  that I can ‘extract’ and make more meaningful articles about.
• Add this list to the Manifesto (More about Manifesto later.) As well as somewhere on this site.
• Try to do this first thing in the morning.
• Try to write 750 words in under 20 minutes, adding a timer for when I start.

Weekly

• Maintain a ‘weekly’ post on main blog to keep promises, habits, and commitments, as well as what I’ve done in that week.
• Maintain a spreadsheet recording important factors on a daily basis (hours slept, productivity etc.) and have each week be a separate spreadsheet.
• Sync to Dropbox and Drive on a weekly basis.
• Complete weekly goals in Manifesto (ie music, coding, social media, fitness)

Upcoming Posts

It’s amazing how many ideas for future entries pop up in your head when you get down and completely write down just one. I think the first thing I’m going to do is write more about me myself! Although that would fit more on my ‘About’ page.

Until tomorrow!