In his recent article, Sabastian talks about bouncing back and forth between different formats for his blog. The first is the strategy of writing every day, which can be challenging but forces you to write consistently. The second approach is to treat your blog like a personal timeline, sharing shorter posts using a variety of formats.
I’ve had the exact same struggle over the years, never seeming to find a blog style that felt right for me. I’ve tried traditional long-form, text-only layouts, status logs, link blogs, photo blogs, and many variations. Sometimes they were bundled together on one site, and other times I used a multi-blog approach.
I’ve built so many blogs over the past few years that I’ve lost count. Most of them never lasted more than a couple of months before I deleted them and went looking for a better solution or strategy. It always felt like I was forcing things and working against the grain.
I recently started using Pagecord as my blogging platform, and as Sabastian mentions in his post, I’ve used it to build something resembling an old-school Tumblr timeline, with each post type having a unique color and style. This kind of happened accidentally as I tinkered around with things, trying to come up with a style of blogging that would be easier to maintain over the long haul and reduce the friction of actually posting the things I want to share.
The thing is, I don’t consider myself a writer. It’s something I want to get better at, but I struggle to write longer posts. It’s hard for me to do something like Blaugust. If I try to force myself to write on a schedule, it never ends well. I get frustrated and end up throwing in the towel after a dozen posts.
That’s why I’ve switched to more of a personal timeline for my blog. I currently have six different categories I use to organize the content:
- Articles - Long-form articles.
- Notes - Shorter posts without a title.
- Photos - Snapshots I’ve taken with a short caption.
- Artwork - Drawings I’ve made with a short caption.
- Links - Cool sites and resources I discover on the IndieWeb.
- Clippings - Snippets of interesting blog posts I’ve read, with a link to the source. Sometimes I add my own thoughts underneath.
The last two categories are all about curating things. I feel like this is more important than ever. When I discover quality resources, interesting blog posts, and inspiring art and photography, I want to share them. This kind of cross-linking to other blogs helps strengthen the IndieWeb.
Pagecord has been a great platform for building this style of blog. It supports both email replies and comments, so it’s easy for visitors to interact with your posts. And if they want to follow along, they can subscribe through RSS or receive a weekly roundup of posts as an email newsletter.
At this point, I’m all-in with my new blogging approach, and I’m pulling back from all my other online accounts with the goal of making dhester.me my one and only web presence.
Note:
A big thank you to Sebastian for including my site as an example in his post. I really appreciate it! 😊
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