a personal site

what's this blog?

Note

I transferred and edited this post over from an old Ghost blog that I am now repurposing to be a hobby site.1 What I want this blog to be is not something set in stone. This post was last updated 1 month, 1 week ago, and I expect it will be edited again in the not-so-distant future.

In 2026 I want to write more. Recreational blogging is a common New Years goal. And I’d like to join the cacophony of voices shouting into that void.

My hope for this site, a casualty of my domain-acquisition habit, is to finally have a little low-stakes place for my thoughts and ramblings. I've started lots of blogs in the past, but they've always had goals of traffic or visibility. This time there is no goal. Only write.2

On editing

People talk a lot about the flow state of writing. You sit down and the words just magically get onto the page. No one knows how it works3. But it does work.

Writing is a fulfilling process for many, and the flow state is one of them.4 But I think there’s an even more fulfilling hidden gem in the writing process: editing.

It’s one thing to get thoughts to page. It’s another to make them clear to the reader.

There’s something magical about going through a doc and striking through extraneous thoughts. Illuminating clear points. Moving around stuff. Making sure things make sense.5

I’ve always liked that process. So maybe that’s another thing in 2026: I want to edit more. I wrote a little piece on brevity that touches on this.

On publishing and tech-y stuff

I love tinkering with a site. I actually think that's one of the most fun parts of the web. Henry from online talks about this and lots of other stuff in his really great recent piece A website to destroy all websites.

I've dabbled in web design all my life and have created some nifty things. Most recently I tried out , which I still recommend. Like many, I also have a ton of experience with wordpress and a list of an umpteenth number of other services. Ultimately you just have to pick some sort of service.

There are a lot of great blogging services out there. Originally I decided to go with Ghost and Magicpages because I like what Ghost is doing (and I love seeing new indie publications like 404media and Hearing Things popup from the exoduses of media consolidations).[^6]

I bought an annual pro plan to , but found I wasn't really using it. I also tried settling into Micro.blog, but again found myself not posting on it.

Bear has worked for me so far. Something about its simplicity but hackability has really resonated.

It's also started to remove my big question of "where do I post?"

So anyway, what is this blog?

This is a long way of saying I don't really know yet. And maybe I never will.

  1. Or something. I kind of want a dedicated place for my photography and fitness posts... but we'll see...↩

  2. And maybe edit↩

  3. Actually lots of people probably know how it works or have some theory. There's even a field of psychology around it. But that’s not the point.↩

  4. It’s also one big reason why gambling is so addictive. Except in addiction research they like to call it "The Zone."↩

  5. Many of the great writers I admire like Ed Zitron and Molly White and David Sirota use Ghost… wouldn't it be cool to be like them?↩