What I've been doing instead of blogging
As I said in On writing as an obligation,
A few days ago I realized something. I don’t like writing.
which results in a blog being a strange format for me. While I like the idea of writing insightful articles, and have plenty of ideas for topics, I hate the actual execution.
What I've been doing instead of blogging is building automated systems. Whenever I sit down to blog I inevitably end up writing code instead.
You may have come here from BlueSky or one of my ICYMI posts. This content is essentially a combination of a link blog and an automated quote publisher.
Link Blogs
I started running a basic link blog on this domain back in November 2003—publishing links (which I called “blogmarks”) with a title, URL, short snippet of commentary and a “via” link where appropriate.
I realize now that link blogging deserves to be included a third category of low stakes, high value writing. We could think of that category as things I’ve found.
My approach to running a link blog
ICYMI
written abbreviation for in case you missed it: used on social media when posting something that is not new
When I'm reading an article on the internet and come across a great piece of prose, I want to be able to capture, archive and share it. There are a lot of better writers than me, and they will capture an idea with words far better than I could.
As a final callout, if you'd rather only read my original content rather than the ICYMI posts, see the original-content posts.