@pimoore 👍 I guess people have always written ‘for the views’. I learned that Dickens wrote his novels as serials so that affected the structure, introducing cliffhangers so folks would buy the next chapter. But in recent years writing and media in general have gone to extremes, distorting what people choose to write about and how they write. I like that personal blogs can eschew the attention seeking.

@pimoore Good post. I think what I really like about having a personal blog is that I can just post about whatever I like, without worrying about consistency or “branding” or even, really, the risk of going viral and attracting outrage from people who find bullshit reasons to get angry at everyone. It’s more relaxing and I feel like the quality of my interactions is a lot higher. I do have a Plausible subscription, but I only really check it once every few weeks because I only want to know about the major trends. It gets nerve-wracking if I drill down on it too much.

I do eventually want to set up another blog for my fiction writing, but so many of the points you’ve raised – feeling like I need a specific structure and a plan – have made me delay so far. I think I need to find a way to be happy with a “good enough” plan, rather than continually holding out for the “perfect” plan.

@pimoore I agree strongly with the sentiment @gaby shared, it is similar to how I blog. I would add another thing I think about a good amount, and shows up on micro.blog as well, and that is what I call “Writing for a Timeline”. When I look at my years of writing, the writing I treasure the least (and at times delete) are posts that lack cohesiveness unless they are read in the context of some timeline, that doesn’t exist in my own site.

@pimoore I love blogging and not until micro.blog have I found an avenue that is frictionless enough to keep it up.

@pimoore I love personal blogging over any other kind of blogging. That’s one reason I enjoy following you and @gaby among others who do the same. Even if it’s about the most mundane of life things. That’s what makes it real. However, even within personal blogging, I prefer the ones who mix in things that make them happy with the things that frustrate/anger them. I don’t prefer the “happy all the time” types because you clearly know they are selectively sharing. Very Facebook-like (highlights reel vs. behind-the-scenes look).

@pimoore @jayeless I have tried having a personal blog separate from a professional blog and ended up merging them when I decided that I didn’t want to work with anybody who would be turned off by the kind of personal stuff I share. I do toy with having a separate book blog but I would still make my book posts on micro.blog just cross-post them to a WordPress blog with more structured metadata. But more and more, just as I have started using only one notebook, I am attracted to having only one blog.

@SamHawken That’s true, and I ran into one of those many years ago myself (even once I no longer had a blog, they kept making Tumblr accounts to harass me 😬)… just that it’s more difficult, and so less likely to happen.

@kimberlyhirsh @pimoore Valid points you guys make, of course 🙂 I just think for me I want different ways of organising a writing site compared to a personal blog, because the things I want to write are more long-form works, or side stories tying in with a broader universe. And a couple of other reasons, I guess.

@jayeless Makes total sense! I’ve thought about having a different site for writing, too. I may yet. This everything blog is what works for me right now. I’ve started and abandoned many more blogs than most people will ever have.