Jason Fried is right (again).
Setting up a personal blog has always involved too much friction for me. I've long intended to maintain one, all the way back to my first exposure to blogger.com in 1999. Movable Type, Textpattern, Wordpress, Medium, Ghost -- if it involves a way to type words into a white <textarea> box online, I've started and stopped many times.
Somehow, it's always the fiddly bits that get me. Installing, configuring, setting up, managing templates (and template languages), let alone the *design* of the blog itself -- layout, type, colors -- always consumes me to the point of permanent distraction. Plenty of things to say, but I always got in my own way.
Maybe it's different this time? I don't mind writing long emails. In fact, I've written more words in email form in my life than I have any other medium, so it seems a natural fit (I'm sure this is true for most people). But to Jason's point:
Setting up a personal blog has always involved too much friction for me. I've long intended to maintain one, all the way back to my first exposure to blogger.com in 1999. Movable Type, Textpattern, Wordpress, Medium, Ghost -- if it involves a way to type words into a white <textarea> box online, I've started and stopped many times.
Somehow, it's always the fiddly bits that get me. Installing, configuring, setting up, managing templates (and template languages), let alone the *design* of the blog itself -- layout, type, colors -- always consumes me to the point of permanent distraction. Plenty of things to say, but I always got in my own way.
Maybe it's different this time? I don't mind writing long emails. In fact, I've written more words in email form in my life than I have any other medium, so it seems a natural fit (I'm sure this is true for most people). But to Jason's point:
I didn't want any of that. I just wanted to write. It's amazing how complicated it remains — even in 2021 — just to get your simple thoughts down in text, on the web, at a permanent URL, for anyone in the world to see.
Totally agreed. Thing is, I *enjoy* the fiddly bits and I *still* could never manage to write and publish online. I've got 2 decades of half-finished drafts in various note-taking apps. But this appeals to me in a new way... I'm feeling inspired to try it and see. I don't know that HEY World will necessarily meet my needs in the long term, but if it lowers the activation energy enough for the reaction to happen, maybe I can ride the inertia all the way to a proper blog at my own domain.
Never too late to start, hey?