Back to Blogging
I miss blogging.
I’ve been publishing a newsletter on Substack for years, since it was a simple platform to publish a letter. These days, it feels like so much more. So many things going on, so much noise. It feels like a social media platform now.
It’s not necessarily a bad thing. I know lots of writers (and celebrities, content creators, podcasters, etc.) that are thriving in this environment. Substack has given them a way to make a living off their writing that they couldn’t before.
Substack’s incessant focus on monetization discourages me to write. Their messaging repeatedly reminds me that perhaps that place is not for me.1 The platform also seems to be driving everyone to use Notes, which is primarily composed of Substackers talking about how to use Substack. It’s boring. Suffocating. It clouds my mind into thinking about the platform rather than my own thoughts on…anything else.
I used to blog first, with my newsletter being a way to share things I put up on my site. That allowed me to share more essays, notes in my digital garden, all kinds of things that I could publish at lightning speed and then slowly curate into my newsletter.
For years now though, it’s all been about my Substack. That adds more pressure and feels limiting. And my site has become an afterthought I’ll occasionally back-post to, rather than a hub of my work.
I think I want to go back to blogging first, with newsletter second. I may even switch to a simpler platform for newsletters, but I don’t think that’s a requirement. It’s more of a mindset shift.
I miss the open web. I want to be one of the bloggers, again. I like the idea of still working to keep the open web alive.2
Lately, I’ve been reading a lot more from my RSS reader than my newsletter inbox. I just discovered Anh’s site through Robin Sloan’s lovely newsletter, and was so inspired I had to send her a note about how much I loved it. Her site has given me lots of ideas—one in particular is taking some of my sketches and infusing them into my site’s design. There’s so much creative possibility!
There is hope! There’s still so many wonderful personal sites out there, and so many folks still blogging.
I should probably make a list.3
I still love this little website of mine. I want to tend to it, help it thrive and grow.
I feel like I’ve been relatively silent with my writing here, and I’m trying to find my voice again.
More to come!
The whole Polymarket embed thing, in particular, really was a wtf moment for me. Honestly, who is that feature for? Not me, that’s for sure. ↩︎
Twitter’s demise and Google’s decline have hurt the open web a lot. It’s depressing, but that doesn’t mean one should give up on it. That’s a rant for another day, I suppose. ↩︎
I made a list. That’s the beauty of having my site! I can just make a page in a few seconds. ↩︎