I find reading on my smartphone much more convenient than anywhere else. That also means sharing stuff is difficult if I do not have social media apps on my device. It’s been more couple of months since I deleted all the apps from my smartphone. And it’s painful.
Wish there were more apps like Buffer that supported publishing to multiple places, especially Micropub and ActivityPub.
I published a post a day back while I was still recovering from the cold. I didn’t fuss about where to write. Or in what manner to do so. I didn’t do many reviews. I just wrote what I was feeling deep within and clicked sent. I still haven’t read that post again. I don’t want to.
Why am I not able to write? I lack drive. I’m curious why the words have dried up suddenly.
I disabled all cross-posting today. I will manually syndicate the posts I want. Basically, I consider all platforms independent and will use them in their native forms.
Since I moved microblogging to my blog, I have always focused on getting the look of the short posts right. I didn’t want them to be lost amidst the prominent titled posts. Nor did I like it the other way around. That meant I never had either looking how I wanted them. Well, that’s not the case anymore.
After a long time, I am finally happy with how my long-form articles and short-form notes sit distinctly together. The setup took time and some crazy personalization, but I had to shake a few things just for the sake of it. I had started taking my blogging too seriously, and I didn’t like that. I work better when it’s fun.
The only downside is that it is an entirely custom and personalized theme. And for now, I am okay with that. Plus, it’s still a work in progress.
If you write a blog and are interested in conversing with your readers, do include a link for the reader to do so right below your every post. I would love it if every blog post had a way for me to respond. A comment form. An email address for me to mail the writer at. Or even a link to the social media where the post is syndicated. Basically, redirect me, the reader, to any place where the conservation is taking place. I can, of course, theorise why most people have stopped doing that.
First, the spam industry has dampened one of the promises of the internet — having open connections with people on the web. We are afraid now that we will be bombarded by comments and messages that we have no interest in sifting through. Second, most blogging platforms have stopped providing an easy way to enable conversations, which came built-in with WordPress and others. It’s an added decision (and even a cost in some cases) for the writer to provide such an option to its reader. A trouble that many folks just don’t want to sign up for.
I wish that wasn’t the case. My conversations with people around the words I write have been an essential aspect of my blogging for the past many years. If you haven’t tried that, or you did but aren’t doing it actively anymore, give it a chance again.
You take the trouble so that your user doesn’t have to.
I always admire people who go to lengths to find unique ways to help them write and publish. This post on including hyperlinks In handwritten posts is a classic example. I can’t take this much effort to publish, but I can see how this must be fun! Love it.
The longer a break I take, the more difficult it is to get back. It’s foolish but true. Something that applies to everything I do. Even writing. Or replying.
I read a flash fiction I wrote 5 years ago – it was a time when I was experimenting a lot with what I was writing. And I still love every word that I wrote then.
I switched to the yearly plan for Micro.blog today. Knowing my love for this service, no idea why I didn’t do this earlier. Sure, it’s not perfect. But it’s the one that has allowed me the most freedom with the way I write.