Writing About Thinking About Writing

Over the weekend I had a realisation. For years I’ve had the best intentions of keeping a blog, but I never actually wrote it.

Since this website went live several years back, its been rebuilt half a dozen times, from WordPress, to Symphony CMS, to Jekyll, back to WordPress and so on. I’ve been a freelancer, a contractor, and now a full-time employee. I’ve switched disciplines from designer, to front-end developer, to back-end developer. My workflow has progressed from MAMP to Docker, Dreamweaver to PhpStorm, WordPress to Laravel and jQuery to React.

In all that time I’ve written very little. Plenty of drafts but rarely published. I look back at the techniques, tools and technologies I’ve learnt and wish I’d posted more. Rather than write, I’d start a new project, re-build this website, learn a new tool.

I meant to write about it, I just didn’t.

Posts published in 2017: 1 (one). Good stuff.

I’m changing that. No, really this time! Honest. I’m going to start writing without pressure or expectation. I’m going to blog like its 2005.

Adam Wathan, a developer I follow in the PHP community, recently tweeted
that he has been using Basecamp’s ‘Automatic Check-in’ feature to keep a work journal and keep himself focused. Its a technique Jeffrey Zeldman has also written about. I plan to do this too, but in public on this blog.

Future projects I’m working on, such as the ambitious Laravel-based e-commerce store I’m planning, I will write about. Any techniques I come across along the way, I’ll write about them too. I’ll write as much as possible for my own benefit and if others find these posts helpful then even better!

In the mean time, this is me writing about writing, but I’m happy to actually be doing it.