I’ve spotted a few people are adding a ‘colophon’ to their blogs outlining their platform and process. I always like these ‘behind the scenes’ type posts ~ and I particularly enjoyed Steve’s as he bemoans a lack of process and then launches into several hundred words of the most impressive and involved process I can imagine (though I don’t think Briggsy has written one yet and that is bound to be epic!).

So in an effort to provide balance to the Force here is a truly process free, lazy assed colophon.

Writing

To date this year has been a bit of an anomaly but usually my blogging breaks down to a lot of rambling weeknotes and a small amount of (slightly) more considered think pieces or commentary.

My only link curation really is ‘likes’ on Bluesky or open tabs – where they stay open until I write about them, link to them in my newsletter or my browser crashes. Sometimes I make myself feel organised by saving them to Notion with a Chrome extension but honestly that is like a junk drawer ~ I have no idea what is in there.

Most of my writing happens in my head. Things are noisy up there and so posts usually come spilling out almost fully formed – for better or worse.

Because of this I also have no preferred software. I write posts in Notes on my phone, iA Writer when I remember (and more often for the more thoughtful stuff), Google Docs, TextEdit or direct into the blog editor. I also write my share in the little Cahier journals I always carry and am currently experimenting with Whisper Memos on my phone.

What about editing?

I decline to answer upon the advice of counsel 🙂

I don’t edit at all on this blog. What you see is the first draft puked straight up from my jumbled brain. I will go in sometimes and fix typos or my own hallucinations (I was capable of this long before GenAI) after I’ve published or if someone mentions it but no guarantees.

As to why do I write (in the open). To quiet the noise in my head, to seek help (or validation), to be heard…but mainly because I still enjoy it and wish I was better at it.

Publishing

This blog is on WordPress.com as it has been since 2008. Despite the recent heel turn by Automattic I suspect it will stay here at least until it turns 20. I pay for it to have no ads and for the domain mapping and that is just about it.

Honestly I don’t much like the direction the WP editing interface has gone in recent years and much prefer Ghost (for instance) but I really just copy and paste into it at this point and all the social media ‘promotion’ is manual these days so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Design

It is just the default Twenty-Twenty Two theme from a few years ago – I tweaked the main colour and the body font sized for my old eyes but that is it. I do still illustrate with big photos which I know is increasingly out of step but so are my anti-SEO stupid post titles so what ya gonna do.