Blog

There it is. Simple. That’s my “secret” for the topic of getting one’s “blog mojo back”.

I salute the Reclaim Hosting efforts of Maren Deepwell and “Blog or Die” Jim Groom in their growing of a Blogging in Higher Education Community of Practice including last week’s Community Chat on Reclaim (I was impressed how well WhereBy worked for a Zoom-less video session).

In a few months the participants have grown from the usual suspects of olde bloggers like me, and while there is a Discord Community space, it seems a bit, well quiet. I have though the same challenge in my efforts with the OEGlobal community space, lots of people are “there” but mostly it seems like Another Place For Alan To Post Stuff That No One Replies To (hey, that’s another post, get on topic, CogDog!).

I full appreciate and know full well the effort it takes to get over the hump of inertia- I tend to think of like that concept in Chemistry of activation energy (look a possible metaphor for a future blog post).

Here is my magic secret for getting the so-called mojo for blogging back.

Blog.

Just write something, stop thinking about it. Stop projecting what the “reaction” might be or not be. It was interesting, as I just searched for a few links via “getting your blog mojo back” The AI suggestion is right on average by being pathetic, here is your secret entry into the udm=14 trick stripped down AI-less search results.

The irony is I got Maren’s post from November 2024 but also a gem, still on the web at the same address, in a 2012 post at Get it Write.

Some quick reactions to the blocks I heard in the Reclaim Community Chat follow. I just don’t see them as blockers. They are just jumps to take.

Nothing to Write About

I sense a worry based on how a post will be seen/judged. It’s so human. Frankly it is an opportunity to buy into the “truth” of “Nobody Reads My Blog”. Given that, why worry?

All those links above have great prompts. Yet if it was just prompts, those ones from 2012 would not be needed any more, right?

I get ideas from just walking around outside or going about daily business away from the devices. I get them in things I read. I have open tabs with of all things to blog about an old photo of a location in Coney Island and some tabs about old Columbo episodes. When making dinner I am thinking about metaphors of cooking.

One of the best later to be found values of blogging is having a forgotten back[b]log, and since I still use the sliding in popularity WordPress, I get for free an easy link to by 2004 posts. The stuff that was easy to write then like an announcement from the Internet Archive or a tiny foray into Google Scholar or just a newly discovered blog. No photos, just a few paragraphs, maybe a link.

These are the stuff now we (including me) fritter away at in social media posts.

I do nto suggest that this is the kind of blogging I would be doing now, but I could, and then I have my own searchable record, but more that we are spending that mojo in platforms, over our own.

And yes, its what a lot of folks do no as microblogging, but you do not need a special platform or tool, just use that blog.

Blog.

Blame the Editor (the thing you type into)

For many of the old time WordPress bloggers I heard the ****ing and moaning about the block editor. The tool becomes the reason you cannot blog? 

I HATE THE BLOCK EDITOR! GIVE ME THE CLASSIC!

Indeed I have found the change to the Block editor did take time, but it was really practice. But that was years ago when I was calling it the Gutenburger. And there’s a lot that can be distracting and get in the way, but really, what are the things you need to write? 

• Paragraphs
• Links
• Images

It’s not that hard.

Just do all your writing in the Classic Block. You have everything you need there. The editor is just a means to spit HTML as a post.

And if that is really too hard, try what I did for this section! I wrote it all in Google Docs, did Command-A, Command-C, then back to the dreaded horrible block editor, and Command-V.

I do not buy the “editor” as in the thing you type into as a significant block, it’s the editor in the Pogo problem style.

I Don’t Have Enough Time to Blog / It’s Hard

I bet most of us spend a lot of time doing this.

• We open an application or a browser tab
• We click a button for a “new” window to compose
• We give it a subject / title
• We type a few paragraphs, maybe add some formatting for emphasis, or even create hyperlinks.
• We optionally upload images or files as attachments
• We click a button

What’s the diff in the process between writing an email and a blog post?

I’m Sorry

I am reading this and going through that self question of “should I really post this”? What will people think? Do I sound like an ***hole?

See what happens? Self editing. Self blocking.

If I write something “stupid” or with mistakes, you know what I can do? I can respond to myself with a comment. I can edit my original post. I can publish something new that refutes my post.

It actually feels good to blog, to get away from the scroll streams and the terrible news emerging every second. It’s a refuge.

The only way to get blogging is to blog.

Blog.

Blog.

Blog.

Once that happens all the other problems take care of themselves.

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Featured Image: One of my “problems” is I cant start writing until I have an image I want to use! Thats crazy, but the process of finding or creating to me helps my mind mull on the words. So I thought about some kind of postage stamp with maybe one of those vintage style VOTE posters that instead read blog. I used the nifty PhotoFunia Postage Stamp tool to create my featured photo, but also needed the image to put in the stamp. I looked for vintage poster generators, and ended up on a DeepAI thing. I am loathe to use them, but for Just Making Up Stuff, it did well, with a prompt of “Hands at a computer keyboard typing”. Well it took about 5 rounds to get something not awful. And THEN I had to use Photoshop to put text on. It’s not bad. I could blog about it, but I think I just did in this description.