[introduction] my blogging journey (begins...?)
i can't believe i'm actually sitting down to write after all the time i spent planning and thinking how i was going to do it. this entry is supposed to be a test, but now i want to go ahead and make it an actual thing...
this technically isn't my first time setting up a blog. the website's old-timers ('ogs' if you will. whatever) will remember the infamous 'land' site from Realismo Mágico V1, which although i labeled as a journal can also be called a blog. it disappeared from the face of the earth since the site's reboot (and thank god it did, i let myself go in a downward spiral) and the world didn't know an outlet to hear my deranged ramblings ever since. hands down one of the worst things to have ever happened in the history of humanity: Three Whole Months without being able to READ FROM ME? no wonder we're living in times of such disarray. Thankfully I Am Back. all global conflicts can end now that i have returned to bless everyone with my presence
okay i'm done acting stupid. you are reading me from epifanÃas! a brand-new site which will definitely be more impersonal. you see we have a microblog (oooh!) and a status box (wow!) now. go ahead and get comfortable, Dearest. i will nerd it out extensively here - sharing reviews or my thoughts on whatever the heck i want. i hope you... heh... BUCKLE ON!
but nobody likes empty promises. so how about i get Extensively Nerdish right now? the next section is about blogging from a web development perspective!
On setting up a blog in your website
blogging has got to be the wildcard of the indie web - everyone who has a website owns one in some shape or form. it's no wonder when the whole premise of what we got going on here is having a place to share a piece of yourself with the world. you see blogs hosted by all webmasters, from engineers to artists, it doesn't matter.
however, we all go through the fundamental question of how to do so. yes, you can write entries - but how and where do you share them? what is the process you need to go through to post one? how is it on the reader's side?
back when land was a thing, i wrote all my entries on google docs (TERRIBLE), opened up dearest land.html, copypasted the previous entry at the top of the div that displayed them (HORRIBLE), and manually changed each and every detail: date, title, text itself, etc (I'M GOING TO VOMIT) - a truly tedious process. furthermore, the site didn't have a way to flexibly navigate between entries: no 'sort by tags' thing, no 'recent entries' display, no nothing. just a bunch of dropdown divs ordered by date. i believe it's way more pleasant when the user can easily navigate through what you have to offer, and also when you don't need to manually input every single entry by a handy copying-and-pasting ritual.
so when i began working on epifanÃas, i seeked to do things differently. i came across the site i'm currently writing from, bearblog, and also another possible resource i evaluated, zonelets. there are two fundamental differences between them: the first is purely online and automatic - you write on the site, you hit publish, and that's it -, the second is local and manual - you implement its files to your site itself, write entries as files and add them to an entries JS repository -.
while bearblog is practical and brilliant, it has its limitations when it comes to design and whatnot. you may notice this 'blog' tab isn't as ostentatious as the rest of the site before your eyes, and that is in part because of its limitations (and because i'm... not so knowledgeable on how it works for now! LOL). zonelets straight up DOES NOT have any limitations, as it is raw code you yourself host and can do whatever the hell you want with it. yatagarasu has implemented it wonderfully to their blog tab, and i love it! i discovered zonelets thanks to them.
so what lead me to choose bearblog?
i'm not the best at handling code and files. i know how to code, but that's not the same as being a coder. i wasn't lying on the home page when i said this website is held with chewgum and tape. zonelets, although probably the most practical and simple thing there is to self-hosted blogging, is still a bit too much for me. i get overwhelmed dealing with many files. for anyone else with skill that isn't a coward, i'd probably tell them to go with zonelets, 100%.
plus... there's something about writing without touching a single line of code that is important to me. i believe coding and writing are two separate processes and having them away from each other is nice and stimulating. i used to write and think "oh, i need to put this between p tags", "oh, the html will have trouble with this character", whatever. those thoughts, although small, are obstaculizating - and they're the farest they've ever been now!
closing words
i hope you stick around my blogging journey...... you can always let me know your thoughts through the chat, my guestbook or email (all in my homepage). i love love chatting!
epifanÃas will also feature a small section that is still in construction called observations, popularized by vashti (RIP). it will gravitate around this quote:
I want you to do this with me for one month. One month. Write 10 observations a week and by the end of four weeks, you will have an answer. Because when someone writes about the rustic gutter and the water pouring through it onto the muddy grass, the real pours into the room. And it’s thrilling. We’re all enlivened by it. We don’t have to find more than the rustic gutter and the muddy grass and the pouring cold water. Marie Howe
you'll see. Wink
thank you so so much for reading!!! i'll be seeing you!!!
Rust