Damn it’s quiet here. I’ve had two giant posts in the draft folder for some time. One of my blog-heroes Tom Woodward has tagged me on a vintage Blog Questions Challenge in hopes of offering me an “an easy post to write”. A kind sentiment which prompts rueful laughter from me… I can make any post difficult, which is partly why I have so much trouble finishing them. But I see a little new juice to affirm blogging #4life… Maybe this will be the little bump that breaks the slump, so here goes…

Why did you start blogging in the first place?

2001, I was a year or so into my first dedicated learning technology job (RIP TechBC), but still had the dream of being a working writer. I had taken classes and made a few ineffectual moves seeing if I could become a freelancer for magazines, but lacked confidence and connections and had a baroque writing style. I’d created websites via HTML/FTP (I remember thinking a tutorial by some guy named Alan was the best one), but struggled with things like database back-ends. So when I discovered Blogger (pre-Google), it was immensely appealing to be able to create a more robust site with relative ease. I thought a blog might be a place to practice my writing and collect some samples. Or, as I put it in my first post:

Oh yes, the purpose. Perhaps this particular bit of anxious technocultural speculation could be avoided if only a purpose was articulated. So I’ll admit to the following ambitions:

a) I want to use this page as a collection of resources.
b) I want to use this page as a marketing tool.
c) I want to use this page to further my development as a writer.

Of these, the weblog form is an ideal match for ambition a), of dubious value for ambition b), and possibly antithetical to ambition c).

A writer writes, yes, and if the blog promotes the act of creation, then I suppose that it is indeed aiding the production of crappy prose for readers around the world to ignore.

But so far, about ninety per cent of the time spent on this project has been dedicated to fiddling about looking for resources, and ineptly massaging the HTML in the template.

See what I mean about my writing style? And my confidence? I still struggle with both, but blogging was a huge help. It turned out that learning technology was a marginally more viable career path than magazine publishing. Blogging provided the opportunity to think through writing and to share in a discourse with smart, interesting people, which was what I wanted out of a writing career anyway.

What platform are you using to manage your blog and why do you use it?

I’m on WordPress, in large part because I have been here for years and it still does the job. I have been troubled by moves and developments to the platform that have made it less accessible and user-friendly. And like others I hope Matt Mullenweg will chill out and re-connect with an earlier version of the person who did so much good in the open web space.

I also have a certain responsibility to thousands of users and projects on Trubox and the OpenETC, and I don’t see an alternative to supporting them on any other platforms, particularly open source ones.

Have you blogged on other platforms before?

More than I can remember.

To go back to the early days of Blogger… back then it was quite straightforward for Blogger to publish to your own space via FTP, so it was not long before I had my first domain, which I loved.

Shortly after, I got work as Learning Object Project Coordinator at UBC and started “Object Learning” with Dave Winer’s Radio Userland, which helped me to grok RSS. One day I was sitting next to David Wiley at a boring meeting and watched as he restlessly installed Movable Type on his server. He asked if I wanted a blog on it, and I used that space for a while. Then D’Arcy Norman installed Movable Type on an underused learning object repository server that I oversaw at UBC. This was when I changed the name to “Abject Learning” and first started supporting blogging for others, activity that created some organizational unease at the time. A nasty crash curtailed my rogue pirate tendencies. A large number of people came together (thanked here), and we went legit via WordPress with UBC Blogs (and its CMS cousin) and that service is still humming more than a decade after my departure. I wrote a snide post (but correct, dammit!) that prompted a prominent professor from another university to complain to senior leadership that I had insulted him on a UBC website. I soon moved my blogging back to my own domain, partly in tune with the vibe of #ds106 in 2011. You had to be there, man…

People joked I should change the name of my blog to “Ubject Learning” at that point, but I figured I was purely Abject.

I’ve tried or been a guest author on countless blog platforms that have come out since with varying degrees of commitment and interest.

How do you write your posts?

This is a tough topic. Over the years, my quick posts have mostly moved to one social media platform or another. So my posts that make it over the line here tend to be longer or more substantive.

Now a new set of insecurities hobble me. My Director role positions me differently. Some of the challenges I would like to work through via blogging have sensitivities attached. I also feel less confident in my grasp on the current landscape. I feel like writing something that’s been said better by someone else is a waste. A lot of my stranded drafts start out as a rant, and then I start to see why airing my belligerent and ill-formed opinions might be unwise and unproductive.

In recent years most posts evolve over a few days until I get to the point where I hate them slightly less. Then I usually need a few passes to remove unneeded words and phrases and to tighten up rambling passages.

When do you feel most inspired to write?

Seeing something that angers and appalls me is a common prod. I also get the itch after a particularly stimulating or satisfying project or event. Those posts should be easier, but for me they aren’t. I once tried to say why:

One of the ways I’m a bad blogger is failing to post about the good stuff when it happens. Usually because the best moments are the hardest to get right, and I worry about seeming obnoxious in celebration, showing the right amount of gratitude, or trying not to leave anyone under-recognized. In life something shitty usually comes along soon enough, the good vibes recede, and the opportunity is lost.

Do you normally publish immediately after writing, or do you let it simmer a bit?

Even when I get something that feels OK, I usually let it sit a little longer. If I am being particularly feisty or ill-tempered I might ask someone to look it over first.

What’s your favorite post on your blog?

As much as I give the impression of finding the process agonizing, I do get satisfaction from a lot of posts. Looking back (as I did for this exercise) feels like wading through pictures in an old album, sometimes literally. I dig those rare occasions where I get past my overthinking and doubts and write purely for my own enjoyment. I’m always grateful for the times I share appreciation of someone, because those someones won’t always be around.

Any future plans for the blog?

I just hope I can get over myself and do more of it. It is one of those rare activities that I never regret doing, even if I end up regretting the effects of something stupid I write.

I’ve been wondering if the ongoing degeneration of the social media sphere might prompt more of my ephemeral or personal sharing back into the blog. I’m not sure this is the right blog for that…

The current design of Abject is something I have mixed feelings about. I genuinely enjoyed building it, and take unseemly pleasure in how often you can hit “refresh” on the main page without repeating a header image. But the big post landing images on the current theme somehow work against the idea of more frequent and shorter posts. I still like the look of the site, but it is probably a turn-off for many. I also know the current design is bulky and inefficient. My working plan is to create a subdomain minimalist site, use it for quick hits, maybe tie it in to the Fediverse.

Or, maybe I should finish those two mostly-written ongoing drafts that I want to publish.

I’ll tag a couple OpenETC colleagues: Anne-Marie Scott, and Clint Lalonde.