Mikes Writing

writing here makes me happy

Lately I've thought some about the writing parts. I've left a few places for various reasons. Some things I've felt I needed a change from. Others I miss. I won't say which is what. I will say this writing gives me this sense of a little stake in the words. Like the site and the words are mine. There are these big entities that do heavy lifting for me like GitHub and netlify. I just use them because they do what I need. It's also dead ass simple to have an 11ty site with them.

I took the base blog starter the project gives and made really a few changes. I like minimal little css things to change the defaults. I also add one plugin to give me footnotes. At that point and a commit to GitHub with everything in it I'm done. Then it's Netlify's turn. I add the GitHub repo and publish the site. Do a little dns stuff and my cheapo custom domain works.

At this point I can add in the wonderful Working Copy iOS app. It delivers the goods on mobile for me. I clone the GitHub repo from above and the app gets added to the iOS files app. So handy and cool!

Now I can write on both. It's what I always want. I want to go and do and write to my blog. I also have seen I am happiest with a static site. It just seems for what I do having a bunch of markdown files and a few photos and copying them to a local git repo is the way I feel enabled to want more.

For a long time I used iA Writer. I love that app. But because the site really is a motley collection of markdown files that I write on, I can use any markdown editor that reads local files. I prefer Mac apps that are native. An app like iWriter Pro gives me an app that lets me just write. When I want change I copy over the files to another app folder and off we go. Maybe I will go use One Markdown for a change. It's also a very nice markdown writing app.

I guess I prefer this way of writing because I owe no fees. No accounting or need to feel bad about asking for refunds. I've done that a few times and did not feel so good. I also reckoned like the old u2 song I had not found what I was looking for. And that's ok. Maybe I never will.

Maybe this is destined to change too. Writing here is a Now thing to me. What I wrote before is a 404 away most times since I always start fresh.

The journal is the same. What I wrote 5 years ago was a different me. How I felt. What I did. If asked how I feel now about a thing it's likely it has changed markedly since say 2009. My feelings too. Those years are in some detritus bin of history to me. I did things then. I wrote them. I failed. Succeeded. Landed in the middle. I don't need to be reminded. I want my Now. Not my then.

So I sit with coffee. It's actually September 7th. I found myself wanting to write some kind of a meaningless statement about the why and what of things. How I love writing right now in 11ty just the way I do it. I owe nothing to no one. This work is mine. All my faults I see in clear view. I claim them and let them live until another Now comes.

I have undoubtedly more to say. If I had a blog tagline on this, maybe it would be,

he had more to say

I'll just say it now this way. Tomorrow I ain't sure. But that's some writing away. All done in cute little markdown files with frontmatter and a photo or two.

to coffee and beyond

Now it's Tuesday. Heading downtown for coffee. I love going to Noi Cafe mornings and then knowing this walk which can take me many different ways. I never know which one I'll take.

What I do know is I'll finish this over a coffee downtown. Let it brew a bit. Change my location. Find maybe something else to say. End up where I want. With coffee and this writing. Write where makes you happy. No rules. No must do. Just do.