xavier's recent activity
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Comment on Timasomo 2023: Week 2 Updates in ~creative.timasomo
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Comment on Timasomo 2023: Week 2 Updates in ~creative.timasomo
xavier (edited )LinkChallenge: 4 blog posts in October I just published the second post, Surfacing request errors when using HTMX. To be honest, it sat a 40% completion the whole week (Baldur's Gate 3 is just too...Challenge: 4 blog posts in October
I just published the second post, Surfacing request errors when using HTMX. To be honest, it sat a 40% completion the whole week (Baldur's Gate 3 is just too good) and I wrote 60% of it today to meet the Timasomo update deadline.
The good
Ghostwriter is a great markdown editor, that I highly recommend. Having it open in the background reduces the friction to write a paragraph and move on. The one limitation is that I'd like to work on several drafts in parallel, but Ghostwriter only allows to open a single file at a time. This is probably a feature, not a bug ^^
Struggling with how much details to give
I am known to dump too much technical details on people, so this will be a big part of "finding my voice". For this post, I'm experimenting with putting a summary first, then giving details for those who want to dig further. I'd love to get feedback on that approach.
Struggling with making progress daily
The first week, I managed to make progress on the post every workday, giving me a finished post to review and publish on Saturday. This week, I got sucked in BG3 and got over-confident as the post was drafted on the first week. I ended up writing most of it today, and rushing to get to the deadline.
The post I want to publish next week is pretty big, so I'll need better focus. I'll make sure this is the first task I tackle after breakfast. Hopefully, it is easier to build that routine in the morning than in the evening.
Shall I start promoting it?
"Building an audience" is not a high priority for me, but it would be great to have some eyes on these articles. Tomorrow, I'll proofread this blog post again then post it to the
htmxsubreddit. -
Comment on Timasomo 2023: Week 1 Updates in ~creative.timasomo
xavier (edited )Link ParentThank you! The previous iteration of this website used Hugo, but I grew a strong distaste for the gotemplate language and wanted to try something else. Also (and that's the perk of being a younger...Thank you!
The previous iteration of this website used Hugo, but I grew a strong distaste for the gotemplate language and wanted to try something else. Also (and that's the perk of being a younger project), Zola feels more cohesive while Hugo's feature set feels disjointed at times. Moving the content over was pretty easy, and the tabi theme is beautiful.
The repositories are private (for bad reasons), but the blog is built as a nix flake and deployed to my NixOS server with deploy-rs. Believe it or not, that was the simplest way, as I already deploy other projects this way. I'll work on a simpler CD setup later on, but didn't want to lose energy in that side-quest right now.
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Comment on Timasomo 2023: Week 1 Updates in ~creative.timasomo
xavier LinkI got my blog re-tooling finished and published a first article: Books I read in September. While I'll mostly post technical articles, I want to first experiment with posting what I feel like, to...I got my blog re-tooling finished and published a first article: Books I read in September. While I'll mostly post technical articles, I want to first experiment with posting what I feel like, to find my voice.
I'm happy I managed to not get sucked into the fine-tuning of things, and just ship something. To manage the writer's block, I have keep a couple of drafts open, and set myself the following tasks:
- daily: "write one paragraph for a blog article"
- weekly on saturdays: "publish one blog article"
I found that strategy of small daily goals very helpful to tackle big things. For example, I have a daily "read for five minutes before bed" task. The five minutes usually turn into 30, but if I'm not feeling like it I'm free to close the book, and I still made some progress.
Any feedback on the post itself and the rest of the website are very welcome!
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Comment on Timasomo 2023: Roll Call in ~creative.timasomo
xavier LinkI'm in! One of my career goals is to get into teaching / mentoring, but starting there is non trivial. The most impactful thing I can do right now is to finally start that technical blog I have...I'm in! One of my career goals is to get into teaching / mentoring, but starting there is non trivial.
The most impactful thing I can do right now is to finally start that technical blog I have been procrastinating for a while. My plan for October is to:
- get the dust off https://xvello.net to open a blog section
- publish four small articles (one before each update thread)
- resist getting into the weeds of the styling and infrastructure, just write stuff with a default theme, polish the looks next month
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Comment on Announcing Tildes' Make Something Month (Timasomo) for 2023! in ~creative.timasomo
xavier (edited )LinkI didn't know Timasomo was a thing, that's exciting! I've been meaning for a while to start blogging, but always procrastinated it. I think that's the most impactful project I can commit to! I'll...I didn't know Timasomo was a thing, that's exciting!
I've been meaning for a while to start blogging, but always procrastinated it. I think that's the most impactful project I can commit to! I'll convert my personal website to Zola and publish four small articles in October!
Exciting! I'm looking forward to playing it!