Hello Again

I know it may have basically become a running joke that I am more likely to redesign my website than actually update it, and in my defence the previous version of my side-blog did actually manage quite a lot of posts before I put it in the freezer when I realised I was burning out.

But, sometimes you just have a craving for a simple new thing to hack on, and as there’s been some pretty serious and heavy things since this, I figured a new start might be good for me.

A global pandemic, a lockdown spent on my own (eventually with a ridiculous cat named Riggerjig), the general everything the UK government has been doing, discovering that actually medication might be right for me after all, and most crucially losing my dad very suddenly to cancer in November have all shifted the ground under my feet very sharply. There’s been a lot of needing to figure out who I am now, there’s been a lot of trying to learn patience and self compassion while I drag my heart out of the rubble and there’s been quite a lot of trying to find ways I can grow and nourish whoever the hell I am now.

One of the things I’ve been craving is trying to find a way to do a bit more writing again, in part to help me retain some of the stuff I’ve been learning but also because to be honest, it’s just fun. And one of the things that has been ringing really true for me is that if you want to make yourself do something, the best way is to find whatever ways you can to reduce friction. And I also wanted to find something at least a little ‘workish’ I can do nicely in a cafe or a park without lugging a heavy 15inch macbook pro everywhere or having to transcribe from a notebook later. So I’ve found a distraction-free iPad workflow with the magic of Netlify & 11ty for hosting, and Working Copy and Byword for syncing and actually writing.

Also, not going to lie, I got super inspired after taking Aaron Draplin’s skillshare course on adding grunge and jank to digital designs and wanted to apply my unending love for such things (you will pry my noise textures out of my old dead hands etc) to some web dev and especially see how much I could do with pure css and server-side. Do not be surprised if the scrungliness increases as I figure out more. I might make a little post about some of what I’ve worked out.

So yeah, I wanted somewhere I can put some things that are longer than tweets, without too much pressure. I probably still won’t be adding a comment section but if you want to come say hi you can find me over on the terrible bird site.

It’s nice to be back. See you again soon. Look after yourself. ❤️