The Editorial Engine: A Technologist’s Pilgrimage

My journey with writing didn’t just begin. I must have started a hundred times over now, that should count for something right?

Some time last year, I stumbled upon some of my articles from more than 10 years ago and I thought.. What happened?!

It was almost alarming, first that I didn’t remember writing that much and second that I had articles in countless different database dumps, which were, I might add, thankfully archived and tucked away.

So I thought about why I didn’t continue all those other times and I realised that it was because I was a developer, as ironical as that sounds.

You see every time I started, I had to wrestle with the fact that I needed the site to look and feel different, and for the most part, I had nailed that. Just take a look at my past years’ portfolio sites and you’d see that time was spent on how the sites looked and functioned, more than it ever was focused on writing.

And so in December last year, I decided to start writing again but I wanted to focus on just that and wanted something simple, where I could use my own domain (hopefully free) and was at least half-decent good-looking.

This time I didn’t want a portfolio site, and I didn’t want to be cornered into creating content I didn’t care much for, save for ones that only ever served to impress those that stumbled on my site.

Enough, I thought, words meant more.

My research led me to Hashnode and Blogger. Both fit my primary criteria about custom domains.

I settled for Hashnode, although in retrospect there was absolutely nothing wrong with Blogger, just that I was writing in Obsidian and it didn’t have markdown support, (That was it!) and thinking about it now, I can’t believe that was the sole reason I went ahead with Hashnode instead.

I started sharing posts on Reddit and one of them crossed 125k views with over 230 shares!

That was indeed a turning point for me, at least psychologically, where there was suddenly a real reason to write and that it mattered more than anything else I thought I needed the site to be. That turning point didn’t just change why I wrote, it changed how I built for writing.

And so write I did.

Most of all, I think, the fact that it was a “flat” writing experience with no categories and strict topics to write about - or worse still - prematurely compartmentalizing posts to some preconceived idea of what the blog should be about was exactly what I needed. No boxes. No buckets. Just a blank space and the thought, what if I just wrote anyway?

Don’t yet think about monetizing if you’re serious about writing.

That freedom? To express, to write in whatever form I wanted, was key to content creation.

I think that this is an important distinction. Most “how to make money blogging” guides share tips on how to find your niche market. I'd say, it should instead be a focus on how to find your niche voice. (Or voices apparently, in my case.)

Don’t yet think about monetizing if you’re serious about writing, because sometimes, that part comes eventually with just perseverance, and in no better way than when you least expect it. And when it does come, it won’t be because you chased it. It’ll be because you stayed.

My journey started grand, a post a day (or so I thought) but that train screeched to a halt rather quickly. I did manage the first 12 articles in those first 12 days and then life inevitably got in the way. Quality too. I don’t quite like the way I said things. Nevertheless the writings were researched and I left them be.

So no. It wasn’t daily, but I still averaged 2-3 posts a week, and content grew.

The more I wrote, the more diverse the subject matter became and the more there was to look at

Which brings me to my next point. As you write, patterns form. The kinds of themes and topics that get you up at night - to write. Sure, Geekist is rather self-incriminating in that sense, I’d dare say you could probably take a good guess as to what it writes about?

But still, it’s a broad term and what exactly entailed “Geek” was what I needed to know. I have to say, that doesn’t come with planned posts.

It comes with written posts.

This is when you start seeing real pillars of the kind of content you write and, more importantly, what you will continue to write moving forward.

So, at the risk of sounding like a broken tape recorder, I'd say it again.
Rather than find a niche for how rich you'd get, find one you are passionate writing about first.

Even if you don’t have the faintest clue what that is, write about anything. In fact, I'd argue that you should start with everything.

Maybe pick a generic a name even, just one that is personal to you, just so that it doesn’t ever restrict you from what you want to talk about, just so you never have to resign to this ridiculous thought:

"Ah. I can’t write about that, this isn’t the place."

Well.

Where else exactly?

But let’s get back to what I had originally intended to say. Yes. I digress... sometimes

I outgrew Hashnode. It was simple and elegant as I said before but the kind of content I was dishing out really warranted some method in the madness. And so that’s what this series of articles is about - with this one being the least technical of whatever is to come, where I’ll cover my journey from Hashnode to Headless Hashnode & Eleventy and to PayloadCMS.

And finally, I’ll get to where we are now, on my phone, typing this article in a beautiful writing client that was always available to me, to you and to anyone who wants to start writing.

Yeah... it's just words again, but this time they mean a whole damn more.