Starting the Process

Starting the process of streamlining this site and getting my other writing officially online and organized.

It’s quite a stressful process really, because I was having some issues with Squarespace — speed, connectivity, etc. The company itself is pretty great; some of the best customer service (by email only, though), ever.

I’ve shut down the sparse personal section here, since most of that content will find its home at my disability blog — which will really be more of a personal blog to share thoughts on things not tech-related.

Although I’m very cogniscent of Andrew Keen’s Cult of the Amateur and don’t want to contribute to it, I have to believe that it mightn’t apply here. Perhaps that’s just ego. But being a professional writer isn’t really what people think. There’s only one JK Rowling. Authors, like painters, seem to renowned only after they’re dead. There are a handful of exceptions, but aside from major media and tabloid journalists, most writers have some kind of day job or other thing on the side that they do to just to cover the basic things, like electricity, an internet connection, and sometimes luxuries like food, heat and running water.

Why pay for something that’s offered up for free?

It’s really tough, and in many ways blogging makes it tougher, because it has the potential side-effect of devaluing writing and creative content.

On the flipside, it can open up new avenues of expression and exploration, bridge the gaps of age, race and physical distance, raise awareness of important issues, bring popularity to a topic or author, and can become (sort of)-on-the-job training. I think blogging can be used to help a writer find his or her voice and develop a personal style, as well as procedurally train him (me) in an oft-idiosyncratic creative process.

So.

I am dealing with domain issues. Once those are straightened out and I can reliably say go to (this-here-great) dot com and read away, I will share it with you. I’m still not good at just getting the content out there; I keep thinking, edit this, change that. I really hope that this gets easier.

Says Brad 2014!

Happy New Year! I’m excited about 2014.

2013 didn’t start well for me. I was sick throughout. I feel like I didn’t get much of anything done, like it was a lost year. Looking back at 2013, it feels like it went by before I realized it but simultaneously, it didn’t feel quick. Time feels quite different when you’re sick, and I was sick for probably more than half of the year, including the final weeks of December.

This year will bring more significant changes. I’m going to move out of California! That’s an exciting thing for me; a chance for a new beginning, to meet new people, and find new opportunities to learn, grow, and hopefully work. I’m hopeful that November’s mid-term elections will signal a shift in America as well, and I’m making every effort to get my political site up and running as quickly as possible to share some of my libertarian conservative ideas, specifically regarding controversial topics such as gay marriage and abortion. Far too often, people steer conversation away from these serious matters toward the mundane and inconsequential, all in effort to keep peace and to not offend. I think this is usually done with good intentions, I just don’t think it’s a feasible long-term solution, and has aided in alienating people and polarizing the country in ways I’ve never seen before in my life.

But enough of the serious and personal, onto Says Brad!

For about a month, I’ve been writing exclusively in Markdown, and I’m thrilled with this change. Two critical components that’ve made this pain-free and pleasurable: Daedalus Touch (universal iOS) + *Ulysses III* (Mac), and Byword** (universal iOS, Mac).

Ulysses III is so good that while I’m working on a full review, I’ve spent enough time with it to know — it’s indispensable for anyone interested in a fluid, natural, comprehensive and beautiful writing/note-taking environment. (That it syncs automatically with Daedalus Touch via iCloud is a huge bonus.)

I’ve never used a more beautiful writing app… or had as much fun. Ulysses III inspires me to write more, and helps keep me organized and efficient with everything neatly in one place, sans messy file folders and miscellaneous doc names.

Byword is a fantastic markdown/rich text editor that I’ve written about before, but I really only use it on my iPad and iPhone right now because it includes a markdown preview and live, in-line styling — and Daedalus doesn’t. It’s also possible to post to blogs from within Byword, but it’s an IAP priced at $4.99. I’d use it if it were included. (Having communicated with Daedalus/Ulysses debs, The Soulmen, I’m confident that Daedalus Touch will include these things in the future. If you have an iOS device, there’s no reason not to try Daedalus, as it’s now freemium.)

Switching to markdown has helped me to focus on content and forget about formatting. The text is clean and readable, links can be added in as reference-style footnotes, and words can be emphasized and emboldened without ever using brackets or clicking a toggle.

Blogging, 2014

Over a decade ago, I was happily posting to Livejournal without a care or concern for the underlying technology or the longevity of the platform. As a teenager, I just didn’t think about those things. This changed when a Livejournal admin censored me. I hadn’t been posting as frequently and had just undergone surgery to fix my shoulder (bad idea), and didn’t realize that they’d contacted me by email, instructing me to self-censor and remove someone’s full name. As I hadn’t replied, my site was shut down.

It wasn’t just that my content was pulled from public view. I was locked out.

My account had been suspended for violating one of their rules. I was cut off from my own writing, years of work, completely unavailable. I was lucky; able to save my site, discovering what had happened before my account was permanently closed, but the process alerted me to the fact that my content was not my own.

I decided that I was done with LJ. I didn’t like the fact that someone could put extra restrictions on my content and that those rules could change at any time, that I could lose my writing. Since then, I’ve been very concerned about terms of service and content restrictions and ownership. I used WordPress for several years and then stumbled upon Squarespace, and although I’m presently (mostly) happy with the service, I’m always looking at alternatives.

I think that both WordPress and Squarespace do a remarkable job at managing a full-featured website, but lately, I’ve been intrigued by the “just blogging” platforms like Ghost. I’ve been testing different services: Roon, Posthaven, Silvrback… I’m looking forward to sharing my thoughts on these services and hope that I can help someone pick his/her best fit blogging platform.

More in 2014

In the coming months, I’ll be adding reader-requested reviews of styluses, including a more-detailed review of Wacom Intuos Creative Stylus and thoughts on Pencil by FiftyThree. Also, some app devs have graciously provided copies of their apps for me to try and write about, so I’ll have that upcoming as well. I’m excited about another year of cool technology and discussing these things with you! (The latest Apple rumor is about an iPad Pro iOS/OSX hybrid device — I really hope that it’s Penabled, wouldn’t that be something?!)

In the interim, if you want to chat, send me a message at Twitter or Facebook! I hope you have a great year!

Ghost 0.3 Blogging

I received an email today notifying me that Ghost was now offering their hosted service, complete with a risk-free (no CC required) 30-day trial.

So I set one up, natch.

If you want to see it, it's at good.ghost.io. I'm probably just going to post review thoughts there, like notes, since it's very basic. I'm thinking about again publishing thoughts on disability and pain management (and personal ponderings) like I did at my bespoke domain, and something clean — a pure blog — would work well for that. The basic plan would certainly suffice as I can't imagine that I'd get much traffic. I need to read more about stability and potential security risks, first — there isn't a whole lot about Ghost 0.3 online. Do you know anything about it? I'd like to know what you guys think.

I was also considering it for my political site — though my first instinct is to use Squarespace 6, since it has so many built-in features and I already have it. Ghost has some quirks that bug me, but I suppose that minor annoyances are unavoidable.

Maybe the guys at Ghost would sponsor my disability blog? :-) That would be really super!