Since leaving my day job two years ago, I’ve been writing personal weeknotes. In short: once a week, I publish on my blog a set of notes about what I did the past week. I believe weeknotes started inside organizations (here’s a good primer on professional weeknotes), but I appreciate using the weekly checkpoint as a personal tool to steer my attention and action.
This post is my entry for July’s IndieWeb Carnival on the theme of tools, hosted by James G. Crossposted to IndieNews.
I’ve been playing the game Satisfactory recently with my sister. In it, you are workers setting up mines and factories on a new planet. You don’t have the full list of everything you’re going to need to do upfront, so you build each thing as you need it… winding up with a convoluted mess once you reach a certain stage of production. Our setup had us constantly hurdling over mazes of conveyor belts (because we hadn’t realized yet it was possible to elevate them). In the game, it’s free to unbuild and rebuild more neatly and coherently; in real life, it’s not, so we’re stuck with cobbled together networks and systems that were assembled ad hoc. (Building from scratch sounds exciting but isn’t really realistic.)
I think two main groups of people are drawn to the IndieWeb:
(And some are in both.) You can probably guess that I’m in the latter group 😉
Over its first decade-plus, the IndieWeb community has done a great job developing protocols and experimenting with a wide range of tools to accomplish many online activities. The wiki is a rich resource for DIYers, and the availability of the chat for people to ask technical questions is fantastic. Regular Homebrew Website Club events offer a way to connect directly with other website owners. The W3C has adopted the Webmention protocol. In this sense, the IndieWeb is already a smashing success.
I also think we could be more, if we wanted.
Human Protocols by Chris
In summary, the IndieWeb will thrive because of the human protocols we develop by using it. We don’t need a central standards body to define those protocols. Instead, we will refine them through continuous conversations with ourselves.
Let’s keep talking about it 👏 I think the next phase of the IndieWeb is developing clearer social norms. This is also a great way to engage non-technical community members!
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But I sorely wish the “Web” part of the “IndieWeb”, in the sense of building collective tools that lift all the boats instead of individual yachts being propelled, were something that was focused on more and not left to the rest of the world to just “adopt”.
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ActivityPub is a lot like email, and Ghost already supports email subscriptions. This means we can use the same interface to support both. Your audience enters whatever address they’re used to subscribing to things with, and Ghost figures out the rest.
This allows your readers to choose how they would prefer to subscribe, and your work to reach farther and wider when you publish.
Right now I’m embroiled in extensive revisions for a fiction novel. I’ve been working on this book on and off for years, first writing, then rewriting, then revising and rewriting and revising yet again.
So much writing advice emphasizes the first draft of a book. That makes sense: completing a draft is a massive accomplishment that many writers don’t achieve, so the potential audience is larger than “people who want to revise an existing draft.” Then the next most common craft book focuses on copyediting: what should be the final step of edits, after the story structure, characterization, and all the other big ticket items are worked out.
This isn’t precisely helpful. How does one get from the “shitty first draft” everyone encourages you to write to a finished novel?
(NOTE: this is a 4500 word piece, what can I say, I’m a writer)
I listened to about 13,200 songs — on average, 36 songs a day.
Recently, James asked me how I challenge myself as a writer. I don’t like to pressure myself under the mindset of I need to get better! anymore — my blog is fun writing I do in my free time, and I’ve worked hard to escape the mentality of constant growth — but there is a joy in doing things well, and getting better at things, so long as I don’t wallow in perfectionism. It’s perhaps a fine mental line, but an important one for me as I’ve battled unhealthy self-expectations. Now, I challenge myself in the spirit of play by listening to my curiosity and excitement.
What makes the difference, I think, is that this type of play requires me to listen to myself. It’s self-motivated, not shaped by “should”s. It is its own reward. It asks me to learn what I like and lean into it; to explore what I want. It invites me to indulge myself.
I read 167 unique books in 2023, compared with 212 books in 2022.
I don’t have much tangible to show for this year, but feel like it’s been a foundation-building year that’s setting me up for good stuff to come. As Anne Helen Petersen described it, the portal. My thinking and blogging keep getting better, I’m having more fun than ever with my website, I’ve refined my fiction revision process, and I’ve laid the groundwork for my consulting business.
I chose my twenty favorite reads from 2023: 12 novels and novellas, 5 non-fiction books and 3 graphic works. Presented in no particular order. Links lead to my reviews.
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witchesby Sangu Mandanna
Witch rules mean our heroine isn’t allowed to settle down, but she longs for a home and friendship. Kind of a Bedknobs and Broomsticks – Jane Eyre mashup. Heartwarming. The found family is just as important as the romance.
Read it for a quiet, cozy story about finding your own path, mending bonds and finding new family, and figuring out what to do about rules that don’t work for you.