Blog question challenge 2025

I was tagged by Dom Corriveau to participate in this challenge, and the questions looked like a ton of fun!

Why did you start blogging?

I’ve been without mainstream social media for many years now, but was fascinated with the idea of having a place on the web that I could call my own. Writing is something that I enjoy, and also something that I would like to get better at, and so starting a blog seemed like a great way to practice. It couples nicely with a personal website that otherwise may not have enough content (other than the blog component, this site just has an about and contact section). My goal has always been to give people a good sense of who I am, to write authentically and use writing as a way to think through complex ideas. Now, after 2 years, I find myself coming back to some recurring themes, and the posts are a great way to remind myself how I have thought through something, and where my understanding may have changed over time.

What platform are you using for your blog, and why?

I currently use Eleventy in a git repo on Codeberg. The hosting is done through Vercel’s hobby plan. In thinking through my setup, I want something simple that requires minimal upkeep and cost, and that gets out of the way for writing. Eleventy builds quickly and there are less moving parts than when I was using NextJS. I like using Codeberg instead of GitHub to support the effort of having more options in the code hosting space, and it has been fun meeting new people through it.

The simple setup also means that the site loads quickly! Lighthouse metrics reports a 98/100 for performance, and it just works. In the tinkering that I have done, it has mostly been to reduce unnecessary features that I felt detracted from the writing.

Have you blogged on other platforms before?

I started off with a few months of Ghost, however soon switched off when I realized that I had no intention of ever having subscriptions or pricing tiers for the blog. Ever since, it has been a git repository, first through Timothy’s Tailwind Nextjs Starter Blog, and now through Łukasz Wójcik’s Bliss theme. Now I find it hard to imagine any other way that I would want to do it.

How do you write your posts?

Through Neovim! I open up the repository and just start typing a markdown file, without any distractions. Then, when I am ready to review, I will spin up the development version of the site, see what the content looks like in the browser, run the review script, and then push to the development branch. Vercel will create a preview version of the site, and then if all looks good at that final stage, development gets merged to main and the content is available on markpitblado.me and through the RSS feed.

When do you feel most inspired to write?

I have written at all times of the day, and wouldn’t say that there is a particular moment when I feel most inspired. I will say that it is during quiet moments of thought and reflection when my best ideas come to the surface, usually staring out a bus window or sipping on a nice cup of hot coffee. The world is awash in content, and if we don’t find moments to tune it out, we never have time to let our own thoughts form. If I have an idea at any time, I will create a simple todo task with just the title of the post and a quick description, and this is usually enough for me to pick back up from at a later point.

Do you normally publish immediately after writing, or do you let it simmer a bit?

After I finish writing, I try to publish as soon as possible after re-reading and re-reading, then re-reading again for grammatical mistakes and typos (even then, they sometimes slip through). Most of the thinking is front-loaded, by the time I am sitting down to actually write something, chances are that I have been thinking through it for about a week. Perfection can be the enemy of the good, and I can be the type to have super high standards for things unless I create a process that allows for flexibility and experimentation.

What’s your favourite post on your blog?

I keep coming back to Private and Public Aspects of Life Can Coexist. It was a moment when my thinking around the internet and privacy changed in a substantial way; instead of thinking in absolute terms, I shifted to a more user-centric model in which true privacy means that people have the choice on what they want to share, and how they want to share it, rather than everything having to be anonymous or locked down all the time. I had found online that I wanted to be myself, my complete self with my interests and hobbies and life experience, and didn’t feel represented by an account in which I had to be careful not to mention my name. On the other hand, others may enjoy the freedom and flexibility of being able to be someone online that is different from who they are in person. What matters is the ability to be in control over where that line is drawn.

Any future plans for the blog?

I need to migrate to Eleventy version 3 eventually, and during that process I may try to make some further technical improvements. I also would like to explore shifting away from Vercel and Cloudflare, and perhaps host this website on my VPS.

Who will participate next?

I will tag Brandon Rozek, zstix, and Anders Thoresson!