Léonie Watson tagged me last week in her blog questions entry “tag, you’re it!”. It’s a thing that has been going on since the start of the year, I think, where people are all answering the same set of questions about their blog, and then pass the baton. I’m in good company, being tagged by Léonie, AND being tagged with Lola Odelola and Mia (Miriam Suzanne)! I’ve known Léonie for a long time (over a decade for sure), but I’ve met Mia only twice at meetings in Seville (2023) and near Los Angeles (2024), and Lola I just met once on Zoom a few months ago as we attended the same meeting. All most excellent women!
Why did you start blogging in the first place?
It all started as a joke. A prank, really. Me and a couple others at work created a parody blog on Blogger in 2006 to tease a colleague of ours who had a blog where he wrote very seriously and quite assiduously (and still does!). His blog being called “la-grange”, we called ours “& la paille” as a nod to “La grange et la paille”, a parody of an old epic show on French TV in the late 80s. We attempted to create badly whimsical, poetic or philosophical short entries and kept that up for 2 months before we lost steam. Good fun!
Meanwhile, since 2005 I was blogging for myself, as a diary. I used a local instance of Blosxom on my laptop and created entries in command line via the Terminal. Every now and then I opened them in a browser because I liked how the blog posts were adorned by a black and white blossom.
I also blogged as Barbie-dull on my friend Amy’s blog “Dullicious” between 2005 and 2008 (all of those posts have since then been added to this blog). I blogged then about things I was doing (reading, movies, dreams, what happened to me that was notable, etc.) because I was spending some time abroad in the USA, and blogging was a way to combine diary, postcards, and newsletters for me and my family and friends back home.
Today I continue to blog for myself, about things I don’t mind others seeing. Mostly things I learn, things I draw or paint, things from my kitchen or garden, tracking my progress exercising, etc. I have a truly bad or odd memory, so I find this works for me as useful references for the future.
What platform are you using to manage your blog and why did you choose it? Have you blogged on other platforms before?
Today, I use WordPress which is hosted on a storage instance that I rent from Infomaniak. I chose it because it was the only blogging application they offered when I looked. I hate it. I wish I were more knowledgeable technically so I could do without.
I blogged on wordpress.com before, on MyOpera, I used Blosxom, Blogger. For work, I blog on CraftCMS since June 2023. We previously used Movable Type until September 2013, then self-hosted WordPress until June 2023. I micro-blogged on Diaspora, Identi.ca, Twitter (which I left before it became X), Mastodon (still do).
How do you write your posts? For example, in a local editing tool, or in a panel/dashboard that’s part of your blog?
In a panel/dashboard that is part of the blog. I used to use the Jetpack mobile application which was pretty convenient both on iPhone and iPad, but it has stopped working at some point and does not let me add any media anymore. Now I added a shortcut to the blog Dashboard to the home screens and use that. But the user experience has further degraded because the input focus disappears for no apparent reason at some point, requiring me to save the entry and reload the page. It’s a mild bother, really, since I blog less than once a month.
When do you feel most inspired to write?
Inspiration strikes any time. But I usually write during weekends, as the rest of the time it’s not convenient because I’m too tired from work, from being a mom, or from exercising, or “all of the above”! So when I am inspired, I open a draft blog post and write the title to continue later.
Do you publish immediately after writing, or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft?
Immediately.
Who are you writing for?
I write for myself, mostly. I do it in a way that I would not be ashamed if others read. That gives me both accountability and a sense of purpose.
What are you generally interested in writing about?
I would love to be an influential writer who has deep thoughts and can eloquently make points that are powerful and enlightening, and move the needle in important and meaningful areas. But in practice, I write about my pets, I document step-by-step some of my drawings and paintings, I post recipes, I collect quotes from books I read, or I write up on things I learn or care about that I may want to (and usually do) refer back to later.
What’s your favourite post on your blog?
This post is the 500th! in a blog that spans 2005-2025. It’s hard to pick one so I’m going to go for the one that tells an usual story: Grazie, Signore Poggi, where I knocked at the door of an Italian couple in a hotel while they were having an intimate moment, to retrieve outside their window the cigarettes I had clumsily dropped 2 stories above.
Any future plans for your blog? Maybe a redesign, a move to another platform, or adding a new feature?
Every two or so years I wonder whether to keep the damn thing and I do, but grudgingly. So maybe one day I’ll finally look for someone to hire to help me figure out a setup that I like and can manage happily. Maybe that extends to the rest of my website as well, which is even older than this blog!
Next?
I would like to pass the baton to:
- Kevin Lawver, who is an inspiring wise man who’s had many lives, and always has good thoughts and ideas.