Blogging Workflow

Blogging Workflow

A nearly-daily writing cadence built around joy and consistency, not optimization.

1. Ideas

Sources:

Backlog — ideas accumulated over years, mulled over, eventually poured out when ready
Moment-triggered — something encountered sparks an immediate essay
Work-derived — a few hours deep in something technical reveals a post worth writing
Blank page — no thesis, stream-of-consciousness, results in more esoteric/philosophical work

Pre-writing ritual: Don't write immediately after an idea arrives. Go for a walk or shower. Distraction-free time solidifies specific points before sitting down to write.

2. Writing

Primary tool: 750words.com — private daily freewriting, 750 words in ~20 minutes. Writing streak maintained since January 2025; public blogging frequency followed ~9 months later.

Go as fast as possible. Don't slow down for research.

TK shorthand — from journalism, means “to come.” Placeholder for anything that needs to be filled in during editing:

[TK look up specific stats on link rot]
[TK add image or link properly]
[TK verify this claim]

This keeps writing momentum without stopping for research. Fill in during editing.

Reach 750 words → that's “enough” for a post. Sometimes the post requires more.

3. Editing

Copy-paste from 750words → Sublime Text 4. Drop into src/posts/ with Jekyll-style filename:

2026-03-02-my-blogging-workflow.md

Fill in all TK placeholders with research and links
Use inline links for citations (not MLA/APA/Chicago — those aren't web-friendly)
Sublime Text built-in spellcheck, but typos still slip through to production

4. Assets — YAML Frontmatter

Standard frontmatter for each post:

title: "How are we preparing for the Long Web?"
date: 2026-03-01T00:00:00-07:00
tags: ["IndieWeb", "Digital Preservation", "Web Development"]
summary: "What will the Internet look like in 2036?"
description: "What will the Internet look like in 2036?"
featured_image: /assets/images/blog/time-capsule.jpg
featured_image_alt: "Descriptive alt text for the image"
featured_image_caption: "Caption with attribution | [Source](url)"

Notes:

date must include timezone offset (e.g. -07:00) — otherwise Eleventy renders an off-by-one date
summary and description are identical: one for the site homepage, one for social sharing metadata
featured_image_alt — always written for accessibility

Images are saved locally (no hotlinking). Sources:

Wikimedia Commons — primary
RawPixel Public Domain
Flickr — Creative Commons licensed
Edits made in GIMP

In-post images use raw HTML <figure> elements:

<figure>
  <img src="/assets/images/blog/example.jpg" 
       alt="Detailed alt text description">
  <figcaption>Caption | <a href="url">Source</a></figcaption>
</figure>

5. Publishing

Push new Markdown file + images to GitLab repo → Netlify auto-deploys on commit. No manual deploy step.

6. Syndicating

Platform	Method	Notes
Mastodon (@brennan@social.lol)	EchoFeed via RSS	Automatic on publish
Medium	Manual copy-paste	Paywalled on Medium; link back to free version on site
Threads, BlueSky, me.dm Mastodon	Buffer	Manual trigger, simultaneous
Beeminder blogging goal	IFTTT	Accountability tracking via Medium posts
LinkedIn	Manual	Only when post suits professional context

The honest assessment: most of the cross-platform syndication isn't functionally meaningful. EchoFeed + Mastodon is the only fully automated, zero-friction path. The rest is manual overhead worth automating or dropping.

See also Community — Mastodon, Echofeed, RSS and Syncing status.lol to twtxt for the POSSE approach.

Philosophy

Choose joy. Do things the way they work for you.

This is not a guide — you can never replicate somebody's output by replicating their input. The workflow reflects a specific person. Consider it a behind-the-scenes.

The only sustainable writing habit is one that's actually enjoyable.

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