So, I've been meaning to do a lot more writing.
The trouble is, there's a lot I want to write about.
I started with the resolution that I would start reviewing all the PC games I own, and then realised that reviewing the books I've read will be more better suited to a reading audience, and easier to monetise, and encourage myself to read more, and then realised that I want to write reviews of other things, my opinions on education policy, pictures I've photoshopped, things I've drawn and painted. My thoughts on Artificial Intelligence, Sci-Fi, Ebooks, Edtech, Game development, Climate Change, Programming, Maths, Science, Art, Design, Data Visualisation, Metaverse, Javascript, WebGL, Webassembly, WebGPU, GLSL, WGLSL, Web Audio API, Music Theory, DSP, Music Synthesis, Speech Synthesis, Physics, Multiverse, Philosophy, Metaphysics, Mindfulness, Psychology, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Homelessness, Addiction, Religion, Taoism, Stoicism, the plight of women in Afghanistan and...
Yeah, I know, that sounds like one of Boris Johnson's Speeches. Even Rishi Sunak now likes to debase himself with lists of exciting sounding words. I'm not sure I should do the same. To be fair, I do know what most of those words mean....
I figure if I write down 1% of what I think*, there may be a book, or successful blog at the end of it.
Perhaps a series of programming tutorials, some useful how-to guides, or just something that makes people think.
I've been trying to express myself in other ways, but I just don't think that other social media really does what I want it to.
For example...
Facebook - I prefer to keep FB stuff private, and public posts on Facebook are rarely seen by a global audience, and even they have to be logged in to view them, so despite their failures at giving us privacy, they fail even harder at giving us a public platform. So the audience is really only people I know, and not even all of them.
Twitter - might be a good way to post links to, and promote my own content, but it's only two hundred and eighty characters, and I pity anyone that finds that enough space to express themselves appropriately online, I mean this sentence is only two hundred and eighty characters!
Quora - I love answering questions on Quora, and they've now started providing an additional blog platform, so you can post things without answering a question, but they make all the ad revenue, and unless you want to paywall your content, there's no way of monetising what you write.
LinkedIn - Whilst some of what I write is work-related, not all of it is. It's a very specific audience with no direct monetisation options. Also, I do get offered work via that platform, so maybe I shouldn't be posting all my thoughts there.
Instagram, Youtube - Pictures and video will be an important tool, but I think words are more important, and they don't take centre stage on these platforms.
And that reminds me, my bread and butter is interactive media, as well as writing with embedded video and pictures, I want the freedom to build interactive, 3D, html, css, web audio, JS content of my own, which is a skill that can really set me apart from other bloggers. A lot of what I want to write about is to do with the creation of said media, so it makes sense that I have enough control to embed what I want.
I have another purpose for doing all this. Other than encouraging myself to be more productive in several ways, I want to get as many of my thoughts published as possible. Digital immortality is a real thing, but until we have a way of scanning a person's brain, writing down as much as possible is the next best thing.
I'm going to aim for/limit myself to one post per day. It's a good frequency for blogging, much more and it gets to be too much for anyone to keep up, less and it becomes too hard to maintain interest and grow the site enough.
I'm going to experiment with retro-posting articles in the past as there's a few historical things I want to write about that might seem out of place posted with a 2023 publish date. This will allow me to post more than once a day in some circumstances.
Further to that experiment, I've decided to start retro-posting from the date of my birth. There's a few retro publications that might be fun to review, especially in the science and tech spaces. It might take time to flesh out but I want to write about some older games and hardware, and this might be a good angle. It will also make this blog one of the longest running on the internet 😂
So, while this is the first post of the blog, this is the firstest:
https://www.johncotterell.me/1977/06/my-first-day-on-this-planet.html
Happy new year!
* The other 99% basically sounds like an adult-themed Finnegan's Wake with more complaining.
That reminds me, I need to review Finnegan's Wake, that book hasn't had nearly enough attention.