Milestone

Today marks one month of me writing and publishing a new blog every day. It’s been an insane experience and something I would’ve never imagined myself doing. As I am almost a third of the way into my journey of writing for 100 days. I thought I will do one of those reflection blogs. Share my experience of setting up and writing this blog with everyone. Minimal effort, maximum feelings. Hope you enjoy it.

Technology

First of all, the setup. I am an absolute tech noob and have no experience whatsoever in creating or hosting websites. When I started setting up my own website for the first time I had used Wix, which to be fair is pretty neat and powerful, I just never got comfortable with it. It was a feature overkill, it wasn’t open source and I really wanted to use the R (a programming language I love) to build my website. I used the Blogdown package in R to generate static websites based on R Markdown and Hugo. In short, the package took care of the design and the hosting, I just had to worry about the content (and my jokes). The design thing reminds me, I am thinking of changing my website design again. I am getting bored of the whole bootstrap thing and want to pick something absolutely plain and minimal so I just stick with it forever.

Content

Writing overall has been amazing fun. Sure I have had bad days where I didn’t want to write, or days where I have just written garbage I will probably never go back to, but overall I am pretty satisfied with how it went. I am also pleasantly surprised how comfortably I was able to transition into writing regularly, even if it wasn’t anywhere near the best quality. The thing I am most happy about it that I am less scared to write on things I care about, I am more trusting of my research and my thought process. I know the next month will be incredibly difficult, but I am looking forward to writing more.

Sharing

One thing about the whole writing journey that has surprised me the most is how I have started sharing a lot more with the world. I am a fairly private person and I don’t like sharing a lot of information about myself anywhere. But with writing I just feel more comfortable talking about things I wouldn’t in real life. Maybe it’s the pressure of producing new content everyday or just the relief of being able to articulate my thoughts without the fear of being judged. I still don’t know, but I want to keep going and find out one day.

Introsepction

Lastly, I am thankful to writing. The whole process has changed the way I interact with the world around me. I am so much more attentive, mindful and welcoming of new thoughts and conversations. Even if it’s not conversations I just feeling writing is becoming this session at the end of the day where I talk to myself and articulate what’s present for me. Something I find difficult to do in my head because I am always fighting with my own thoughts. It’s like giving myself the opportunity to be me. I am excited to find out what the remaining 69 days have in store for me. Nice.

TATA!

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