Blog Questions Challenge

If you’re familiar with this blog then you know that I like an internet questionnaire. A little bit of introspection can be quite a useful thing. This particular questionnaire, the “Blog Questions Challenge”, was originally created for users of Bear Blog. However, the questions have subsequently been adapted to make them applicable to other blogging platforms and therefore accessible to a wider audience. I recently discovered this particular questionnaire over at Alvan’s Digital Garden and thought the selection of questions to be interesting. Hence I have decided to tackle them. If you’re a blogger yourself, feel free to follow suit and use this set of questions, as I think that it’s always interesting to know what inspires people to write and what path brought them online.

Why did you start blogging in the first place?

I have always enjoyed writing creatively. My English teachers at both junior and senior school always encouraged us to write stories and express ourselves through the written word. Not only is it an essential skill for work and day-to-day life, I feel that writing one’s thoughts and feelings is a great way to process the world in general. Especially with subjects and situations that are complicated. Blogging also provides an opportunity to share one’s interest and to potentially build communities.

What platform are you using to manage your blog and why did you choose it?

Since August 2015 I have used Squarespace for my blog. Instead of trying to migrate the previous iteration of Contains Moderate Peril, I decided to reboot the entire blog and start from scratch. Many of the existing posts such as film reviews were easily republished which made the process a lot easier. I chose Squarespace due to its ease to use and the fact that it doesn’t place any restrictions on user traffic. In the past I have had my website taken offline because the volume of traffic exceeded the bandwidth allowance included in the hosting package. Nearly ten years later, I am still satisfied with the quality of service Squarespace offers. I have seldom had any downtime and additional features and functionality are continuously added to the platform.

Have you blogged on other platforms before?

My first blog in 2007 was via the now defunct blog.co.uk service. A year later I moved to Google Blogger for convenience as this was a common platform at the time. Circa 2011 I migrated my blog to a hosted WordPress service which I used for the next four years. I liked WordPress initially as it is a very flexible way to produce a blog. However, I got tired with how much maintenance it required, as updates would often break third party plugins and there was always a constant battle against cyber attacks, spam and malicious code intrusions. I have also used Wix and Blot for separate website projects and found both to be very user friendly. The former provided a quick and flexible means to create a new contemporary website with all the features you’d expect. The latter was an excellent platform for a minimalist blog based around using Google Docs.

How do you write your posts? For example, in a local editing tool, or in a panel/dashboard that's part of your blog?

I use Google Docs to write my blog posts, despite having a subscription to Microsoft Office. The primary reason being I can access my documents from anywhere with an internet connection, which was very useful during my working career. Whenever I had any free time I could access my draft post folder on Google Drive and continue writing. It’s a habit that has stuck, plus I find Google Docs has great functionality. I can cut and paste a finished document directly into my blog editor without any formatting issues. I have set my web browser to open Google Docs in a tab upon launch and can therefore easily start writing whenever an idea occurs to me.

When do you feel most inspired to write?

I tend to write first thing in the morning as I feel mentally alert and suitably motivated. However, sometimes due to circumstances I will write late at night. My PC is in the spare bedroom which I use as an office. I like to be able to write in a controlled environment without interruption or noise. Occasionally, if I am looking after my grandchildren at their house, I will use my laptop to write once they have gone to bed. If I have an interesting idea for a blog post when out, I will make some notes via my phone.

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

I tend to publish upon completing a blog post and seldom have the requirement to “sleep on it”. I don’t write anything that I deem to be controversial and I have sufficient confidence in my views and opinions to express them in a manner that is appropriate. That being said, I don’t mind if people do not like what I have written. That is their prerogative. Equally, it is mine to not be concerned with their opinion.

What's your favourite post on your blog?

Having written over 1890 posts, there are a few that I am quite fond of. There are two posts on “British Slang Words and Phrases” that are lighthearted but informative that I enjoyed writing. The subject matter certainly has scope for further instalments. On a more serious note, I wrote a series of 17 posts over seven years about “Caring for the Elderly”, which were about my family’s experiences caring for my parents who had both had life altering strokes. The comments left were often from people in similar caring roles and I felt that these posts were actually of use to people.

 Any future plans for your blog? Maybe a redesign, a move to another platform, or adding a new feature?

I made some minor changes to my blog at the end of last summer and revised the branding. The template that I’m currently using is a decade old. The changes have proven sufficient for the present. A major overhaul of the blog would require every post being manually updated which is not a task I would welcome. Plus the overall operating costs of running a blog are increasing at present. Any future changes will have to be carried out within a budget.