365

Yesterday's post was my 365th since starting this writing adventure, although depending on how you think about it there are a few milestones to choose from. My first post was Are you sure?, which was actually posted around the first of March. And the first post since I started posting daily was The inside-out universe on the 24th of March. But 365 posts seems like as good a time as any to engage in some reflection.

All told, I'm pretty happy with how the past year has gone. I thought I might end up looking back at things I'd written a year ago and cringing, but actually most of it seems fine. The main difference I notice is that my posts tend to be longer now; it was rare that I'd write anything longer than a few paragraphs a year ago, but these days it's rare that I'd write anything that short. Either this is because I'm expressing more complex ideas, or just that I'm wordier than I used to be.

One thing that is a shame is that my posts are a lot more similar than they used to be. Earlier posts usually had screenshots or drawings attached (the existential crisis black hole was a personal favourite) but now it's mostly text. That wasn't a deliberate decision so much as a result of having less time and falling out of the habit. I've also been much more conceptual, whereas older posts tended to be more of a mix of project ideas, conceptual ideas, project releases and even music.

Another thing is that my posts are not very discoverable. I haven't put any particular effort into posting them on social media (beyond the occasional Hacker News post), and there are no categories, no easy navigation, and no archive pages. I'm pretty sure my RSS feed is still broken on many online feed readers because they can't deal with SNI. None of these things are deliberate decisions, it's just never been a particular priority to fix them. I mostly care about writing stuff, and getting other people to read it fits in where it can.

Still, I think it's worth striving to do better on these things. It's easy to get stuck in a comfortable rut once you find something that works, but if you want to improve there's always a certain amount of discomfort required. I'm going to make an effort to diversify my posts, get them out into the world more and, sometime soon, make changes to the site so that it's easier to go archive hunting. As for the drawings:

Happy 365th!