I mentioned in my latest weeknotes that I’ve started using Rake to automate writing tasks for this site. The first ones were for creating a new post and deploying it. I can now run a command that creates the files and opens my editor for writing. I’ve wanted to add a way to schedule posts. Lots of times, I keep an idea in my head, sit down to write it out, then immediately publish.

I mentioned before my habit of tinkering on my site’s code without end. This kept me from writing. So I started over. I wanted to set myself up for writing more frequently, and starting over felt like the best move. I also wanted to keep a lookout for other areas that created friction. One I quickly saw was using Git. It’s not great for the writing process. I’d create a file, stage it, commit it, then push it.

Fine, I’ll start a blog. Or I should say restart a blog. I started writing on this site several years ago. I was wanting to write more professional content around my work. I picked Middleman as a build tool for the blog and off I went. I wrote a few posts on it. Five or six over the course of a couple of years maybe? After some time, I converted the site over to Jekyll because GitHub would build, deploy, and host your site for free.