There was once a bot that collected all the hundreds of daily instances of ‘sorry I haven’t posted in a while’ messages on blogs. Hello bot, if there’s still a version of you out in the world. And, yes, I am sorry I haven’t been posting.
Note Incidentally, there was also a Twitter a bot that collected instances of ‘working on my novel’ – which also shamed me occasionally. It may still exist but I’m not going back to that particular site to find out.
As you may have seen, the reason that things slowed down round here was a book. In fact two books! PHP 8 Objects Patterns and Practice (ed 7 Vol 1) is now out and available. The second volume is complete as a draft, and awaiting the tough but fair attentions of Paul Tregoing. It was a rewarding project but it ate me up and spat me out in 2024 with little to spare.
This is a perennial conflict for small creators with large projects. How can you balance both doing the work and talking about it? I still don’t have the answer that, clearly.
Anyway, here is what I have neglected and what I hope you can expect on the site in the coming weeks.
- Regular posting resumes. I’m not sure how to balance this with coding and writing of actual products. This is a problem for all small producers, I guess. I’ll be aiming for a post a week. Perhaps also some more bite sized items.
- Python book. It’s still actively in progress! I will write about it in more detail on another post, but it’s the main Hidden Hat project at the moment – at least until I can commission other writers. Suffice to say, I have been at work on it over the last month or two, and a sample chapter will be going out to those beta readers who are still with me.
- Mailing list. Quite a few lovely people have followed me over the last year or so, and I’ve really not provided much value. I’d like to change that – though without becoming an annoyance.
- Content review. Some of the content on this site is quite old. I’d like to start a revise, refresh or retire triage.
- Platform. This blog is generated using Jekyll along with a raft of home brewed scripts and tools. It works fine, but I am no Ruby coder so it often feels more like a black box than it should. At some point, I’d like to investigate other platforms – not least because I intend to sell books and courses here in the future. Given the recent kerfuffle in the world of WordPress, I am considering a hard look at Ghost. This item is currently low priority, but it might be nice to bring mailing lists, sales, and blogging together under one application.
So, I’d better get to it.
Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
