This is the first time I’m writing a meta blog post and learning that many people participate in this lovely exercise. I love reading about others’ process and how they create and maintain their site — mostly because I’ll probably borrow a thing or two — so this is great. Thank you Naz for kindly tagging me. This will be a bit of a long post, I hope it will turn out helpful to someone.
Why did you start blogging in the first place?
In short, it just sort of happened. I talked about my journey in building this site in this post. Originally, it was supposed to be my portfolio after I learned how to code using HTML and CSS in early 2020. At the time, I wanted to keep it strictly professional. As time went on, I kept tinkering with it without really adding anything new. One day, after following personal blogs for a while — some have been my biggest inspiration — and having written a few posts here and there on Medium, I decided to improve my writing skills by writing more consistently and sharing my thoughts on things outside of design and tech. And where better than my very own corner of the internet?
What platform are you using to manage your blog and why did you choose it?
My site first went live in April 2020, and things have mostly stayed the same since then. I still write everything in HTML and CSS, no frameworks, and I keep a copy of every blog post in Markdown. Everything is a bit manual, but it works for me because it’s lightweight, simple, still does the job well, and gives me complete control. The site is hosted on GitHub and deployed with Cloudflare Pages.
Have you blogged on other platforms before?
I was going to say I had never blogged anywhere before, but then I remembered I actually had a blog on Yahoo 360° — the social media platform in Vietnam back in the mid-2000s, like how MySpace was in the US. I don’t exactly remember what or how much I wrote, but it was like a little diary and a place where I could spend hours designing and customizing. After it shut down, I tried Tumblr, Blogger, and WordPress, but none felt compelling.
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 have a folder for blog posts in Markdown files with subfolders: Ideas, In Progress, and Published. Usually, things start in Obsidian on my computer. I like that I can customize Obsidian via CSS snippets to tailor the interface exactly how I like it. Writing feels most natural when I use a keyboard and a laptop-sized screen. Sometimes when ideas come to me while I’m out and about, I try to capture them immediately using the Obsidian mobile app on my phone. Writing or editing on mobile isn’t the most pleasant experience for me, mostly due to the lack of screen real estate and the ergonomics of typing on a screen, so I save it for short journal entries in Apple Journal and prefer sitting down with my laptop for longer, focused writing sessions.
When do you feel most inspired to write?
I usually feel the urge to write in the evenings and on weekends. Ideas come at random times. Sometimes it happens while I’m watching a show and a character says something that sparks a light bulb moment. I can be reading someone’s writing and feel prompted to expand on my own experience. Other times, a quote from a book makes me go “This is the way.” And occasionally, an idea just pops up while I’m working.
I enjoy the fact that inspiration has been coming to me pretty randomly. I haven’t had to worry about finding motivation to write or forcing a fixed schedule on myself to write and publish. However, I’ve found that if I log only a title and a few bullet points without getting back to them within a couple of days, my interest in completing that particular post fades quickly.
Do you publish immediately after writing, or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft?
I like to write drafts to dump everything I want to say first. I usually proofread and do some light editing while drafting, just enough to make sure there’s coherence and intention with every word I choose. Then I run it through Grammarly for a grammar check before final revisions to make sure everything sounds as intended. A post can take me a couple of hours to write and complete, plus another hour to review, which often involves reading it out loud.
Once this process is done, I bring it over to Sublime Text and publish it immediately. I don’t want to sit on posts for too long because I see blogging as a way to document and communicate my thoughts in the moment. If I change my mind about something I’ve written, I can always write a follow-up to reflect my evolved perspective.
What are you generally interested in writing about?
Right now choosing ideas and topics feels kind of random, but the recurring theme I’ve noticed is that inspiration often comes from things that make me curious, invite me to reflect, bring moments of joy and growth, and motivate me to document what I think and feel at the moment. In many ways, this blog is an extension of my journal — one that I choose to share publicly.
Who are you writing for?
I write for myself first. Like journaling, it’s a great way to see my progress and make sense of my thoughts. I’m also writing for anyone who might relate to these stories or seek different, evolving perspectives that could inspire them on their own journeys — much like how many bloggers and writers have inspired me.
What’s your favorite post on your blog?
This is tough because I feel like everything is always a work in progress, and I’ve only recently started writing in public. If I had to pick one now, it would be Things I know — my first “official” blog post. I started writing, finished editing, and published it within an hour or so. Every word came naturally, and I liked the organic transition from one theme to another in my train of thought. After publishing it, I began writing more and enjoying the process more, without feeling that everything I put out had to be perfect.
Any future plans for your blog? Maybe a redesign, a move to another platform, or adding a new feature?
As of this post, the design you’re seeing is a redesign I made in November 2024. I cut the CSS in half and removed all JS from the site, mostly because what I thought could only be done in JS is often possible in CSS, such as device color scheme preference. My website was already simple before, and it’s even more minimal now — and I’m quite happy with it. I don’t see myself making any drastic infrastructure changes anytime soon unless I start feeling too much friction when publishing posts. I’ve been reading about Eleventy to see how I can use templates for components like the header and footer since manually editing every HTML page when making updates — though doesn’t happen often — is starting to feel cumbersome.
Since one of my mottos in life and work is continuous improvement, I’m always iterating and tweaking my site. I love the process of making something, whether it’s adding or subtracting. Maybe after enough iterations, I’ll get the itch for a complete design overhaul.