People and Blogs: James

Let's start from the basics: can you introduce yourself?

Hi! I’m James. I am a writer. I write stories, reflections, and explorations on my blog, James’ Coffee Blog. I grew up and live in Scotland. The poetry of the environment around me – the hills, the poets, the buildings – inspires me daily. I love watching how the seasons change the world around me: the lingering fog in the hills and snow on the horizon in winter, the first blossoms of spring, the grandeur of the green grasses and leaves, and the warmth of the autumn yellows and reds.

Professionally, I am a technical writer. I enjoy learning about technology and communicating it to others. I regularly ask myself questions like What do I need to explain? How do I make sure the reader has the right context? What terms do I need to introduce? Who is the target audience? How do I explain the concept to the target audience?

When I am not writing, you can find me browsing bookstores, playing piano, and watching comedies like Frasier on television.

I love listening to Taylor Swift’s music. cardigan is like a warm hug on a cold day.

What's the story behind your blog?

In 2019 or so, was growing more excited about having a personal website. I thought about the technical skills I could learn and enjoyed tinkering with design. I wanted a place where I could write and share what I had written. Around the same time, I found the IndieWeb community, a group of people passionate about and interested in personal websites. I felt validated. Other people see websites as a place to learn and write and explore, too. Role models are so important. Community, too.

During the pandemic, I developed an interest in specialty coffee. I decided to start writing more about coffee. I decided to name my blog James’ Coffee Blog, in recognition of all of the writing I was doing about coffee. Cafes have always had a special place in my heart, too, from the tearooms I visited as a child to the coffee shops I go to now. There felt no name more appropriate.

I wrote a lot about coffee: from diaries of brewing at home to interviews I did with coffee professionals. In coffee, I found community – something sorely valuable in the depths of the pandemic. Writing on my blog gave me a place to document my learnings, share what I had learned with the community, and helped me exercise my writing skills.

At the same time, I wrote about technology, too – anything I was learning could be a blog post.

In the last two years, I started to embrace my more poetic side, spending more time noting the world around me and seeing what stories I could craft from my observations. I started paying more attention to Nature. I started writing down things that made me smile that I could serialise into a Moments of Joy post, a category that now comprises stories that to this day warm my heart.

My blog is a canvas, a playground, and a journal all at once. I aim to create a place where I can practice my storytelling skills, think through ideas on my mind, and process the world around me. I also like to be playful, too: this being an essential part of my personality. Indeed, I love referencing Taylor Swift lyrics when I can, both in discussion and in my writing.

The motto of my blog is from words, wonder. My hope is that you come to my website and leave feeling inspired.

What does your creative process look like when it comes to blogging?

My ideas come from observing the world around me and chatting with friends – both in equal measure.

When I see something interesting around me, or feel a way that I want to capture in words, I take out my digital notebook and start taking notes. My notes may be short or long. Sometimes, like today, I thought about how I like the sound of the chime of a town clock. Other times, I write more, like how I was feeling when I walked through a bookstore on the first sunny Saturday in weeks.

Sometimes, I feel a spark, like oh, this is [heartwarming or joyful or exciting or intriguing]!. When I feel that spark, I start taking notes.

Chatting with friends inspires me in so many ways. I can chat through ideas. I can hear new ideas. I am challenged to articulate my thoughts. I can hear how others communicate. I can build frameworks for thinking through things. Every conversation is an opportunity to learn something new. I sometimes have discussions where I immediately go to my text editor and start writing, the conversation providing the inspiration I needed to get started.

For technical blog posts, I often write after completing the coding phrase of a project. I may have used a new data structure that I want to document, coded an elegant way of solving a problem that I want to share, or want to write documentation about how something works. With that said, many ideas come after discussion, too. Discussion helps me codify my thoughts and experiences into a more cohesive idea that I can then write about.

My writing comes in two phases: noting, then writing. I like to take lots of notes then turn those notes into blog posts later; usually, on the same day I wrote a note, or in the following few days. I think of note taking as a muscle: the more I do it, the easier it is to take more notes. I don’t always take notes as I am out and about, though: as much as I love capturing moments in words, some moments are to be lived with all the attention one can give. Those may become stories I write about, or stay as memories just for me.

When I am looking for something new to write about, I will consult my digital notebook. Or look at my whiteboards or notebooks. I love writing on physical mediums. Indeed, I have The joy of sitting on the floor writing on my whiteboard. written on one of my whiteboards right now, a reminder of the joy of immersion when you are sitting on the floor sketching out new ideas.

Despite taking lots of notes, I sometimes struggle to come up with ideas. I find that reaching for a new idea seldom works. If nothing in my notebook resonates with me on a given day, I try to keep my eyes open as I go about my day. Maybe a discussion will inspire me at some point. Maybe I will see something on a walk. Or maybe I need time to rest, so I will take a break.

I try not to force myself to write. There are certainly moments that I wish I had an idea to write about, but such moments pass – especially after getting out the house and/or having a conversation with a friend.

I use Typora, a text editor that supports markup, as my text editor. Typora’s default interface has few distractions. As I write, all I can see are words on the dark mode background. This is significant to me. I like to use tools that help me focus.

With an essay ready in my text editor, the next step is to publish the post. I do this in a tool I made called Create. It is a static page on my website that creates some of the meta information required to publish a post on my blog. The tool automatically creates the front matter I need for my blog posts to show up the way I want on my website, and has auto-complete for category names that ensures I use categories consistently on my blog.

Do you have an ideal creative environment? Also do you believe the physical space influences your creativity?

I believe physical space influences my creativity. New spaces outdoors – from streets to coffee shops to museums – are fodder for writing. Every detail could be part of a story. My job as a writer is to figure out which I want to document.

I have a very visual mind. Writing notes about the environment helps me visualise where I was when I took notes. These notes can then make their way into a story. Maybe it’s the way someone gazed out a window in a coffee shop, or the look of awe on someone’s face as they admire a breathtaking portrait on a wall. Physical spaces inspire me.

I write many of my blog posts in one sitting, usually at home. I have written while on the go before – in cafes, on trains – but that was when I was taking less notes than I do now. I can write at any time of day, but I find myself particularly inspired during the evenings. I enjoy writing with my fairy lights on in the background, or while sitting on a comfortable chair with my plants around me.

I like the idea of having a writer’s desk, but I much prefer the comfort of sitting with my laptop and having an idea on my mind.

A question for the techie readers: can you run us through your tech stack?

My blog runs on a custom site generator called Aurora.

Aurora is the culmination of years of learning, much of which has happened while engineering parts of my website. I wrote a static site generator a few years ago after running into limitations with Jekyll, the tool I was using before writing my own. But, my first static site generator was slow. Last year, with more experience of coding, I started from scratch and wrote something again, using all I had learned about programming patterns and data structures and performance.

Indeed, both in the tools I build and the words I write, my site is a place for me to learn, explore, and grow.

When I publish a blog post, I create a markdown file that I put in the project Git repository. This is then sent to GitHub, where an Action runs Aurora and builds my site. The site is then sent to my server using rsync.

I love working with static files. Having a single folder where all my writing is feels right. I can see my words; they are in plain text. I like that all parts of my site – the styles, the logic, my words – are in one place. I also love how my web server of choice – nginx – serves the folder of generated HTML with minimal effort.

My domain is registered with DNSimple. (Side note: they have some great comics about HTTPS, DNS, and more on their website.) My website runs on Hetzner, whose services are more affordable than many of the cloud providers I have evaluated.

Given your experience, if you were to start a blog today, would you do anything differently?

My blog is constantly evolving. I am, too.

Through writing on my blog, I have become more confident, I have learned and refined my writing, web, and design skills. I have put thoughts and ideas into words that I can share with others. I have been able to connect and reconnect with my self – present and past.

Through blogging, I have felt the joy of creating something new, the beauty (and sometimes solemnity) of reflection and capturing your reflections in words, the sense of excitement and ambition that comes from thinking about what’s next, and more.

Through blogging, I am reminded, every day, that there is a spark within me that wants to make new things. It is that spark that inspired me to interview coffee professionals, write about information retrieval fundamentals, experiment with introspective writing, explore poetry, and realise the joy of storytelling.

My journey of publishing on my website has brought me great joy, and writing continues to bring me joy every day. I don’t think I would do anything differently. But, I will say: if you don’t have a blog, consider starting one!

Financial question since the Web is obsessed with money: how much does it cost to run your blog? Is it just a cost, or does it generate some revenue? And what's your position on people monetising personal blogs?

I pay approximately €20 to Hetzner per month for one server. My static site could be housed on cheaper infrastructure, but my server runs several web services: my static website, my website search engine, the web reader I run, and more. I pay $34 per year for my domain. I also pay a few dollars a month for the DNS services that come with DNSimple.

My blog generates no revenue. I like to write for myself and to share ideas with others. I think money would add too much pressure. I do, however, fully support any creator who monetises their personal website. I support a writer and YouTuber whose work I appreciate via Patreon. When I support a creator, I like to set up a subscription.

Time for some recommendations: any blog you think is worth checking out? And also, who do you think I should be interviewing next?

There are so many wonderful writers on the web. On my website, I have a page called Wander where I link to other websites. Indeed, the essence of the web is the link. I think there is nothing more of the web than when you link to others’ sites. Ava, Tracy Durnell, Ben Werdmuller, Molly White, dead.garden, Joe Crawford, Nick Simson, Sara Jakša, Winnie Lim, and Rubenerd are among the people whose words I read the most. But, there are so many more writers and web weavers I follow.

Final question: is there anything you want to share with us?

I have a web page for this, too! I really love it when I have a URL that collects resources that may answer a question; a blog post, a list, a dedicated page I designed. I maintain a link garden where I link to many web pages I have found helpful in learning about design, programming, typography, and more. The list is not meant to be comprehensive; maintaining a comprehensive list of bookmarks is stressful. But, I hope it can be a fun place to facilitate one’s web adventures!

Aside from links, I have a few more things to share.

First: If you are thinking about starting a personal website, you should give it a go! Explore what interests you. Blog, share poetry, create photo galleries, organise links and quotes, or do something else entirely – whatever resonates most. Websites are creative playgrounds. One of the many joys of having a website is you get to choose what you make and how to make it. Then, if you want, you can share what you make with others – your friends, a community you are in; any audience.

Second: I recommend reaching out to creators whose websites you especially appreciate to say hi! Blogging can sometimes be a bit lonely, especially as you get started. Kind emails are really meaningful for me. They act as a reminder that my website is a place people visit. It’s a place I can have an impact. I like to pay it forward and make sure I say how much I appreciate people’s websites when I can.

Third: If you are looking for community, check out the 32-Bit Cafe and the IndieWeb. In both places, you can connect with people who are passionate about and interested in personal websites.

Finally: Thank you so much for reading! Have a wonderful day.