For the past few years, the title of this post was pretty much the only thing that was to be found on my website. The struggle I had was however not a literal one, but more a mental or philosophical one. There was always some excuse not to write. Is the subject one I want to write about? Will the quality of what I produce be good enough? Am I happy with the platform I present my writings on?...

Well. No more excuses. I am going to write.

I want to write about... Everything. I get easily excited about things. Coding, DIY home improvement, science, arts, crafts, cooking, car-racing, being a parent, cultural differences... You name it. I want to write, and I want to write often. Taking Phil Haack's advice: I want to write every day. I might still doubt my writing, and the first few posts might take a while, or might not be of the highest quality, but I will be writing. Over time, I will become a better writer.

There are things which I already know and that I want to share. In a previous company, I found that some of my direct colleagues were struggling with some technology, and I would try to teach them, or at least help them out. Either in person, or through some communication platform. Although knowledge was shared, it was only shared to one person, with similar effort it could take to share it to many. This sentiment seems shared by Scott Hanselman who on his blog wrote about whether people deserve the gift of your keystrokes.

Having internal events where one person would teach some skills they had learned already increased the reach, but afterwards the content (usually a PowerPoint or such) would stay on a network drive, and was rarely viewed again after the event. Having my own personal blog solves that issue. Every post written on this blog will stay there until either they are taken offline, or until the bills are no longer paid. The content can be found by search engines, distributed through RSS feeds, and mailing lists.

And there are also things which I don't know yet, but I want to learn. Why not learn them, and document the process of learning? There is this creator called Mike Boyd, who considers himself a "Learner of things". He makes videos on YouTube where he takes the viewer on his journey of learning a new skill. I find it very inspiring because you don't just see the results and the successes. You are taken along for the whole ride of doing the research, making the mistakes, and experiencing the eureka-moments. I would like to emulate documenting this learning process in my writing. It gives people far better tools to also learn, and improve themselves.

And as for the platform I'll be writing on. I wrote my own, and it's source code can be found here. It still lacks some features, but they will be added over time. Feel free to request features you'd like to see. Hopefully soon I will have a comments feature, so you too can write.