Finding the drive to write articles for this blog has not been working that great. Justifiably, I always find something else to do. Lately, I stumbled upon a blog written by Jim Fitzsimmons and I have been inspired to set up a goal to write more.

Jim argues that “it’s a numbers game”, where the key to being a better writer is to write. This reminded me of a book I had skimmed through some years ago Everybody Writes, where the author Ann Handley suggests that “Writing is a Habit, Not an Art”.

And that is the reason I have decided to set the milestone for 1,000,000 words for myself as well. Mind you, 1,000,000 words is no easy feat and will probably take some time to come anywhere close. However, it does give a stimulus to share what I have learned in the past 5 years. I have had the advantage to realise several projects ranging from programming to model building, and that will probably be my focal point (at least for now).

Word Count

How will I know I am reaching my milestone? Well, I am not going to count the words for every post manually, that is for sure. After some digging, I found a way to word-count my posts using Liquid and display it on my Jekyll website. Here is the syntax for that:

{% assign count = 0 %}
	{% for post in site.posts %}
		{% assign wordCount = post.content | number_of_words %}
  	{% assign count = count | plus: wordCount %}
{% endfor %}

If you are trying to include this on your website and you got stuck, send a tweet and I will try to help you out.

Hello, Friend. That’s lame. Maybe I should give you a name. Well, that’s a quote from Mr Robot TV Series intro - and I find it the most appropriate way to start this conversation.

This blog has been on my ToDo list for more than a year pending. Initially, I had decided to build my website using WordPress. I felt that it was an obvious choice as we utilise WordPress to build a great functional website for our clients. As I was restricted with time, I had decided to select a WordPress theme off-the-shelf. However, I kept reaching a dead-end. As it was not part of my workflow, I kept postponing the due date.

Earlier this year, I decided to switch from WordPress to Jekyll. The idea of using markdown and a simple text-editor appealed to me. Furthermore, setting up the website took me less than it used to take me to configure the database for WordPress and initialising the WampServer.

Road Map

“So, what is the point of having a website?” you might ask. Well, for starters it’s 2020 and I have been meaning to publish a portfolio of works for some time. This may serve to just do that.

Nonetheless, I have decided to place my writings on the epicentre of this webpage. Topics will range from 3D printing and laser cutting to architectural commentary and critique. I dabble in a bit of everything. I program software, write articles, sculpt things, paint things, carve things, learn things, design, assemble and build things. This is where I intend to put all the stuff I want to share in a more permanent format.

Conclusion

Blogging might even get fun again and this of course was just a test article I needed to check it out.