You'd laugh, but what inspired me to start my first blog was The Sims 3. It let characters keep blogs using their smartphones. Players couldn't fill blog posts themselves, only assigning post names, but my fantasy was enough for me to allow for a continuous storylines within the blog which was supposed to tell a story of a single geek guy with a lot on his mind.
The possibility of other people reading what I have to say blew my mind at the time. It was an amazing opportunity for me to finally express myself in a positive manner, rather than exploding over unexpecting friends and strangers over issues that had nothing to do with them. Naturally, the desire to start a blog started to burn within me.
I can't say my first attempt failed. On the opposite: unattended for half a year, my first blog still brings in a dozen or so from all around the world every day, something I could only dream of beforehand. Still, the way the blog went wasn't what I wanted from it: it turned into an unintended self-help haven because I was compelled to write more and more stuff that was supposed to be building blocks for others they way the knowledge I parted with was for me. It didn't work out quite like I imagined it, so at a certain point in time I decided: it wasn't what I wanted, and so I stepped back.
There's a saying in Russia: "первый блин комом" [PEHR-vyi BLIHN KOH-mohm] -- "the first pancake is [always] a lump", implying that practice makes perfect. I feel like it's true for my blog writing, as well, and because of that, I'm giving it another try.
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present, my blog: metaphoria.
If one could say I wasn't serious the first time, one must definitely say I am now. I intend to speak my mind through this blog in the ways similar to how I did this through Hubski. Posting is scheduled, with one post appearing every Sunday at 12:00 Moscow time. Sometimes, a post will appear in the middle of the week about either an on-going issue currently in strength, an event that just happened or something else that doesn't fit into the usual philosophical reflection tone. It's not to say that I'm going to cover popular events - only those that are of interest or of concern to me.
I'm still torn on the name for the blog: the "metaphoria" subdomain for WordPress.com was already taken back in 2009, with the holder unresponsive at the moment, so I had to come up with something of equal meaning. Given the resonance I had with the existentialist philosophy earlier, I decided on the "ExistentialMechanism" subdomain instead, and now I'm growing quite fond of it.
(Sure, I can hire a domain of my own, but it takes money, and I'm still unexperienced in whom to trust with the service - and if I my best pick is international services, how would I be able to pay for it without bothering with terrible current exchange ratios and money transfer?)
The first post is already out, pointing out how one can use the New Year declarations (or are they resolutions?) to catapult themselves into the "better life" year using an amazing trick of space traversing. It's a small start, and future posts may or may not be lengthier depending on the topic.
The design is still work-in-progress and isn't meant to represent the blog style fully; in fact, as soon as I get to hosting my own website (which I plan for within a year), I'll get to designing it myself. For now, personal changes other than the fonts and the colors are beyond me due to free plan restrictions, therefore making me rely on publicly-available devices such as innate Google Fonts support (which, interestingly enough, means I can no longer pick basic web fonts like Verdana or Arial).
The main language of the blog is English, as it feels more appropriate for me to express my thoughts with it. I'm still trying to figure out whether I want to post Russian versions of the posts as well, given just how much traffic my first blog got from Google questions alone (especially about "weird"/"strange" people - there's a whole local hall of fame for those). On one hand, it's work that's likely to go unappreciated vocally, which is an important factor for me. On the other, people of Russia are stuck in an echo chamber of puke-inducingly simpleton opinions, with no way to get out and no venue to express their frustrations properly, to say nothing of proper info sources, and I've always wanted to give some sort of a life preserver to the nation I belong to. Any advice?
Lastly. Those interested in my writing might want to subscribe to the blog either through the WP accounts or using e-mail (which will be only visible to me; unless you already get that I don't want to spoil the thing, I promise no spam - unless WP.com decides on its own to send you some ad crap from my name, in which case there's not much I can do). I'm not going to automatically post about new pieces on a social network other than VK (which includes Hubski, unless some nifty little program will allow me to post the link without bothering with three separate pages to do so), so keep up.
Happy New Year to you all. Let's make #letsdoit Tag of the Year.
Thanks! I don't think I can make #russiabynatives into a blog. To say nothing of the fact that there are a surprising amount of those already (I was astonished to find an excessive list of such blogs on the one that hosts the "You Know You're a Russian If..." list), it will not be any sort of regular because I don't have as much to say on the matter (the fact that you've recently made my list of topics non-zero should prove that to you). I might include some Russia-centric or Russia-including posts into metaphoria, but that and #russiabynatives is, I'm afraid, the furthest I can go right now. That being said, if I do go on with the idea, you'll be among the first to learn about it.
"первый блин комом" Taking this literally, that is the reason I will always do a test run the night before if I am having a dinner party and serving something new.
As little as possible. I just want to figure out the timing needed and adjust any ingredients/spices if I think the recipe can be improved upon.
That is a tough question. Experience is the best way of course but If I am doing something new I tend to write down my cooking plans and work backwards from when I want everything to come together. (eg. - 4 hours: make broth; -45 minutes: chop onions and garlic; -30: warm broth; -35: start risotto; -2: add truffles; -1: add Parmesan). Then I put the instructions for all the dishes in order so everything comes together on time. That will also let me know when I need someone to help as some tasks have to be done at the same time. I keep these plans to use in the future as well. And right before I start I will change the minus times into exact clock times so I do not have to do math in my head as I cook. (eg. -45 becomes 7:00; I have a bad habit of inviting people over at a reasonable time and then getting caught up in conversation and drinks so I tell people when they come in that I have eg. 55 minutes of work to do so that they can tell me to get off my ass and start cooking at a decent hour.) Recipes are also only used as general guidelines and I like to adjust things like spices or cooking times to my liking so sometimes it says eg. cook for 40 minutes but I would find out that in my oven it is better for 35 or 45 minutes. Or I find that something can be done ahead of time and the taste does not suffer if I let it sit. Sometimes it could also be something as basic as thinking I could get an ingredient easily but it turned out that it was way too expensive or it was impossible or very hard to get so I needed a day or so to adjust my plans or find the ingredient. So if I look for it the day before I have 24 hours to solve any problem that may arise.
Thanks. I'll see if I'm to make use of that soon enough. On the sidenote, it's amazing how varied and off-topic discussions and conversations on Hubski can be. Here we are, talking about how to prepare for a massive cook-off under the flag of me advertising my blog. That's cool as ice. :)