It's not intentional, but I must be close to the world's worst blogger. I have many blogs, but don't update any of them.

Anyway, I'm trying Blogo out right now, and it might be useful in helping me blog more (assuming I have something worth writing, that is!). One feature I like is the integrated twitter poster/microblog viewer. So, theoretically, if I wanted to write more than 140 characters I could immediately turn a twitter into a blog post and ramble on far more than I should.

Well, we'll see what happens.

I’ve just applied for and been approved as a contributor for Citizendium, the “citizens’ compendium” – which aims to create a new, free, wiki-based encyclopedia. What is different about this from, for example, Wikipedia, is that it is attempting to create more respected and authorative articles through its editorial and authorship processes and policies.

For me, I see this as another place in which to write – one that hopefully will be highly public, and one where the writing is subject to the approval of others. I share the altruistic goals of the creators, but my personal objective is to further develop my writing.

Writing in the mephisto web interface is okay for some posts, but I would prefer to use a specialist writing app for stuff that I want to develop and polish a bit. I thought MacJournal might be good: it’s not bad for writing, and it has an okay fullscreen mode. But something about the current state of the mephisto XML-RPC API causes a problem with MacJournal (and some other apps).

So, it’s good to see I can at least post from TextMate directly to my mephisto blog. I can even fetch an existing post, and update it. And I guess if I wanted to write in Ulysses or some other app I can always copy into TextMate and post that way.

I think I finally have a purpose…well, for this blog, anyway.

Lately I’ve had a few moments where I wanted to write about something that has happened, or an idea I’ve had, and just making a journal entry didn’t feel sufficiently satisfying to make me go ahead and commit to the writing. A couple of times I’ve started a post on a mailing list, only to realise that – even though it was a list topic that set me off – what I want to write is probably not right for that audience. So, although I don’t expect very many (any?) people will actually read this blog, at least it is a place where something might be read and where the audience doesn’t limit the writing. What I write will be mine, rather than a part of a debate or an arena, and any future reader will have to take it as just writing.

The other thing that happened recently was that someone asked me to write something fairly trivial, and I suddenly got creative. The result was pretty good and the reaction of others reminded me that good writing is always appreciated. I realised my problem is I just don’t write enough: I don’t get the practice which itself improves writing; but I also don’t get the feedback and appreciation which is so important to keeping at it.

I have set up other blogs, but I have found that I’m not really the blogging type. I’m trying to make a bit more of my vox site, because I’m interested in its social aspects. I hope that keeping this site separate, simple and free of blogosphere bells and whistles will help remind me that this one is about the writing rather than the social. Sounds like a plan, anyway, and that is more than there has been so far!

Yep, that’s right, another blog for steve…

First, the idea is to install (yay, done!) and test mephisto…

Second, this might end up being my new personal blog - with a focus on my writing and research.

Third, see First