Blaugust Prompts, Week 1

I’ll just hop into it then, yeah? Here be dragons the prompts, as they are presented (and link to the post):

• What made you decide to do Blaugust this year, and what are your personal goals?
• Did you start preparing for Blaugust before the August 1st start date? If so, what did you do ahead of time to make sure you’d stay on track?
• Do you remember how you heard about Blaugust for the first time?
• If this isn’t your first Blaugust, what keeps you coming back to do this year after year?
• Community Builder Bonus Prompt: Who are the Blaugust bloggers who you keep reading all year round?
• Group Project: Tell us about your first blog!

Why Blog the August?

One of the blogs I read mentioned it. Here’s that post at fyr.io. I also speak a bit about this in my first Blaugust post:

I’ve long wanted to write more, mostly as a means to catalog some ideas and also to keep tabs on my progress. Though, sometimes in the hopes it finds others who share an interest, and perhaps they reach out. Conversations, connections, community - all that jazz.

Did I make any preparations? If so, what?

Nope! Read about it on July 31st, after rambling about DAc0da, and figured I’d give it a go.

How’d I first learn of Blaugust?

I’m certain I’ve heard of it before this year. Can’t recall exactly when or where. Either in my feeds, or in a Discord community I’m in.

Which Blaugusts do I Read Regularly?

Again, not sure about this one. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some blogs I follow which participated in Blaugust. I think I would be surprised if any started because of Blaugust. In week 3, I’ll have a proper compiled list of some of those blogs. When I review that, I think I’ll try to figure this out!

Group Project: Tell Us About Your Very First Blog

Well, the very first post on this blog is a compilation of the travel logs of my visit to Ireland, in the halcyon days of yore (2010). It’s rather fun going back to review them, both for the obvious reason of remembering times in Ireland, but also for the tangential little snippets. Reading it still “reads” like me; I don’t think I’ve changed my… uh… voice? Much since then. My writing voice. I love reading my little updates on Kingdom of Loathing. I played much more consistently back then, but still dip in every now and again (I’m Azulien, #1214857). Also, we ate a lot of Chinese food in Ireland.

That being said, I don’t think this was my first blog post ever. I can’t remember what that could be. I remember trying to figure out a name, and figuring out where I’ll blog, and exploring self-hosted options. Though at the time it wasn’t really “self-hosting” as I understand and participate today. It was more owning my own domain, and then figuring out how to use that. To me, back then, that was self-hosting. I still had bright eyes and hope for the Big Tech companies, thinking they could really bring about such cool and positive changes.

A friend suggested the name “Billettante”, as a port manteau of “Bill” (my name) and “Dilettante” (noun, One who dabbles in an art or a field of knowledge). I still rather like that name; I should figure out how I could use it…

What are your personal goals?

Post at least once a week. No topic focus or anything, just make one post a week. The reason I don’t do this normally is, basically and literally, I forget to. There are many, many things in my life that don’t get done because I forget to do them. They range in importance.

When it comes to writing, because it’s a task which does require some specialized attention (writing the post in a dedicated directory of a dedicated repository, with specific formatting), I perceive a barrier of difficulty, whether it’s the case or not. This little bit of friction is often enough for me to pivot to something else, and then I forget I wanted to write something.

It’s a bad habit, and something I want to lessen, which is a side-effect I’m hoping to realize. A related side-effect is building a good habit of “just doing the thing.” By keeping to a schedule and completing a task, I’m hoping I can translate that effort to other pursuits, such as practicing music, tracking my food, and working on my various programming projects.

While the goal is simply one post a week, I do want to try “hijacking” a post or two to talk about something I’ve wanted to get done, and get it done in the process. The biggest example of this is TMUX. That’s the next post.

This is a post in the 2026 Blaugust Series. You can find more details here. If I get my act together, I’ll include a link to an index, or a list of other posts related to Blaugust 2026 right here. Thanks for reading this ramble. Be good, do good, stay hydrated, go Bills.