events/2026-03-28-hwc-writing
Homebrew Website Club - Writing Edition was an IndieWeb meetup on Zoom held on 2026-03-28.
- Archived from: https://etherpad.indieweb.org/2026-03-28-hwc-writing
Participants
capjamesg - https://jamesg.blog
jo - https://dead.gardenThomas Vander Wal - https://vanderwal.net
- Ricardo - https://pinho.org
zacharykaiwrites - https://zacharykai.net- Ana Oliva - https://anaolivia.micro.blog
Mike Kupietz - https://michaelkupietz.com/
Notes
- Welcome to HWC Writing Hour!
- For the next 90 minutes, we'll have time to chat about all things writing on the web!
zacharykaiwrites is taking notes! Feel free to add/remove anything, but don't be surprised if it's reorganized.
Topics Discussed
Being Perceived And Perceiving
- Writing about nature is often a 'safe' ground, because no one can tell you you're wrong, because it's purely experiencially based, and entirely personal
- Do you do an experience justice by trying to 'force' one way of approaching it, or do you split it into multiple posts or essays to cover the full scope?
- If each is special in its own way, let them breathe. Why are both or multiple so important? What's the connecting thread, if any? Are there any familiar themes?
- If it's important to you, it's worth telling, however it ends up being in the final piece
Collaborative Writing
Thomas Vander Wal mentioned the value of 'writing circles', where you write a piece and give it to someone to edit
- Would be an excellent idea for an IndieWeb project or ad-hoc things?
- How could we take the principle of 'tool libraries' and create a 'indieweb sharing community'?
- Perhaps a bartering system? Or a directory of folks and what they offer?
How Do You Think About Covering 'New Grounds' In Writing
- Raised by
capjamesg - how do you approach new topics or concepts? Do you need to get in a different mindset? Is it difficult or easy? Do you have your comfort topics?
Thomas Vander Wal keeps 'blog fodder' with a list of all his ideas for what to write.. Has a 'tag' in Obsidian for the 'blog fodder' which organizes into a database sorted by potential site, status, and priority. Has a whole system for tracking his posts' progress (stub, draft, published) and moves them when finished.
- Has automated much of the tagging and capturing process with tags and folder.
- Has a section at the top of his daily notes which is a 'to-do list', including posts yet to be written.
- Blocks time to focus on writing if there's something that needs drafting.
- Often looks at posts already on his blog for things to interlink, but sometimes discovers other things that need updating or interlinking. Such is the never-ending process of running a website!
- Also keeps a 'snippets' subset of the 'blog fodder' like interesting phrases or thoughts
- Template:capjames finds himself wanting to cover new grounds while still keeping within his prefered writing style
- How to reconcile wanting to offer solutions on building web things when not usually writing opinion pieces
- Almost all his blog posts start as a note dashed off before he forgets (always glad when he writes it!)
- Also wants to write more about 'scale', 'growth', and community
- Michael finds often in the IndieWeb chat he's replying to someone and surprises himself
- A big user of the 'Apple Notes' app on his phone: never too far away in case of ideas
- How do you approach new subjects when not knowing much about it? Can you 'still write about them'?
- Fear of all kinds (imagined pushback, others' opinions, being fact-checked) often holds us back
- There's an urge to often research everything first before we begin writing in case we miss one tiny detail
- What if? What if? What if? Until the end of time...
- Personal blogs often provide a better context for easing into new things (there's more 'room' for error)
- Fear of all kinds (imagined pushback, others' opinions, being fact-checked) often holds us back
- It's so easy to post topics on things you love because the passion carries you through
- 'New Grounds' could be something
Publishing Different Forms On The Web
- Asked by Ricardo: finding a solution for publishing long-form, chaptered content that's comfortable to read?
capjamesg recommends recommends splitting long posts into multiple parts and interlinking them. The advantage of this people tend to find longer posts more intimidating than longer books- He also recommends showing a 'progress' bar to make reading longer posts more comfortable
- Publishing books with just HTML isn't too difficult: just a file per chapter with a table of contents on each
- The longer the post, the more necessary subheadings become. It structures things and makes it skimmable
- For any series of posts you do, it's an excellent idea to create an 'index' or 'table of contents' page for it, linked on all the indivudal pages. Also an excellent idea is a specific tag or category for it
Thomas Vander Wal often gets mistaken for an academic as this structure is common in that writing style
- The 'voice' of one's writing is often the drawcard for readers but sometimes has to be toned down for publications. Which is the beauty of having a website
- Working with editors who are editors first and writers second is a gift, you can learn so much about the craft
Thomas Vander Wal found Twitter was helpful for writing more often, but less so for publishing concrete works
- The struggles with social media is context or tone or style is often lost in endless skimming
- Sometimes creating writing that plays with this tendency makes for interesting pieces
- Do we write for skimming or do we write for full attention or try to accomodate both modes?
- Blogs on Tumblr are an excellent example of folks who combine written and visuals in creative ways
Thomas Vander Wal wonders if Tumblr is a useful place to put 'snippets' or short pieces of 'blog fodder'
- Seeds for other folks' creative works? Because there's always more ideas than time to act upon them
- When you outgrow your microblog because you need more room
Thomas Vander Wal uses his microblog for responding to people's posts (constraints help creativity)
- Maybe these are a good place for his 'snippets' and mini pieces of 'blog fodder'
- A 'sparks' blog? There's something full of potential there!
zacharykaiwrites
= Letting It Sit Vs Seizing Inspiration
- The eternal debate: seize upon the inspiration while it's here, or write it down for later?
- If you keep thinking about something, there's a reason for it. Make a note of it!
Thomas Vander Wal uses the 'Drafts' app to capture things when out and about
zacharykaiwrites uses Cal Newport's 'Working Memory' text file method for capturing ideas in Obsidian, but still hasn't organized a system for what happens to things once they go in there!Thomas Vander Wal uses the working memory model and the blogfodder list with priorities is one of my approaches to get things in blogfodder written and through the process to getting them out
- Cal Newport's Working Memory text - https://calnewport.com/deep-habits-workingmemory-txt-the-most-important-productivity-tool-youve-never-heard-of/
- Sometimes we write something and aren't sure what to do with it: letting it sit is a perfect opportunity to revisit it later as 'foundations to build on', even if you don't do anything with the original
- There's no point writing solely for publication or how it'll be percieved: for the best results, and a more relaxed mind when drafting something, leave the editing self at the door before you begin
- Writing as communicating, as self-soothing, as discovering what you think
- Ideas often need time for workshopping and refining
- The IndieWeb Carnivals (https://indieweb.org/IndieWeb_Carnival) are an excellent source of writing inspiration, and are beautiful in their flexibility, you can come back to the prompts when you feel ready
Notetaking
- The struggle of having a brilliant idea and not having anything to write it and trying to keep it in one's head
- Always carry a notebook or a phone to capture ideas, you never know when you might
- Sleeping with a notebook near your bedside helps with insomnia and flashes of inspiration
- Ana Oliva loves taking voice memos: uses the dashcam in their car to take them while driving
- Voice Notes capture the fascinating transition from oral to printed to digital literary culture
- These also provide far more context than text ever could (background ambiance, your mood or vocal tone)
- Makes me think of this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVeAuwU-uuU
- How do people think about systems for notetaking and 'actioning' those notes? Do things combine together, are they all kept seperate, categorized and organized for later or removed once finished with?
- Keeping a dream diary is interesting but there's the risk of a loss of context (you can't remember everything!)'
- Why do we dream what we do? An endless array of writing and wondering inspiration!
- If you get something on the web, you can share it with people!
The Travesty (Opportunity?) Of Typos
- Do we let them go or do we always double-check before publishing?
- Letting something sit before releasing it helps you regain confidence or a fresh perspective.
- On the other hand, writing on a whim and hitting publish helps with consistency and fresh ideas.
capjamesg had someone email him about a typo on a two-year old blog post, and what could've been a one-time helpful email turned into an interesting discussion
- Should we be encouraging people to notify us if they notice errors?
Thomas Vander Wal modified one of his websites so he has an 'edit' screen when logged in and looking at it, which makes it easier to revise past post or interlink things
What Does The Word 'Trust' Mean?
Thomas Vander Wal doesn't use this word in working with client because it means too many things to different people. It's not often the most helpful word to describe a desired outcome.
- The initial post from years ago is https://personalinfocloud.com/blog/2011/01/25/removing-trust-html/
Links/Things Mentioned
- Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ has examples of books published as HTML files
- 'Shift Happens', an interconnected series of posts
Thomas Vander Wal wrote
- https://jamesg.blog/advent-of-patterns is how James represented a series of posts
- An example of a book published as a website: https://practicaltypography.com/
- Drafts: https://getdrafts.com/ an apple app for capturing text and sending it anywhere, and it also provides excellent voice-to-text transcription
- Cal Newport's 'Working Memory' method: https://calnewport.com/deep-habits-workingmemory-txt-the-most-important-productivity-tool-youve-never-heard-of/
- Taylor Swift's recent speech where she discusses feedback on creative works: https://www.elle.com/culture/celebrities/a70860871/taylor-swift-2026-iheartradio-music-awards-artist-of-the-year-speech-transcript/
- A 'trades' page on people's websites: https://zacharykai.net/trades
- Trading blog post titles: https://zacharykai.net/lists/titletrade
- Tool libraries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tool_library
- The eternal struggle writers have:

- Interesting thoughts about 'giving away your ideas': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNrmGBjI5bY
- A 'chaotic' writing prompt: writing a song or lyrics for one
zacharykaiwrites wrote lyrics for a friend's song years ago: https://open.spotify.com/track/0gUwhZDxMLeoiewpMkpj9w- Current IndieWeb Carnival: https://jamesg.blog/2026/03/01/indieweb-carnival-museum-memories
- Detroit Institute of Arts Museum: https://dia.org/
- The 'Bear Blog' blogging platform: https://bearblog.dev/
- The IndieWeb Carnival for February 2026: https://zacharykai.net/notes/icfeb26end
- Ana's IndieWeb Carnival post: https://anaolivia.micro.blog/through-the-micro-lens/
- Ghent, Belgium: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghent
- IWC Dusseldorf: https://indieweb.org/2026/D%C3%BCsseldorf
Writing Plans
Thomas Vander Wal wants to finish his post for this month's IndieWeb Carnival(me too lol- ana )
zacharykaiwrites thinks it's probably time to go through his draft folder and start finishing things
Off-The-Cuff Remarks
Mike Kupietz I don't think in sentences, I think in paragraphs
Thomas Vander Wal often has paragraph length scentances
- Shall we invent a new word to describe these? Sentgraphs? Partenses?
- Is that why they called it 'Twitter'? Because ideas come and go as quickly as birds?
- I can tell we're all writers because we're thinking through our responses so deeply
- Living and dying by the notes app
- A city as a museum, culture as curation
- ...