Blaugust 2025: Staying Motivated
I’ve participated in every previous Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event. Prior to that I was involved in the Newbie Blogger Initiative or NBI as it was affectionately known. I have therefore written quite a lot of blogging advice and suggestions over the years. If anyone feels disposed to do so, you can access them all by clicking on the “blogging” option on the top menu of this blog. However, it is important to remember that a lot of the ideas I have advocated and written about over the years are purely subjective. Not all advice or guidance works for everyone. People have different ideas about blogging, different approaches to it and different aspirations. This year has highlighted some quite distinct differences among bloggers which has been most illuminating.
I’ve participated in every previous Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event. Prior to that I was involved in the Newbie Blogger Initiative or NBI as it was affectionately known. I have therefore written quite a lot of blogging advice and suggestions over the years. If anyone feels disposed to do so, you can access them all by clicking on the “blogging” option on the top menu of this blog. However, it is important to remember that a lot of the ideas I have advocated and written about over the years are purely subjective. Not all advice or guidance works for everyone. People have different ideas about blogging, different approaches to it and different aspirations. This year has highlighted some quite distinct differences among bloggers which has been most illuminating.
It is currently “staying motivated” week in this year’s event. As ever, there are some optional questions which can be used as writing prompts. Usually, I just offer advice and such like but this time round, I’ll actually answer the questions.
Q: What tricks do you use to keep yourself motivated when something feels impossible?
A: I gamify the process. I set specific criteria and if they are met, then I reward myself.
Q: What are your blogging goals? Do you think participating in Blaugust is getting you closer to where you want to be?
A: First to blog consistently for a month. Secondly, I want to increase my readership. The former is achievable. The latter requires a well defined promotional and marketing policy. That is not within my skillset, so it requires the involvement of a third party and capital expenditure. At present I am still considering whether to do this or invest in a new and separate project.
Q: What do you think you’ll get out of completing your Blaugust goals?
A: The same personal satisfaction I got from writing consistently for a month that I did last year.
Q: What drives you to blog?
A: Robert E. Howard used to burn the midnight oil and write prodigiously because he believed that if he stopped, the spirit of Conan would behead him. I write mainly for pleasure.
Q: Are you happy with your Blaugust so far? If so, why? If not, why not?
A: Yes. I’ve not struggled for ideas and I don’t find writing a chore.
Q: How important is goal setting & reaching your goals to you overall?
A: Quite important. If I reach my writing goal then I’m having a fancy meal at the best Indian restaurant in the borough and also buying a litre of good quality gin.
Q: Did you read any posts during Blaugust (or before) that you found particularly inspirational? Share them!
A: There have been some very good posts from Blaugust 2025 participants. Especially those that have struggled and written about it. I admire their honesty. Perhaps a quote from Stephen King may help those looking for motivation. “The scariest moment is always just before you start.”
I have been writing online for nearly two decades. I don’t claim to be good or accomplished but what I can say with certainty is that the more often you write, the easier it becomes. For those who are new to writing a blog and the Blaugust Festival of Blogging, possibly the biggest hurdle that you now have to get over, is writing your first post of the month. You spent the lead up to this event sorting out your blog templates, fine tuning the backend and possibly banking some ideas. Or you may have decided to just wing it and make it all up as you go along. Both are perfectly valid approaches. However, there is one thing left to do that cannot be put off, avoided or danced around. Writing. At some point you’ve got to do it. Or bail on the event. The proverbial “shit or get off the pot”.
If you take a cursory look at a calendar you will see that the month of July is fast coming to an end. That means that Blaugust 2026 Festival of Blogging starts in a few days time! If you’re participating, or thinking of doing so, the next few days present a golden opportunity to do some practical organising and basic preparation. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. Feel free to just do things as they come, so to speak, if that’s your approach. However, for most of us, it helps if we have some kind of plan in place and make some arrangements in advance. I personally prefer this approach and like to have some ideas for blog posts in the bank. It is also useful to have “options” if something doesn’t go to plan. For those who are new to Blaugust, here are a few ideas regarding preparation that may be of use to you. As ever, your personal mileage may vary and ultimately you are best off adopting a strategy that suits your writing style and personal schedule.
Prior to last year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging, I upgraded Contains Moderate Peril to the latest version of Squarespace. There are still some aspects of the site that need fine tuning but overall, I am happy with the appearance of my blog and its respective functionality. With this year’s writing event fast approach, I decided to tackle over the last few days, some of those finer points that need tweaking. I have wanted a post counter on the site for a long time but unfortunately there is no native Squarespace widget for this basic function. I also felt the need to upgrade the blogroll, as the current one didn’t support RSS feeds from certain sites (e.g. Google Blogger) and was dependent upon a third party service, Elfsight, which wasn’t ideal. Both of these issues have now been addressed and I am pleased with the results. There is now a post counter on the Blog Archive page, which seems a logical place to have it and the Blogroll is now far more comprehensive.
Next month the annual Blaugust: Festival of Blogging begins. Roundabout this time each year, I try to write a promotional post to raise awareness of the event and encourage potential participants. However, as I’ve done this quite a few times before, each year it is becomes increasingly difficult to present the essential facts about Blaugust: Festival of Blogging in an interesting fashion. There’s nothing worse than writing a post and feeling that you’re just covering old ground. So, this year, I thought I’d try something different and present the most important information about this annual event, as if it were a conversation between myself and an interested passer by. Feel free to attribute novelty voices for each party in your own head, while you read this. If it helps, try imagining that this discussion is happening between two celebrities or such like. Both may be wearing exotic hats but I digress. On with the scenario.
I read a blog post by Void recently, about finding a new internet home. He wrote about how he and many others have had to pick up their “digital roots” and migrate multiple times over the years, from one platform to another. It is a position I can sympathise with as I have done likewise. Hence I like the idea of having a place online where I hangout by default. My own blog is an anchor for me but it is not quite the same thing as a platform or online portal where I can find all my friends and colleagues, share content and shoot the breeze. It’s a curious thing, because as I typed that last sentence it struck how such a sentiment may seem alien to others. There may well be people who like to have a finger in multiple pies and who are happy to frequent and flit between various social media apps, Discord servers and subreddits. I prefer to focus my efforts on a single instance. A place that suits my requirements, allows me to put down roots and become part of the furniture. Like a virtual Diogenes Club.
Everyday, once I’m up, I sit at my desk in my office, fire up my PC and log into Feedly. I have various RSS feeds grouped by category, which I slowly trawl through and read anything that catches my eye. I have one curated feed named “Blaugust” named after the yearly festival of blogging event. It has over 250 blogs listed, many of which are former participants. Most of these regularly post. Hence there’s a lot to get through and so I don’t read all of them. However there are a few that I always checkout. Mainly because they’re the personal musings of some of our writing community’s oldest and most prodigious members. The sorts of guys and gals who are part of the furniture. They’ve always been there and it feels like they always will. Posting their thoughts, sharing their enthusiasm and spreading the love, so to speak. One of these blogs, is Tales of the Aggronaut. written by Belghast.
On Friday 26th June, I had another random spike in internet traffic to Contains Moderate Peril. The statistical package that comes with my Squarespace account recorded over 13k visits in less than 24 hours, which is not typical (although I wish it was). However, all of these visits to my blog arrived via the default homepage and spent between 1 and 2 minutes there. Hence, it was obvious that this was not human traffic, as there was no evidence of any searches being made of content that is available on my site, nor of the “visitors” clicking on any of the links on the top menu and viewing other posts. This was undoubtedly AI traffic arriving at the designated homepage and simply parsing the site. I had a similar spate of this sort of web traffic last November. The only difference on that occasion is that the traffic all came from China. This time round it hailed from the US. I suspect that this is something that will happen more often as companies set their AI loose on the net for what is effectively training.
In the last post in this series, I specified the need for a plan with regard to upgrading my blog. Well a plan has emerged, been refined and has now been formally adopted. Rather than migrate Contains Moderate Peril to a new platform and effectively have to rebuild all the content, I am going to upgrade my existing presence on Squarespace. This decision was made for two reasons. Time and money. Migrating to a new platform will take a lot of time and incur additional costs. Upgrading the existing website will take less time and has no cost implications. That is not to say that it will be easy. It has become abundantly clear that the upgrade process will break stuff and that all published posts will have to be manually repaired. Hence my choice boils down to the lesser of two evils.
This year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging has reached an end and it would appear that this event has been well received by those who have participated in it. I believe that there were 168 bloggers taking part this year, many of whom have not participated before. Some were new to blogging, where others simply wished to see if they could increase their writing output. As ever there was a wide variety of blog styles and subject matters and it has been most interesting to read new posts every day. I have attempted to leave comments and positive feedback where I can and I hope that some of these new blogs that I’ve discovered continue to write. Well done to everyone who took part. I hope it has been an enjoyable and informative process and that you have learned from it. I know that at least one blogger has determined that writing online is not for them, which is a valuable lesson.
There is currently a group writing prompt available as part of this year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging which has piqued my interest. It asks the question “what is the oldest draft post you have” and suggests that it is revived in some manner. I have dozens of draft posts in a folder in my Google Drive. Many are film reviews or film related. The oldest of which dates back to summer 2010. Rather than write a straight forward review of Blake Edwards 1968 comedy The Party, I rather foolishly thought at the time that I’d tackle the issue of whether the film is sufficiently racist to make it beyond the pale. Let it suffice to say that I quickly found myself bogged down in the complexities of the subject and thus never completed the blog post.
I’ve participated in every previous Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event. Prior to that I was involved in the Newbie Blogger Initiative or NBI as it was affectionately known. I have therefore written quite a lot of blogging advice and suggestions over the years. If anyone feels disposed to do so, you can access them all by clicking on the “blogging” option on the top menu of this blog. However, it is important to remember that a lot of the ideas I have advocated and written about over the years are purely subjective. Not all advice or guidance works for everyone. People have different ideas about blogging, different approaches to it and different aspirations. This year has highlighted some quite distinct differences among bloggers which has been most illuminating.
This post is courtesy of a Blaugust: Festival of Blogging writing prompt. Specifically, “write about something that’s pretty insignificant overall that you have a very strong feeling about”. Effectively a low stake hot take, to coin a phrase. Twenty years ago I could have provided dozens of examples. People who eat with their mouth open, the decline of public toilets and what is the point of male body hair?
However, old age has calmed my tumultuous soul and I no longer allow an excess of trivia to get under my skin. That being said, there are a few things that continue to set my teeth on edge. The immediate problem I’m presented with as far as this blog post goes, is choosing one to write about that won’t get me sectioned, defenestrated or sent to Coventry.
Today is my blogging anniversary. I have been writing online consistently for 18 years. My earliest blogs no longer exist, although they can be found via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. My first blog was a Lord of the Rings Online fansite called Misadventures in LOTRO. After a while this morphed into a wider gaming website; Misadventures in Gaming. However, I soon discovered that I wanted to write about more than just video games, so I decided to start from scratch and created Contains Moderate Peril in February 2010. This blog endured and has been my main online presence ever since. It has moved several times for various reasons. For a while I had a sponsor, as well as a reasonably sized audience and had dreams of making money from my writing and podcast. But it wasn’t to be and now I just write primarily for my own peace of mind and amusement.
This year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging has already raised a very interesting debate. An old one that habitually comes up when discussing blogs. Namely, whether a blog should or should not have “comments” enabled. However this time round there is a different slant on things. Rather than the usual binary choice of having comments enabled or disabled on your site, this time round there is a third option available. Leaving comments via email or a third party service such as Mastodon. Both of these additional options keep comments conspicuously at arms length from your website. Furthermore, the email option makes the comments private, instead of in the public domain. All of which puts a subtly different spin on conventional notions of blog comments and makes this ongoing discussion all the more interesting.
There is currently an interesting discussion on the Blaugust: Festival of Blogging Discord Server about writing every day. It can be quite a polarising subject but the one thing that everyone agrees on is the fact that it is hard to do. A daily schedule requires multiple factors to come together to be sustainable. It is also fair to say that if you go about it unprepared, it will be a very hard learning curve. Ultimately it may not work out and then there is the risk of a bad experience negatively impacting upon your wider writing plans. Hence it is not something I would recommend to new bloggers or those who aren’t keen on a baptism of fire. Some writers like to test their metal and jumping feet first, into daily blogging may be the sort of challenge they seek. For everyone else I would urge them to plan a strategy and consider the following point if you wish to try it.
Last year, prior to Blaugust 2024, I looked at the viability of upgrading or replacing my current blog template. The mobile version of Contains Moderate Peril holds up quite well but the site looks somewhat tired on a desktop PC. I spoke to several design companies that dealt with Squarespace based websites and they all said the same thing. The existing template is a decade old and cannot support a lot of the current functionality available. Hence it needs to be replaced. However, such a change could potentially break the existing formatting of nearly 2,000 posts. This would create a great deal of work. Hence, I decided at the time to postpone such a decision and I simply tinkered with the branding of my website and left the matter be. A year later and the issue has resurfaced. The same problems exist and the hosting costs for Squarespace have increased. I now pay £16 a month.
Oh look, another blogging advice post. What a surprise. I suppose the internet is awash with such information. Furthermore, a lot of that advice comes from a commercial perspective and the assumption that the writer intends to monetise their blog right from the start. The notion of writing for pleasure or fandom sometimes seems to get drowned out in all the online white noise. Anyhow, I’m going to offer up for your consideration, 10 tips of things not to do when you start a blog. I’m sure I’ve mentioned some before or even written a similar post that is now buried somewhere in Contains Moderate Peril. But good advice bears repeating and it is the first day of Blaugust: Festival of Blogging 2025 I think it prudent to make such a post. Please note these are not technical points such as using SEO or alt text etc. This is more about your approach to blogging as well as some practical logistical considerations.
What is the key to writing? It is a question that most new bloggers ponder. It’s also something that older, established bloggers consider on a regular basis. The subject has been dissected, analysed and written about at great length over the years and there is plenty of advice available online. You’ll find millions of websites telling you to consider picking the right niche or subjects, how to find your voice and writing style, as well as establishing a regular publishing schedule. Not all the advice out there is good and not all of it is bad. There certainly isn’t any “one size fits all” solution. There are multiple factors to consider when you start writing and you have to find answers that suit you. All forms of writing are a personal form of self expression and unique to their author. Therefore, one’s approach to writing should be similarly personal and unique.
August is fast approaching, so you know what that means? Yes, the annual Blaugust: Festival of Blogging is nearly upon us. This long established (twelve years now), community driven event is designed to extol the virtues of blogging and encourage everyone and anyone to give it a try. In an age where video and audio based content are often favoured for their immediacy and reach, we advocate strongly for the joys and benefits that come through traditional writing. Blaugust strives to motivate those who have thought about writing online in some shape or form, but have never got around to doing so, as well as rallying those who have tried it already but fallen by the wayside. We try to provide practical support, writing prompts and advice to all who participate. There is an optional Discord community where participants can hangout, exchange ideas and share their writing. The emphasis is on powering through “writer’s block” and most importantly, having fun.
The last time I wrote a post about quotes I only included one proper example. That was because it was somewhat lengthy. So I filled the remainder of the article with film quotes, which I found amusing because I do like a good pop culture reference. However, it can be argued that they weren’t really in the spirit of the original writing prompt. So this time round I have collated ten proper quotations from various intellectuals, celebrities and bon viveurs. I also made sure that they’re not all from people who are dead. Many of them do come across as somewhat smug and self satisfied. Such is the nature of quotes. I think the main reason we sometimes feel this way is because a really good one hits home with its sage wisdom. So here are a few that I find interesting. I’ve added a brief annotation as to why I particularly like each one.
Every year, Blaugust: Festival of Blogging comes around and I happily participate. I also try to encourage others to do so by giving reasons why writing and being creative in general are worthwhile pastimes. At times it does feel that I’m repeating myself, so this time round I shall keep it very simple. Writing is fun, regardless of how you do it. The benefits of being part of a friendly and supportive community are so obvious, do I really need to list them? Blaugust is always one of the high points of my year and I’ve never regretted the time I’ve spent participating. The “rules” are simple. You do as little or as much as you see fit. You share your content and if you wish to, can interact with others over on the community Discord. There’s no pressure from anyone and if you approach the event with the right mindset, you don’t need to put any pressure on yourself. So follow the link above, read Belghast’s post and consider signing up? To quote Alexei Sayle, “you’ve nothing to lose but your wafers”. No, I have no idea what it means, either.
This is the last week of Blaugust 2023: Festival of Blogging and it is customary at this point to reflect on the event and one’s own contribution to it. For me, the stand out aspect of this year is the number of people participating and the diversity of blogs. I find it most reassuring that so many people have chosen to express themselves online and share their thoughts and insights. It has also been most gratifying to see so many people join the Discord server. There have been a lot of interesting and enjoyable discussions over the last few weeks. I hope that the support and resources available have proven useful for new and returning bloggers and that the event has been beneficial for them. I always find that Blaugust is good for bolstering my enthusiasm for writing and getting me back in the proverbial saddle.
I have participated in Blaugust numerous times over the years and also in several other similar events. I have therefore written about the subject of “staying motivated” quite a few times already and as a result it is quite hard to come up with a new angle on the problem and not to sound like a scratched record. I also appreciate that my rather hardline and fundamentalist message of “stop complaining and just write, no excuses” may not necessarily resonate or inspire everyone. We all have to tackle this problem in our own unique way. So today, I’ve decided to adopt a more conciliatory stance and offer five straight forward and practical points that may help the aspiring blogger to keep on writing in the weeks ahead.
It's Creator Appreciation Week (August 13th – August 19th) for those participating in Blaugust: Festival of Blogging 2023. What does that mean in plain English? It means I am going to write a post specifically about someone or a group of people who create content that I enjoy. Now that is not a short list. I subscribe to dozens of YouTube channels and even more blogs via Feedly. However, it is not practical to try and write about all of these. So I have had to think long and hard about selecting one creator to highlight. It’s quite a difficult choice because I enjoy a multitude of content for different reasons. However, I have chosen one which regularly keeps me entertained, has a good community associated and also offers an element of interaction which is quite unique. It is this last factor which has tipped the balance.
The first thing that springs to mind with such a post is the song “Introduce Yourself” by Faith No More, from their 1987 album of the same name. Ah, the power of word association. I was twenty back in 1987. Young, optimistic, trying to figure out what I wanted to do in life. I finally joined the UK civil service the following year as it was a practical solution to an unresolved question. But I digress. My personal employment history is not the point of this post as I don’t think I am personally defined by my line of work. So what actually does define a person? Their actions? The company they keep? John Saxon’s character, Roper, in the film Enter the Dragon.said “a man's strength can be measured by his appetites. Indeed, a man's strength flows from his appetites”. But he was wearing flared trousers so I remain sceptical of such a philosophy. As for me, I like to write. Always have done.
Yes, it's that time of year again. When our community of bloggers, streamers and podcasters come together for Blaugust 2022. The event is intended to celebrate independent content creators and their work, as well as encouraging those who are new or and returning to the field. Blaugust 2022 is all about offering a helping hand, sharing each other’s work and having fun. It is an event I participate in every year and one that I find personally very beneficial. It is a great way to meet and support new writers and make friends. I also find that Blaugust is key to revitalising my own enthusiasm for writing, which flags from time to time. I’ve been blogging in some shape or form for over 15 years and like any hobby, my relationship with it ebbs and flows. At present I’m not writing as much as usual and finding it harder to find subjects I wish to explore.
About three years ago, I wrote a very similar post to this one. Titled “Ride off into the sunset” it was an account of bloggers leaving or retiring from the community. Especially those who are established and part of the proverbial furniture. I referenced Zubon from Kill Ten Rats as an example and naturally invoked the mantra that nothing remains the same forever. Many of us go through periods of our life where a specific activity or pastime galvanises us into action. We focus on that activity for sometime and it becomes an integral part of our life and even identity. However, eventually we move on usually because such a hobby isn’t sustainable. Modern life makes too many demands upon our time. Plus we all change as individuals. What delights us today may well depress us in a year’s time. This was the thrust of that post and I now find myself in the sad but inevitable situation of writing it again.
Last Tuesday, I noticed a drop in traffic to Contains Moderate Peril. As I’m currently only writing every other day, I assumed that it is normal to have occasions when visits to the site may decrease. However the decline has persisted and to date, works out broadly as a 20% reduction of traffic to my blog. At present, I have a lot going on in my life so blogging and website growth are not my highest priorities. However, I am a firm believer in cause and effect and so a situation like this must be down due to other external factors, rather than just the capricious nature of my readership. So I searched online to see if Google had made any changes and I subsequently found that they had rolled out an algorithm update starting on Tuesday 22nd February 2022. Apparently Google Page Experience Update For Desktop “is designed to highlight pages that offer great user experiences. Page experience remains one of many factors our systems take into account. Given this, sites generally should not expect drastic changes”. I beg to differ.
My personal podcast journey started back in 2010 when I effectively invited myself onto the Mordor or Bust podcast. The three of us who were involved in the production of that show were learning as we went along. I recently listened to an old episode and despite our enthusiasm, it is quite rough around the edges from a technical perspective. I think that the biggest mistake that I made at the time was not investing in a better quality microphone. I sound like I’m at the bottom of a well. It’s hardly surprising as I was using a very cheap analog desk microphone which I think only cost a few pounds from PC World. Roll on eleven years and I’ve been invited to be a guest on the Beyond Bossfights podcast. It’s nice to be back in the saddle again, so to speak. Up until now, I’ve been using my Razer gaming headset for any previous podcast recordings but I’ve decided to take the opportunity to overhaul my technical setup.
Blaugust 2023: Staying Motivated
I have participated in Blaugust numerous times over the years and also in several other similar events. I have therefore written about the subject of “staying motivated” quite a few times already and as a result it is quite hard to come up with a new angle on the problem and not to sound like a scratched record. I also appreciate that my rather hardline and fundamentalist message of “stop complaining and just write, no excuses” may not necessarily resonate or inspire everyone. We all have to tackle this problem in our own unique way. So today, I’ve decided to adopt a more conciliatory stance and offer five straight forward and practical points that may help the aspiring blogger to keep on writing in the weeks ahead.
“Gonna fly now, flying high now” and other motivational stuff
I have participated in Blaugust numerous times over the years and also in several other similar events. I have therefore written about the subject of “staying motivated” quite a few times already and as a result it is quite hard to come up with a new angle on the problem and not to sound like a scratched record. I also appreciate that my rather hardline and fundamentalist message of “stop complaining and just write, no excuses” may not necessarily resonate or inspire everyone. We all have to tackle this problem in our own unique way. So today, I’ve decided to adopt a more conciliatory stance and offer five straight forward and practical points that may help the aspiring blogger to keep on writing in the weeks ahead.
Focus on your own blog and not what others are doing. It is natural to look to other blogs for ideas and inspiration. Ideas for both templates and posts are shared and this is how popular formats and styles become established. However, other people’s blogs can also be a distraction. Especially if you feel that they are gaining a degree of success and yours isn’t quite getting the same sort of traction. Just like obsessing over website traffic and stats, worrying too much about what others are doing is problematic. It can sow the seeds of discontent and undermine your output. Which is why it is important to stay focused upon your own writing. There comes a point where you must draw a line under tweaking your blog’s design and apply your energies to writing. A fancy looking blog without any regular content is redundant.
Brainstorm ideas. Keep notes somewhere practical. Be it in a physical notebook or electronically. Write down ideas, as and when they come to you. Better still, brainstorm potential writing prompts and talking points. Write them down, put them in some semblance of order and start banking ideas for the future. Write draft posts if that is your style and get the basics down first. Ideas become bullet points, bullet points become paragraphs and paragraphs can be built into a full blog post. If you have a good idea, don’t squander the opportunity. You may have an angle on a particular subject that others haven’t covered yet.
Hannibal Smith likes a plan
Plan posts. Brainstorming ideas and collating draft posts allows you to plan content in advance. Some bloggers like to write spontaneously or react to what is happening around them. But not everyone favours such an ad hoc and impromptu style. Hence planning posts in advance may well increase your chances of them completed and out the proverbial door. If fate provides you with both the time and inclination to write two posts in a day, then seize the opportunity. Some subjects may well need to be tackled in more than one post. Therefore planning an appropriate arc to accommodate a weighty subject may be the best approach. Committing to a series of posts may also provide a degree of stability that you need. It means not having to think of new material for a while which can take the pressure off.
Set achievable goals. Blogging becomes a lot easier if you are entirely honest with yourself. We all know what we can and cannot achieve with regard to writing and balancing the requirements of the rest of our life. Therefore, don’t commit publicly to writing material everyday and then fail to achieve it. You will disappoint yourself and your readers. If you can realistically post one post a week then embrace that reality and ensure that you do your best. Placing unnecessary pressure upon yourself is counterproductive, so don’t do it. Be candid about what you can produce, with the time and resources you have and then focus upon getting it done. Something is usually better than nothing when it comes to blogging.
Reward yourself. Finally, reward yourself after writing. If you have set yourself a target of three posts in a week and you achieve it, then claim whatever prize you have set for yourself. A carrot on the end of a stick is better at motivating than just a stick on its own. Gamification is often a good tool to increase productivity. So find a way to reward yourself that will actively encourage you to write. Obviously, if you fail to hit your target and still reward yourself, you’re an unconscionable hypocrite and calumniator, who will burn in perdition’s flames. But that’s blogging for you and the universally accepted code of writing. No blog post. No cakes. Or meth. Or whatever your personal indulgence is.
Today’s post is part of the Blaugust 2026 Group project, which features a series of writing prompts set for specific dates throughout the month. The idea being that everyone who wishes to participate can write about the same subject, riff off each other’s posts and enjoy a shared experience. In many respect having a common writing prompt levels the playing field and provides a sense of common purpose among those who take part. Today’s group project prompt asks the question “tell us all about your very first blog”. An unambiguous and interesting question that will hopefully prove enjoyable to write about and informative to others.
I have been writing online for nearly two decades. I don’t claim to be good or accomplished but what I can say with certainty is that the more often you write, the easier it becomes. For those who are new to writing a blog and the Blaugust Festival of Blogging, possibly the biggest hurdle that you now have to get over, is writing your first post of the month. You spent the lead up to this event sorting out your blog templates, fine tuning the backend and possibly banking some ideas. Or you may have decided to just wing it and make it all up as you go along. Both are perfectly valid approaches. However, there is one thing left to do that cannot be put off, avoided or danced around. Writing. At some point you’ve got to do it. Or bail on the event. The proverbial “shit or get off the pot”.
If you take a cursory look at a calendar you will see that the month of July is fast coming to an end. That means that Blaugust 2026 Festival of Blogging starts in a few days time! If you’re participating, or thinking of doing so, the next few days present a golden opportunity to do some practical organising and basic preparation. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. Feel free to just do things as they come, so to speak, if that’s your approach. However, for most of us, it helps if we have some kind of plan in place and make some arrangements in advance. I personally prefer this approach and like to have some ideas for blog posts in the bank. It is also useful to have “options” if something doesn’t go to plan. For those who are new to Blaugust, here are a few ideas regarding preparation that may be of use to you. As ever, your personal mileage may vary and ultimately you are best off adopting a strategy that suits your writing style and personal schedule.
Prior to last year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging, I upgraded Contains Moderate Peril to the latest version of Squarespace. There are still some aspects of the site that need fine tuning but overall, I am happy with the appearance of my blog and its respective functionality. With this year’s writing event fast approach, I decided to tackle over the last few days, some of those finer points that need tweaking. I have wanted a post counter on the site for a long time but unfortunately there is no native Squarespace widget for this basic function. I also felt the need to upgrade the blogroll, as the current one didn’t support RSS feeds from certain sites (e.g. Google Blogger) and was dependent upon a third party service, Elfsight, which wasn’t ideal. Both of these issues have now been addressed and I am pleased with the results. There is now a post counter on the Blog Archive page, which seems a logical place to have it and the Blogroll is now far more comprehensive.
Next month the annual Blaugust: Festival of Blogging begins. Roundabout this time each year, I try to write a promotional post to raise awareness of the event and encourage potential participants. However, as I’ve done this quite a few times before, each year it is becomes increasingly difficult to present the essential facts about Blaugust: Festival of Blogging in an interesting fashion. There’s nothing worse than writing a post and feeling that you’re just covering old ground. So, this year, I thought I’d try something different and present the most important information about this annual event, as if it were a conversation between myself and an interested passer by. Feel free to attribute novelty voices for each party in your own head, while you read this. If it helps, try imagining that this discussion is happening between two celebrities or such like. Both may be wearing exotic hats but I digress. On with the scenario.
I read a blog post by Void recently, about finding a new internet home. He wrote about how he and many others have had to pick up their “digital roots” and migrate multiple times over the years, from one platform to another. It is a position I can sympathise with as I have done likewise. Hence I like the idea of having a place online where I hangout by default. My own blog is an anchor for me but it is not quite the same thing as a platform or online portal where I can find all my friends and colleagues, share content and shoot the breeze. It’s a curious thing, because as I typed that last sentence it struck how such a sentiment may seem alien to others. There may well be people who like to have a finger in multiple pies and who are happy to frequent and flit between various social media apps, Discord servers and subreddits. I prefer to focus my efforts on a single instance. A place that suits my requirements, allows me to put down roots and become part of the furniture. Like a virtual Diogenes Club.
Everyday, once I’m up, I sit at my desk in my office, fire up my PC and log into Feedly. I have various RSS feeds grouped by category, which I slowly trawl through and read anything that catches my eye. I have one curated feed named “Blaugust” named after the yearly festival of blogging event. It has over 250 blogs listed, many of which are former participants. Most of these regularly post. Hence there’s a lot to get through and so I don’t read all of them. However there are a few that I always checkout. Mainly because they’re the personal musings of some of our writing community’s oldest and most prodigious members. The sorts of guys and gals who are part of the furniture. They’ve always been there and it feels like they always will. Posting their thoughts, sharing their enthusiasm and spreading the love, so to speak. One of these blogs, is Tales of the Aggronaut. written by Belghast.
On Friday 26th June, I had another random spike in internet traffic to Contains Moderate Peril. The statistical package that comes with my Squarespace account recorded over 13k visits in less than 24 hours, which is not typical (although I wish it was). However, all of these visits to my blog arrived via the default homepage and spent between 1 and 2 minutes there. Hence, it was obvious that this was not human traffic, as there was no evidence of any searches being made of content that is available on my site, nor of the “visitors” clicking on any of the links on the top menu and viewing other posts. This was undoubtedly AI traffic arriving at the designated homepage and simply parsing the site. I had a similar spate of this sort of web traffic last November. The only difference on that occasion is that the traffic all came from China. This time round it hailed from the US. I suspect that this is something that will happen more often as companies set their AI loose on the net for what is effectively training.
I recently watched a video on Patreon by someone who I actively support as a “content creator” and whose work I enjoy. I shall provide no more detail regarding their identity because they may not want their work referenced with regard to what I am going to say. During the course of their video they briefly referenced the work put into promoting a podcast they are currently producing and the relatively low audience that it has garnered so far. The comments were an aside and most certainly not said with any sense of self-pity. They were simply a statement of fact. Furthermore, I suspect they are far from unique and similar sentiments have been expressed in one way or another by anyone who has created something the published it online, only for it to be lost among the greater white noise” of the wider internet.
When I first started blogging way back in 2007, I maintained a blogroll of all my colleagues and peers’ websites. At the time this was a common practice and a way to support an expanding community. I considered this such an important aspect of the blogging scene at the time, I created a website to aggregate posts from video game blogs, called The Gaming Blog Nexus. It ran for two years and proved quite useful. However, it was tricky to administer and would frequently break as a lot of the back end widgets and plugins were created and maintained by “gifted amateurs”. I eventually shut it down due to the operating costs. When I moved my own website, Contains Moderate Peril, to Squarespace in 2015 I intended to start maintaining a blogroll once again. However, at that time there was no native support for such a thing on the platform. Hence for the last ten years, I have not had a blogroll on my website, which hasn’t sat well with me.
I was speaking to someone recently about hobbies (fortunately it wasn’t Simon Quinlank) and I mentioned that I have maintained a blog for over a 19 years. When I talked about the ongoing cost they were most surprised, as they had assumed that blogging was something that could be done for free. I guess we’ve become so accustomed to the provision of free online services such as email, that this a reasonable assumption. I pointed out that although it is indeed possible to blog for free using Blogger, it was not the optimal approach, especially if you want to maintain some degree of control over your writing. Naturally, the next question they asked was how much do I spend and I gave them a ballpark figure. All of which reminded me that I wrote a post on this very subject a few years ago. So I’ve decided to revisit the subject and see how much it currently costs to maintain Contains Moderate Peril.
Today I started the slow process of auditing every post that has been published on Contains Moderate Peril since 1st August 2016. The goal is to correct any obvious typos and replace all existing images with larger ones. The Squarespace software upgrade I applied to the website at the end of last year has finally allowed me to establish a standard format that I am happy with. Hence the ongoing audit is the perfect opportunity to apply these style rules to all posts. There are also some technical issues and matters regarding functionality that need to be addressed. I need to determine how to embed YouTube videos in such a way that they automatically scale to fit whatever device is viewing them. Another area which needs improving is the website search facility. This needs refinement so that enquiries can be more specific. Older posts also need to be more accessible, although I am still researching how best to achieve this.
It’s nearly two and half months since the Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event ended. During that time I’ve maintained a fairly regular writing schedule and I post every two days or so. Furthermore, I finally dragged my blog template, kicking and screaming, into the modern era. I tweaked a few pages and updated the content of the “about” page. The next task is to start going through all previous posts and replacing older, low resolution images with larger, more appropriate ones. This process also presents an opportunity to ensure that all posts follow a uniform style. IE Are appropriately categorised, have links to related posts at the bottom and are SEO optimised. This will be a lengthy task so I think the best approach will be to tackle two or three posts a day. Hopefully this will raise the profile of older content, which generates the lion’s hare of traffic to this site.
I use a browser extension called Control Panel for YouTube, which allows me to determine who many videos are displayed on my YouTube homepage and to filter the content that is shown. At present it is configured to display rows of six. Something that I have noticed of late, is the amount of videos with hyperbolic titles and thumbnail images created by AI. Both of which are design choices made to increase engagement. Clickbait titles are contrived to meet current SEO optimisation criteria and as such feature more and more in search results. The fact that they frequently have no relation to the subject I am researching, seems to be neither here nor there. The same issues arise with regard to AI generated images, which again frequently have no bearing on the matter. The fact that more and more content creators do this, infers that it works and is now an essential part of the process you must follow to be seen and featured in search results.
In the last post in this series, I specified the need for a plan with regard to upgrading my blog. Well a plan has emerged, been refined and has now been formally adopted. Rather than migrate Contains Moderate Peril to a new platform and effectively have to rebuild all the content, I am going to upgrade my existing presence on Squarespace. This decision was made for two reasons. Time and money. Migrating to a new platform will take a lot of time and incur additional costs. Upgrading the existing website will take less time and has no cost implications. That is not to say that it will be easy. It has become abundantly clear that the upgrade process will break stuff and that all published posts will have to be manually repaired. Hence my choice boils down to the lesser of two evils.
This year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging has reached an end and it would appear that this event has been well received by those who have participated in it. I believe that there were 168 bloggers taking part this year, many of whom have not participated before. Some were new to blogging, where others simply wished to see if they could increase their writing output. As ever there was a wide variety of blog styles and subject matters and it has been most interesting to read new posts every day. I have attempted to leave comments and positive feedback where I can and I hope that some of these new blogs that I’ve discovered continue to write. Well done to everyone who took part. I hope it has been an enjoyable and informative process and that you have learned from it. I know that at least one blogger has determined that writing online is not for them, which is a valuable lesson.
There is currently a group writing prompt available as part of this year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging which has piqued my interest. It asks the question “what is the oldest draft post you have” and suggests that it is revived in some manner. I have dozens of draft posts in a folder in my Google Drive. Many are film reviews or film related. The oldest of which dates back to summer 2010. Rather than write a straight forward review of Blake Edwards 1968 comedy The Party, I rather foolishly thought at the time that I’d tackle the issue of whether the film is sufficiently racist to make it beyond the pale. Let it suffice to say that I quickly found myself bogged down in the complexities of the subject and thus never completed the blog post.
I’ve participated in every previous Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event. Prior to that I was involved in the Newbie Blogger Initiative or NBI as it was affectionately known. I have therefore written quite a lot of blogging advice and suggestions over the years. If anyone feels disposed to do so, you can access them all by clicking on the “blogging” option on the top menu of this blog. However, it is important to remember that a lot of the ideas I have advocated and written about over the years are purely subjective. Not all advice or guidance works for everyone. People have different ideas about blogging, different approaches to it and different aspirations. This year has highlighted some quite distinct differences among bloggers which has been most illuminating.
Today is my blogging anniversary. I have been writing online consistently for 18 years. My earliest blogs no longer exist, although they can be found via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. My first blog was a Lord of the Rings Online fansite called Misadventures in LOTRO. After a while this morphed into a wider gaming website; Misadventures in Gaming. However, I soon discovered that I wanted to write about more than just video games, so I decided to start from scratch and created Contains Moderate Peril in February 2010. This blog endured and has been my main online presence ever since. It has moved several times for various reasons. For a while I had a sponsor, as well as a reasonably sized audience and had dreams of making money from my writing and podcast. But it wasn’t to be and now I just write primarily for my own peace of mind and amusement.
This year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging has already raised a very interesting debate. An old one that habitually comes up when discussing blogs. Namely, whether a blog should or should not have “comments” enabled. However this time round there is a different slant on things. Rather than the usual binary choice of having comments enabled or disabled on your site, this time round there is a third option available. Leaving comments via email or a third party service such as Mastodon. Both of these additional options keep comments conspicuously at arms length from your website. Furthermore, the email option makes the comments private, instead of in the public domain. All of which puts a subtly different spin on conventional notions of blog comments and makes this ongoing discussion all the more interesting.
There is currently an interesting discussion on the Blaugust: Festival of Blogging Discord Server about writing every day. It can be quite a polarising subject but the one thing that everyone agrees on is the fact that it is hard to do. A daily schedule requires multiple factors to come together to be sustainable. It is also fair to say that if you go about it unprepared, it will be a very hard learning curve. Ultimately it may not work out and then there is the risk of a bad experience negatively impacting upon your wider writing plans. Hence it is not something I would recommend to new bloggers or those who aren’t keen on a baptism of fire. Some writers like to test their metal and jumping feet first, into daily blogging may be the sort of challenge they seek. For everyone else I would urge them to plan a strategy and consider the following point if you wish to try it.
Last year, prior to Blaugust 2024, I looked at the viability of upgrading or replacing my current blog template. The mobile version of Contains Moderate Peril holds up quite well but the site looks somewhat tired on a desktop PC. I spoke to several design companies that dealt with Squarespace based websites and they all said the same thing. The existing template is a decade old and cannot support a lot of the current functionality available. Hence it needs to be replaced. However, such a change could potentially break the existing formatting of nearly 2,000 posts. This would create a great deal of work. Hence, I decided at the time to postpone such a decision and I simply tinkered with the branding of my website and left the matter be. A year later and the issue has resurfaced. The same problems exist and the hosting costs for Squarespace have increased. I now pay £16 a month.
Oh look, another blogging advice post. What a surprise. I suppose the internet is awash with such information. Furthermore, a lot of that advice comes from a commercial perspective and the assumption that the writer intends to monetise their blog right from the start. The notion of writing for pleasure or fandom sometimes seems to get drowned out in all the online white noise. Anyhow, I’m going to offer up for your consideration, 10 tips of things not to do when you start a blog. I’m sure I’ve mentioned some before or even written a similar post that is now buried somewhere in Contains Moderate Peril. But good advice bears repeating and it is the first day of Blaugust: Festival of Blogging 2025 I think it prudent to make such a post. Please note these are not technical points such as using SEO or alt text etc. This is more about your approach to blogging as well as some practical logistical considerations.
What is the key to writing? It is a question that most new bloggers ponder. It’s also something that older, established bloggers consider on a regular basis. The subject has been dissected, analysed and written about at great length over the years and there is plenty of advice available online. You’ll find millions of websites telling you to consider picking the right niche or subjects, how to find your voice and writing style, as well as establishing a regular publishing schedule. Not all the advice out there is good and not all of it is bad. There certainly isn’t any “one size fits all” solution. There are multiple factors to consider when you start writing and you have to find answers that suit you. All forms of writing are a personal form of self expression and unique to their author. Therefore, one’s approach to writing should be similarly personal and unique.
August is fast approaching, so you know what that means? Yes, the annual Blaugust: Festival of Blogging is nearly upon us. This long established (twelve years now), community driven event is designed to extol the virtues of blogging and encourage everyone and anyone to give it a try. In an age where video and audio based content are often favoured for their immediacy and reach, we advocate strongly for the joys and benefits that come through traditional writing. Blaugust strives to motivate those who have thought about writing online in some shape or form, but have never got around to doing so, as well as rallying those who have tried it already but fallen by the wayside. We try to provide practical support, writing prompts and advice to all who participate. There is an optional Discord community where participants can hangout, exchange ideas and share their writing. The emphasis is on powering through “writer’s block” and most importantly, having fun.
Back in March 2019 I wrote a blog post about the operating costs of running this website. I went into detail with regard to hosting and domain costs, as well as the other software and hardware used to write posts and at that point produce a podcast. Let it suffice to say that five years on, those costs have all increased. If we’re just looking at maintaining a blog simply in terms of hosting and the domain registration, it costs about £20 a month to run Contains Moderate Peril. Theoretically, if I want to reduce those costs I could dispense with a specific domain name and use a free blogging service. However, I feel that such a compromise comes with its own set of problems, such as advertising and a lack of control (to a degree) over your content. I therefore choose to pay to mitigate these concerns. If I then wish to do more, such as produce a podcast, create videos for YouTube or live stream, then those costs increase.
I found out today that Contains Moderate Peril is missing a “touch icon”. This was most interesting as I had no idea what such a thing was, at the time. It would appear that it is a bespoke icon for a website or app saved to the home screen of an iOS device. As 27% of traffic to this site comes via iOS devices, this is something that needs consideration and I will take steps to provide one. You may ask “how did you discover this school boy error”? Well I used one of the many website checkers that are available online. Sites that parse your blog or website and analyse it, providing a summary of its alleged strengths and weaknesses. Depending on which website checker you use, some will often find problems that they can conveniently solve for a small fee but setting scepticism aside, some of the basic data can be quite useful.
I used WordPress as a website platform for 5 years. One of the things I used to like about it was the ability to track data and generate stats. However, I moved Contains Moderate Peril to Squarespace in 2015 for technical and financial reasons. I’ve been broadly happy with the results but there are a few niggles. Squarespace has a solid analytical package available which provides an adequate summary of website traffic. I can also determine what keywords have been used for searching the site and what posts are popular. However, basic information such as how many blog posts I’ve made over the last 9 years is conspicuously absent. I also have no obvious way of finding out what the average length of a blog post is or what the estimated reading time is.
Staying Motivated
According to the Blaugust Festival of Blogging timetable, the designated writing prompt for week number five is titled “Staying Motivated”. Because at some point, all content creators will find themselves either too tired, unwilling or simply unable to produce any new material. You may well have the time and resources to do so but lack inspiration to actually apply yourself. It’s a perennial question for anyone who writes, live streams or produces videos and podcasts. Like most problems of this nature which are dependent upon personal and subjective factors, it does not have a standard or easy answer. Staying motivated is a personal battle that you have fight by yourself, in your own way. If you find a solution that works for you there’s no guarantee that it will be applicable to others. However, there are some practical steps that can be universally taken that can contribute to staying motivated.
Motivation is a psychological concept and not an actual location
According to the Blaugust Festival of Blogging timetable, the designated writing prompt for week number five is titled “Staying Motivated”. Because at some point, all content creators will find themselves either too tired, unwilling or simply unable to produce any new material. You may well have the time and resources to do so but lack inspiration to actually apply yourself. It’s a perennial question for anyone who writes, live streams or produces videos and podcasts. Like most problems of this nature which are dependent upon personal and subjective factors, it does not have a standard or easy answer. Staying motivated is a personal battle that you have fight by yourself, in your own way. If you find a solution that works for you there’s no guarantee that it will be applicable to others. However, there are some practical steps that can be universally taken that can contribute to staying motivated.
If you truly are just writing for yourself, then there is no requirement for any sort of schedule. It also means the question of motivation is greatly mitigated. But if you do write to interact with your audience, then a schedule is a useful thing for both parties. Therefore set a schedule that you know you can sustain. Be honest and realistic with yourself. If it’s just one post a week, so be it. At least everyone then knows where they stand. Once you’ve got a clear idea of how often you want to write (or whatever it is that you do), find the time and use it. If it helps, prepare some sort of reward such as a tasty snack, gin or ketamine that you don’t get until you’ve achieved your goal.
I find that on occasions, there are days when the writing just flows. On such days I publish a blog post and “bank” anything else I produce for another day. Film reviews tend not to be time sensitive, can be written on the fly and left to build up in my “drafts” folder. These can then be rolled out on days when my writing mojo is waning. Then there are feature columns and recurring blog posts. Articles in which you summarise what you’ve been up to. And again let us not underestimate the popularity of sharing screen captures from games and such like. If you managed to obtain that obscure armour set after grinding out a specific instance, then let people know.
“No lollygagging”
Although I do advocate schedules, I also advise taking breaks from your content creation, when you feel the need. However, if you do regularly produce content then you may want to notify your readership of your pending absence. If people know in advance that you’re taking a break, they’re more likely to return later. If you simply vanish without explanation, then your audience will evaporate over time along with any goodwill. I would also add that if like me, you tend to produce content regularly, don’t take too long a break. In my experience the longer your away, the harder it is to return.
One way to keep busy and stave off any loss in motivation is to collaborate with your fellow blogger, streamers and podcasters etc. Group writing projects can yield interesting results, especially when debating subjects that are contentious or have multiple perspectives. Podcasters and streamers can have guests on their shows or facilitate round table debates. Not only do such projects boost your motivation and strengthen community bonds, they also offer a degree of promotion for your online presence.
To date, no Lion has ever written a blog post of note
For many of the people participating in Blaugust, blogging or whatever other form of content creation you’re pursuing, is a hobby. If treat it as such, in a manner that you can sustain, it will remain so. Pushing yourself beyond what you can reasonably cope with, is the quickest way to fall out of love with the thing that you’re doing. That’s not to say you should shy away from applying yourself and sometimes maintaining a degree of discipline. But you have to find a mode of operation that is right for you. A degree of introspection and honesty is also required so you don’t bite off more than you can chew, or conversely, sell yourself short.
Finally, stay in touch with the community after Blaugust and keep a presence on the Discord server. Being around like-minded people is invaluable for staying engaged and focused. After a busy and engaging event such as Blaugust, it can feel like things grind to halt in the days and weeks afterwards. It is not unusual for many content creators to actually stop if they feel that the support network has gone. But it is still there, so it is important to keep the lines of communication open.
Today’s post is part of the Blaugust 2026 Group project, which features a series of writing prompts set for specific dates throughout the month. The idea being that everyone who wishes to participate can write about the same subject, riff off each other’s posts and enjoy a shared experience. In many respect having a common writing prompt levels the playing field and provides a sense of common purpose among those who take part. Today’s group project prompt asks the question “tell us all about your very first blog”. An unambiguous and interesting question that will hopefully prove enjoyable to write about and informative to others.
I have been writing online for nearly two decades. I don’t claim to be good or accomplished but what I can say with certainty is that the more often you write, the easier it becomes. For those who are new to writing a blog and the Blaugust Festival of Blogging, possibly the biggest hurdle that you now have to get over, is writing your first post of the month. You spent the lead up to this event sorting out your blog templates, fine tuning the backend and possibly banking some ideas. Or you may have decided to just wing it and make it all up as you go along. Both are perfectly valid approaches. However, there is one thing left to do that cannot be put off, avoided or danced around. Writing. At some point you’ve got to do it. Or bail on the event. The proverbial “shit or get off the pot”.
If you take a cursory look at a calendar you will see that the month of July is fast coming to an end. That means that Blaugust 2026 Festival of Blogging starts in a few days time! If you’re participating, or thinking of doing so, the next few days present a golden opportunity to do some practical organising and basic preparation. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. Feel free to just do things as they come, so to speak, if that’s your approach. However, for most of us, it helps if we have some kind of plan in place and make some arrangements in advance. I personally prefer this approach and like to have some ideas for blog posts in the bank. It is also useful to have “options” if something doesn’t go to plan. For those who are new to Blaugust, here are a few ideas regarding preparation that may be of use to you. As ever, your personal mileage may vary and ultimately you are best off adopting a strategy that suits your writing style and personal schedule.
Prior to last year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging, I upgraded Contains Moderate Peril to the latest version of Squarespace. There are still some aspects of the site that need fine tuning but overall, I am happy with the appearance of my blog and its respective functionality. With this year’s writing event fast approach, I decided to tackle over the last few days, some of those finer points that need tweaking. I have wanted a post counter on the site for a long time but unfortunately there is no native Squarespace widget for this basic function. I also felt the need to upgrade the blogroll, as the current one didn’t support RSS feeds from certain sites (e.g. Google Blogger) and was dependent upon a third party service, Elfsight, which wasn’t ideal. Both of these issues have now been addressed and I am pleased with the results. There is now a post counter on the Blog Archive page, which seems a logical place to have it and the Blogroll is now far more comprehensive.
Next month the annual Blaugust: Festival of Blogging begins. Roundabout this time each year, I try to write a promotional post to raise awareness of the event and encourage potential participants. However, as I’ve done this quite a few times before, each year it is becomes increasingly difficult to present the essential facts about Blaugust: Festival of Blogging in an interesting fashion. There’s nothing worse than writing a post and feeling that you’re just covering old ground. So, this year, I thought I’d try something different and present the most important information about this annual event, as if it were a conversation between myself and an interested passer by. Feel free to attribute novelty voices for each party in your own head, while you read this. If it helps, try imagining that this discussion is happening between two celebrities or such like. Both may be wearing exotic hats but I digress. On with the scenario.
I read a blog post by Void recently, about finding a new internet home. He wrote about how he and many others have had to pick up their “digital roots” and migrate multiple times over the years, from one platform to another. It is a position I can sympathise with as I have done likewise. Hence I like the idea of having a place online where I hangout by default. My own blog is an anchor for me but it is not quite the same thing as a platform or online portal where I can find all my friends and colleagues, share content and shoot the breeze. It’s a curious thing, because as I typed that last sentence it struck how such a sentiment may seem alien to others. There may well be people who like to have a finger in multiple pies and who are happy to frequent and flit between various social media apps, Discord servers and subreddits. I prefer to focus my efforts on a single instance. A place that suits my requirements, allows me to put down roots and become part of the furniture. Like a virtual Diogenes Club.
Everyday, once I’m up, I sit at my desk in my office, fire up my PC and log into Feedly. I have various RSS feeds grouped by category, which I slowly trawl through and read anything that catches my eye. I have one curated feed named “Blaugust” named after the yearly festival of blogging event. It has over 250 blogs listed, many of which are former participants. Most of these regularly post. Hence there’s a lot to get through and so I don’t read all of them. However there are a few that I always checkout. Mainly because they’re the personal musings of some of our writing community’s oldest and most prodigious members. The sorts of guys and gals who are part of the furniture. They’ve always been there and it feels like they always will. Posting their thoughts, sharing their enthusiasm and spreading the love, so to speak. One of these blogs, is Tales of the Aggronaut. written by Belghast.
On Friday 26th June, I had another random spike in internet traffic to Contains Moderate Peril. The statistical package that comes with my Squarespace account recorded over 13k visits in less than 24 hours, which is not typical (although I wish it was). However, all of these visits to my blog arrived via the default homepage and spent between 1 and 2 minutes there. Hence, it was obvious that this was not human traffic, as there was no evidence of any searches being made of content that is available on my site, nor of the “visitors” clicking on any of the links on the top menu and viewing other posts. This was undoubtedly AI traffic arriving at the designated homepage and simply parsing the site. I had a similar spate of this sort of web traffic last November. The only difference on that occasion is that the traffic all came from China. This time round it hailed from the US. I suspect that this is something that will happen more often as companies set their AI loose on the net for what is effectively training.
I recently watched a video on Patreon by someone who I actively support as a “content creator” and whose work I enjoy. I shall provide no more detail regarding their identity because they may not want their work referenced with regard to what I am going to say. During the course of their video they briefly referenced the work put into promoting a podcast they are currently producing and the relatively low audience that it has garnered so far. The comments were an aside and most certainly not said with any sense of self-pity. They were simply a statement of fact. Furthermore, I suspect they are far from unique and similar sentiments have been expressed in one way or another by anyone who has created something the published it online, only for it to be lost among the greater white noise” of the wider internet.
When I first started blogging way back in 2007, I maintained a blogroll of all my colleagues and peers’ websites. At the time this was a common practice and a way to support an expanding community. I considered this such an important aspect of the blogging scene at the time, I created a website to aggregate posts from video game blogs, called The Gaming Blog Nexus. It ran for two years and proved quite useful. However, it was tricky to administer and would frequently break as a lot of the back end widgets and plugins were created and maintained by “gifted amateurs”. I eventually shut it down due to the operating costs. When I moved my own website, Contains Moderate Peril, to Squarespace in 2015 I intended to start maintaining a blogroll once again. However, at that time there was no native support for such a thing on the platform. Hence for the last ten years, I have not had a blogroll on my website, which hasn’t sat well with me.
I was speaking to someone recently about hobbies (fortunately it wasn’t Simon Quinlank) and I mentioned that I have maintained a blog for over a 19 years. When I talked about the ongoing cost they were most surprised, as they had assumed that blogging was something that could be done for free. I guess we’ve become so accustomed to the provision of free online services such as email, that this a reasonable assumption. I pointed out that although it is indeed possible to blog for free using Blogger, it was not the optimal approach, especially if you want to maintain some degree of control over your writing. Naturally, the next question they asked was how much do I spend and I gave them a ballpark figure. All of which reminded me that I wrote a post on this very subject a few years ago. So I’ve decided to revisit the subject and see how much it currently costs to maintain Contains Moderate Peril.
Today I started the slow process of auditing every post that has been published on Contains Moderate Peril since 1st August 2016. The goal is to correct any obvious typos and replace all existing images with larger ones. The Squarespace software upgrade I applied to the website at the end of last year has finally allowed me to establish a standard format that I am happy with. Hence the ongoing audit is the perfect opportunity to apply these style rules to all posts. There are also some technical issues and matters regarding functionality that need to be addressed. I need to determine how to embed YouTube videos in such a way that they automatically scale to fit whatever device is viewing them. Another area which needs improving is the website search facility. This needs refinement so that enquiries can be more specific. Older posts also need to be more accessible, although I am still researching how best to achieve this.
It’s nearly two and half months since the Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event ended. During that time I’ve maintained a fairly regular writing schedule and I post every two days or so. Furthermore, I finally dragged my blog template, kicking and screaming, into the modern era. I tweaked a few pages and updated the content of the “about” page. The next task is to start going through all previous posts and replacing older, low resolution images with larger, more appropriate ones. This process also presents an opportunity to ensure that all posts follow a uniform style. IE Are appropriately categorised, have links to related posts at the bottom and are SEO optimised. This will be a lengthy task so I think the best approach will be to tackle two or three posts a day. Hopefully this will raise the profile of older content, which generates the lion’s hare of traffic to this site.
I use a browser extension called Control Panel for YouTube, which allows me to determine who many videos are displayed on my YouTube homepage and to filter the content that is shown. At present it is configured to display rows of six. Something that I have noticed of late, is the amount of videos with hyperbolic titles and thumbnail images created by AI. Both of which are design choices made to increase engagement. Clickbait titles are contrived to meet current SEO optimisation criteria and as such feature more and more in search results. The fact that they frequently have no relation to the subject I am researching, seems to be neither here nor there. The same issues arise with regard to AI generated images, which again frequently have no bearing on the matter. The fact that more and more content creators do this, infers that it works and is now an essential part of the process you must follow to be seen and featured in search results.
In the last post in this series, I specified the need for a plan with regard to upgrading my blog. Well a plan has emerged, been refined and has now been formally adopted. Rather than migrate Contains Moderate Peril to a new platform and effectively have to rebuild all the content, I am going to upgrade my existing presence on Squarespace. This decision was made for two reasons. Time and money. Migrating to a new platform will take a lot of time and incur additional costs. Upgrading the existing website will take less time and has no cost implications. That is not to say that it will be easy. It has become abundantly clear that the upgrade process will break stuff and that all published posts will have to be manually repaired. Hence my choice boils down to the lesser of two evils.
This year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging has reached an end and it would appear that this event has been well received by those who have participated in it. I believe that there were 168 bloggers taking part this year, many of whom have not participated before. Some were new to blogging, where others simply wished to see if they could increase their writing output. As ever there was a wide variety of blog styles and subject matters and it has been most interesting to read new posts every day. I have attempted to leave comments and positive feedback where I can and I hope that some of these new blogs that I’ve discovered continue to write. Well done to everyone who took part. I hope it has been an enjoyable and informative process and that you have learned from it. I know that at least one blogger has determined that writing online is not for them, which is a valuable lesson.
There is currently a group writing prompt available as part of this year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging which has piqued my interest. It asks the question “what is the oldest draft post you have” and suggests that it is revived in some manner. I have dozens of draft posts in a folder in my Google Drive. Many are film reviews or film related. The oldest of which dates back to summer 2010. Rather than write a straight forward review of Blake Edwards 1968 comedy The Party, I rather foolishly thought at the time that I’d tackle the issue of whether the film is sufficiently racist to make it beyond the pale. Let it suffice to say that I quickly found myself bogged down in the complexities of the subject and thus never completed the blog post.
I’ve participated in every previous Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event. Prior to that I was involved in the Newbie Blogger Initiative or NBI as it was affectionately known. I have therefore written quite a lot of blogging advice and suggestions over the years. If anyone feels disposed to do so, you can access them all by clicking on the “blogging” option on the top menu of this blog. However, it is important to remember that a lot of the ideas I have advocated and written about over the years are purely subjective. Not all advice or guidance works for everyone. People have different ideas about blogging, different approaches to it and different aspirations. This year has highlighted some quite distinct differences among bloggers which has been most illuminating.
Today is my blogging anniversary. I have been writing online consistently for 18 years. My earliest blogs no longer exist, although they can be found via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. My first blog was a Lord of the Rings Online fansite called Misadventures in LOTRO. After a while this morphed into a wider gaming website; Misadventures in Gaming. However, I soon discovered that I wanted to write about more than just video games, so I decided to start from scratch and created Contains Moderate Peril in February 2010. This blog endured and has been my main online presence ever since. It has moved several times for various reasons. For a while I had a sponsor, as well as a reasonably sized audience and had dreams of making money from my writing and podcast. But it wasn’t to be and now I just write primarily for my own peace of mind and amusement.
This year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging has already raised a very interesting debate. An old one that habitually comes up when discussing blogs. Namely, whether a blog should or should not have “comments” enabled. However this time round there is a different slant on things. Rather than the usual binary choice of having comments enabled or disabled on your site, this time round there is a third option available. Leaving comments via email or a third party service such as Mastodon. Both of these additional options keep comments conspicuously at arms length from your website. Furthermore, the email option makes the comments private, instead of in the public domain. All of which puts a subtly different spin on conventional notions of blog comments and makes this ongoing discussion all the more interesting.
There is currently an interesting discussion on the Blaugust: Festival of Blogging Discord Server about writing every day. It can be quite a polarising subject but the one thing that everyone agrees on is the fact that it is hard to do. A daily schedule requires multiple factors to come together to be sustainable. It is also fair to say that if you go about it unprepared, it will be a very hard learning curve. Ultimately it may not work out and then there is the risk of a bad experience negatively impacting upon your wider writing plans. Hence it is not something I would recommend to new bloggers or those who aren’t keen on a baptism of fire. Some writers like to test their metal and jumping feet first, into daily blogging may be the sort of challenge they seek. For everyone else I would urge them to plan a strategy and consider the following point if you wish to try it.
Last year, prior to Blaugust 2024, I looked at the viability of upgrading or replacing my current blog template. The mobile version of Contains Moderate Peril holds up quite well but the site looks somewhat tired on a desktop PC. I spoke to several design companies that dealt with Squarespace based websites and they all said the same thing. The existing template is a decade old and cannot support a lot of the current functionality available. Hence it needs to be replaced. However, such a change could potentially break the existing formatting of nearly 2,000 posts. This would create a great deal of work. Hence, I decided at the time to postpone such a decision and I simply tinkered with the branding of my website and left the matter be. A year later and the issue has resurfaced. The same problems exist and the hosting costs for Squarespace have increased. I now pay £16 a month.
Oh look, another blogging advice post. What a surprise. I suppose the internet is awash with such information. Furthermore, a lot of that advice comes from a commercial perspective and the assumption that the writer intends to monetise their blog right from the start. The notion of writing for pleasure or fandom sometimes seems to get drowned out in all the online white noise. Anyhow, I’m going to offer up for your consideration, 10 tips of things not to do when you start a blog. I’m sure I’ve mentioned some before or even written a similar post that is now buried somewhere in Contains Moderate Peril. But good advice bears repeating and it is the first day of Blaugust: Festival of Blogging 2025 I think it prudent to make such a post. Please note these are not technical points such as using SEO or alt text etc. This is more about your approach to blogging as well as some practical logistical considerations.
What is the key to writing? It is a question that most new bloggers ponder. It’s also something that older, established bloggers consider on a regular basis. The subject has been dissected, analysed and written about at great length over the years and there is plenty of advice available online. You’ll find millions of websites telling you to consider picking the right niche or subjects, how to find your voice and writing style, as well as establishing a regular publishing schedule. Not all the advice out there is good and not all of it is bad. There certainly isn’t any “one size fits all” solution. There are multiple factors to consider when you start writing and you have to find answers that suit you. All forms of writing are a personal form of self expression and unique to their author. Therefore, one’s approach to writing should be similarly personal and unique.
August is fast approaching, so you know what that means? Yes, the annual Blaugust: Festival of Blogging is nearly upon us. This long established (twelve years now), community driven event is designed to extol the virtues of blogging and encourage everyone and anyone to give it a try. In an age where video and audio based content are often favoured for their immediacy and reach, we advocate strongly for the joys and benefits that come through traditional writing. Blaugust strives to motivate those who have thought about writing online in some shape or form, but have never got around to doing so, as well as rallying those who have tried it already but fallen by the wayside. We try to provide practical support, writing prompts and advice to all who participate. There is an optional Discord community where participants can hangout, exchange ideas and share their writing. The emphasis is on powering through “writer’s block” and most importantly, having fun.
Back in March 2019 I wrote a blog post about the operating costs of running this website. I went into detail with regard to hosting and domain costs, as well as the other software and hardware used to write posts and at that point produce a podcast. Let it suffice to say that five years on, those costs have all increased. If we’re just looking at maintaining a blog simply in terms of hosting and the domain registration, it costs about £20 a month to run Contains Moderate Peril. Theoretically, if I want to reduce those costs I could dispense with a specific domain name and use a free blogging service. However, I feel that such a compromise comes with its own set of problems, such as advertising and a lack of control (to a degree) over your content. I therefore choose to pay to mitigate these concerns. If I then wish to do more, such as produce a podcast, create videos for YouTube or live stream, then those costs increase.
I found out today that Contains Moderate Peril is missing a “touch icon”. This was most interesting as I had no idea what such a thing was, at the time. It would appear that it is a bespoke icon for a website or app saved to the home screen of an iOS device. As 27% of traffic to this site comes via iOS devices, this is something that needs consideration and I will take steps to provide one. You may ask “how did you discover this school boy error”? Well I used one of the many website checkers that are available online. Sites that parse your blog or website and analyse it, providing a summary of its alleged strengths and weaknesses. Depending on which website checker you use, some will often find problems that they can conveniently solve for a small fee but setting scepticism aside, some of the basic data can be quite useful.
I used WordPress as a website platform for 5 years. One of the things I used to like about it was the ability to track data and generate stats. However, I moved Contains Moderate Peril to Squarespace in 2015 for technical and financial reasons. I’ve been broadly happy with the results but there are a few niggles. Squarespace has a solid analytical package available which provides an adequate summary of website traffic. I can also determine what keywords have been used for searching the site and what posts are popular. However, basic information such as how many blog posts I’ve made over the last 9 years is conspicuously absent. I also have no obvious way of finding out what the average length of a blog post is or what the estimated reading time is.
Today’s post is part of the Blaugust 2026 Group project, which features a series of writing prompts set for specific dates throughout the month. The idea being that everyone who wishes to participate can write about the same subject, riff off each other’s posts and enjoy a shared experience. In many respect having a common writing prompt levels the playing field and provides a sense of common purpose among those who take part. Today’s group project prompt asks the question “tell us all about your very first blog”. An unambiguous and interesting question that will hopefully prove enjoyable to write about and informative to others.