Happy New Year!! We made it!!

It's (finally?) 2021, and the long year of 2020 is behind us (there's a pun in there, I just know it). I imagine that for many people, 2020 has been a pretty strange and even horrible year. For others, it may be bittersweet. But as I sit writing this very first post for the new year, listening to Melodies of Life by the irrefutably brilliant Nobuo Uematsu (seriously, listen to it, it's so good!), I no longer reminisce about the previous year, but look forward to what's to come.

So in this (relatively) short post, let me outline my blogging plans for 2021 (for any who care, haha)!

But first, let's address a potential elephant in the room.

Ah Coil...to be or not to be?

On December 17, 2020, like many other Coil bloggers, I received this interesting (though ultimately not unexpected) email:

Without getting into it much, in my view, this basically means that the monetary boost writers have been receiving for blogging on this platform will soon cease, though the service for web monetization won't. It's not an altogether surprising thing — in fact, I would say that with the direction the Coil platform has been going towards, leaning more towards partnering with different sites and organizations than creating a standout blogging platform specifically, this was probably inevitable.

The great thing about Coil, of course, is that you can basically monetize any website. Which, for me, means...

I'm Making My Own Website!

Yup, probably like many others, I'll be creating my own website and blog. I've actually been planning this for a while, not because I was necessarily expecting Coil Boost to end, but moreso because, while Coil has been an awesome platform to get started on, I've always wanted a bit more control and customization when it comes to the format of my writing and what I wanted the platform to be able to achieve. As many bloggers on Coil know, it hasn't really changed much for writers since the beta release. And so, with that lack of evolution, I decided a while back to start making my own website to accommodate my own wants.

Here's what it looks like so far!

It's a pretty simple, personal blogging site. While it may not be all that catchy, I really love minimalistic designs, and this one hit the right spot for me for both writing and a personal design aesthetic. The final layout won't be very different from the screenshot above (most likely).

Truth be told, I actually used to have my own website. But after a bit of time of no upkeep, someone took my domain name (!!!) on a month that I forgot to pay for it, and I haven't had one up since. So I've actually built a website before, though it was quite different (and much fancier) than the one above.

As you can see, I've moved many of my posts already to the website, and I will be continuing to do so with all of my Coil posts and blogs. I'll then be adding (albeit slowly) some of the things I've written in the past on my older website as well, since those things are pretty valuable to me.

Since it's still a work in progress, I'm going to be blogging a bit about it as well — the practicals, the how-tos, and all that. The great thing about website creation these days is that, literally anyone with access to the Internet can do it, and you can even do the majority of the work offline! And guess what? The vast majority of what anyone would want to do in making their own website requires no programming at all.

So I'll be documenting that process until the release date on (hopefully) January 31st, 2021!

What I'll Be Writing About

In addition to talking about website design, here's some things I'm planning to blog about as well in 2021!

A Theoretical Framework for Social Web Decentralization

I originally started writing on governance with this post on Socrates and the Failings of Democracy. But then, as I began to think about all that I wanted to say on the subject, I realized that it was much bigger than simply “governance” or “blockchain” or “decentralization”.

And so I'm working on a series of posts outlining a theoretical framework for a decentralized world on the web. I'll be beginning the series with a look at what I think are some good and intriguing ideas in both the general Internet space as well as the blockchain space. From there, I'll be talking about the central foundations of finance, some of which I've talked about in my Being Your Own Bank series. Then, to conclude, I'll be discussing the broader concepts of governance and decentralization, and how we can use these ideas to create a better social and financial web.

These posts will be both for fun and (hopefully?) interesting discussion, though we'll have to see how that goes!

Short Stories and other Fictions

As you may have seen in the screenshot above, I'm also planning to finally start releasing some short stories and other fictions (like flash fictions) that I like to write.

I've always been a narrative writer, ever since I was young. I love creating and imagining worlds, and love being immersed in narrative and fantasy. As I've gotten better at writing more regularly (largely thanks to Coil!), I've also had spurts of short story writing on the side that I've never published.

But that changes with 2021! I don't know when exactly I'll start posting them (probably after the website launches), but I hope to share well with the world an interest that I've been more tentative to for a while now.

Continuing Series' and Topics from 2020

As those who have been following me know, I've been writing about two particular things towards the end of 2020: Summarizing and analyzing Thomas Sowell's excellent book Basic Economics, as well as a couple forays into the world of AI.

I will continue to finish Basic Economics, look more into the world of AI, as well as write about other things that interest me, of course. When I finish Basic Economics, and after a summary of what I think are the essential things to learn from it, I also have plans for a new series of reviews on topics that I think are really important for today.

And One More Thing...

I'm not going to say exactly what, yet, (that's a surprise!) but I'll be sharing about something extraordinarily personal as well that is happening to me this year. Inspired by fellow Coil blogger @RileyQ, I'll be doing more actual “blogging” (rather than just writing on abstract topics, though I obviously enjoy doing that) this year than before.

It's not hard to guess, but I'll leave it a mystery for now :-P

Final Thoughts

While I won't be focusing on blogging on Coil exclusively, my plan is to have a large portion of the things I write still posted on this platform. Part of that is because I'm deeply grateful for the Coil platform. But it is also because I'm not exactly certain still about doing only things on my own website. So, I guess we'll see how it all goes.

And that's my plan for 2021! What are your plans?