Life update

In 2022, back when the Yesterweb was a thing, and I was in an edgier phase of my life, I wrote a manifesto for my website.

I still agree with what I said in it, but I feel it needs an update. As is the way of the web, many of its links are already rotting.

Things grow and change, whether we’re talking about movements, the web, my website, or me.

Delovely has become more to me than just fiddling around on a computer or sticking a middle finger at the corporate web.

Delovely is a piece of me floating in the ether, reachable by you.

Offline

In 2024, my life is very different than it was when I wrote that manifesto. It has been busy and full of changes which have never stopped taking me by surprise. I have spent these years learning how to manage difficult choices, unexpected hardships, and uncertainty.

And I, like most of my friends, have watched myself fall victim to work. A classic case of alienation, my identity as a creative is eclipsed by how much capital I produce and how I produce it.

In other words... I’m an adult now.

Offline, strangers, acquaintances, and colleagues see little of what I wish they could see about me. I mask my discomfort and my joy alike.

But online, Delovely allows me to choose how I present myself.

I am an adult and I am an employee. But more meaningfully, I’m a woman, a daughter, a girlfriend, and a friend.

And personally? I am also a writer and a poet. Those parts of my identity don’t always come out these days, but I don’t want them to fade away completely.

That’s why I want my writing online.

My main goal (sidenote: is to blow up and then act like I don’t know nobody ↗ )

is to get my words out of my head and out somewhere findable, in a way that feels meaningful to me.

I could go the traditional route that other poets and writers go, and try to get my work published by lit mags. But that means more of my time will be eaten by typing up cover letters and emails and trying to impress strangers, and that feels like a job.

Lately, life has felt too busy and dire to wait for approval to share my poems. I want to take matters into my own hands.

And while it’s cool to see my name and words appear in other places, this right here is my home.

Delovely is my mass-scale self-publishing platform, scrappy and home-made as it is.

Other goals

Self-made

This is a more challenging goal, but it is worth it.

I will still probably borrow code snippets here and there, but for the majority of content on this website, I want to know how to do what I’m doing, rather than just fiddling with a template. That is a perfectly valid way to build a website and learn code, but I want to push myself, even if the end result is amateurish.

In the end, knowing my limits, working within them, and working to learn beyond them, makes me feel like more of a master of my own site. It also makes it easier to troubleshoot problems.

Accessible

Disability rights are very important to me, so it would feel ironic to have an inaccessible website. To think that anyone can access my words is a nice feeling.

My aim in creating this site is not to get a lot of clicks – but perhaps some of the clicks I do get will be from a person who will appreciate the attention I put into details.

I am not perfect, but I hope I will at least do no harm.

Capable

I do not know if I have much time these days to become professionally good at HTML or CSS, or if that would serve me. However, I do want to learn how to code more cleanly.

Not only is semantic html more accessible, it also makes sense. I’m no longer creating divs without thinking. Tags have meanings, and knowing the meanings gives me more structure and guidelines for what I am creating.

Being humble and realizing where my knowledge is limited, is also realizing that I can learn more and get better at it.

Pitfalls

(This part is mostly just behind-the-scenes “note to self” sort of stuff – so it’s probably a bit boring to others – hence why I’ve hidden it.)

Static Site Generators

It would be amazing to code this blog with an SSG like Jekyll or 11ty. I have seen so many cool sites that are built like this, such as

• anh
• caffeine.wiki
• Frills
• maya.land
• and more.

I find these sites aspirational.

I have tried fiddling with 11ty myself, and while I was able to make something, I kept running into problems.

I have come to accept my skillset is simply not there yet. It can get there with time, but I recognized that I was starting to burn myself out by tackling essentially two separate projects at once: learning 11ty and working on this major new update for my site.

It was too much too soon.

For me, it’s not enough to just copy what someone does and go through motions – I should understand what I’m doing, or else I’m not really the master of it.

So for now, delovely is still made entirely with hands! 🤓

Future

Working on a personal website, like any art project, can feel quite empowering. It allows you to be in control, and as a reward, you have an artifact of your existence that others can reach and interact with.

I am not too busy right now, which is why I’ve had time and energy to put into this site – but I will be. I will be swamped with work, the continuing rise of fascism in my country, and daily tasks and random happenings offline.

Sometimes – though I’ll try to fight it – I may even be too busy or exhausted to think of anything creative.

But delovely will still be online.