Welcome!

So, welcome to my little - very much work in progress - corner of the internet. My name is Nelis, and I'm not even going to attempt a full introduction just yet. I have a wildly disparate array of projects that I'd like to present here, but I'd like to start with a simple 'Welcome'.

First post's are hard

Writing anything is hard, especially when faced with a blank page, and it feels like even more so when there's no other content here at all. There's a lot I could say in this first post, but much of it requires context, and this would grow into an unmanageably long essay if I provided enough of that.

So, in order to give just a little bit of context to this site's existence, and put something out there as a building block for future posts, I'll keep this relatively brief.

Why a website

I've wanted a website for a few years, mostly as a central repository for all the wildly different things I work on. I have a medley of skills and interests - in my working, hobbies, volunteering and home life - and I'd like a place to share some of the stuff I do. The challenge is going to be doing that in a cohesive way, so that its not just a confused mess of disparate bits of content, but a somewhat interlinked narrative of related interests.

Why is there so little here?

You may have noticed (depending on when you're reading this) that there's very little here - no content as of yet, and only very basic styling/layout/design. If you're a developer, designer, blogger, etc. you've probably recognized that's (in part) because this website isn't built on a platform (e.g.: Wordpress, SquareSpace), but rather from scratch (for those interested, using: Gatsby, React, SCSS, P5.js). The other reason there's so little here: I'm not a professional web developer! Other than a basic understanding of HTML & CSS, I'm learning everything I need in order to build this as I'm building it - so bear with me.

The obvious next questions, then, is Why? There are three basic answers to that:

I can't do everything I want to with a hosted website

I want to showcase a variety of creative work here - only some of which can be easily achieved on any platform, e.g.: blog posts, image galleries, videos. Not everything I want to achieve is that simple. Part of what makes me who I am is that I'm always looking for new skills to learn, problems to solve, challenges to take on and ideas to play with. That means that I've worked with wide array of technologies and medias, some of which (e.g.: P5.js, Unity3D) aren't readily available on hosted website solutions. It also means that I will inevitably want to build something more complex here, perhaps with some backend server logic, a database, etc. Building from scratch means that - while I'll have a lot of learning to do - I should be able to implement anything I can imagine without running into any brick walls (except those of my own making).

I like learning new skills

I like learning new things, and I learn best by doing - this is an opportunity for me to pick up a whole host of new skills while doing building something vaguely useful.

Working on the technical side of this website will keep me motivated to write content

I struggle with 'just' writing - in the sense that if all I'm producing is written content, I will spend far too much time procrastinating, overthinking, editing and perfecting it - I've written many drafts of this 'first post', and the intro blurb on the home page, over the last month. By building this site from scratch, I can work on other aspects of it (styling, back-end, functionality, visual content, learning new skills) as a way to keep myself engaged with the process. From past experience, I have a much easier time with the writing if there's something else I can work on in parallel - especially if it challenges me to learn something new.

Closing remarks

There's not a lot here yet, and I know it's not very well presented. I'm averse to promising 'great things to come', but I do hope to build this site into something more, in time. In the unlikely event you have any feedback or want to reach out at this early stage - there is a contact form on the about page.