Let’s start from the basics: can you introduce yourself?

My name is Lars-Christian Simonsen. I’m a guy in my twenties. No wait, thirties? Actually let’s just scratch that part. I was born and raised on an island deep inside the Arctic circle. Up there, I spent the first quarter century of my life, before relocating to the Norwegian capital, Oslo, while looking for work after getting a degree in finance and business administration.

There was also a girl and that girl is now my wife. As she was less than excited about the prospect of settling down somewhere where the number of what she considers a warm summer day per season is typically counted on one hand, and the dark days of winter seemingly never end, I simply could not convince her to move back north with me. Instead, we hopped on a train and found a quiet suburban neighbourhood when we were ready to settle down. A decade later, we’re still here and we’re raising two children in this community. We’ve concluded it was a good compromise.

My days revolve around the aforementioned children, and juggling keeping them alive and content (tall ask, but we aim high) with a nine-to-five and trying to find some time for other things I enjoy. This includes, but is not limited to, running, reading and writing. I also enjoy being outside in nature, hiking and camping in the mountains in particular. Alas, I don’t find nearly enough time for it. In an attempt to compensate, I double down on exercise and reading, and try to spend around at least half an hour on each every day.

What’s the story behind your blog?

Circa 1995 my dad took me to a newly opened local internet café. It was the first time I went online, and I was hooked. A couple years later we got a state of the art ISDN line installed in our house. Back then we paid for usage by the "call unit" (the Norwegian term "tellerskritt", which translates literally to "counter steps", is far more memorable) and there were months where I wasn’t looking forward to the day the bill dropped into our (physical) mailbox. My life as a chronically online person was underway.

Hanging out in local IRC channels, moderated by our community tech gurus, it didn’t take long before I was inspired to make my own website. The year was 1998, and I used a program like FrontPage or some such to get my very first personal site online. Domains were expensive back then and the site was hosted on a directory provided by our ISP.

After that, I spent a few years making a website dedicated to a popular video game series. But when 2005 rolled around, blogging was all the hype, and I decided that I needed to have a personal blog as well. Domains had become more affordable, and I decided to register the .com for my given name, Lars-Christian. It has housed my personal website since.

As I have changed (grown?) as a person through these years, the blog has changed with me, and there have been many iterations through these two decades. Last year, however, I made a concerted effort to reconstruct as much as I could of the content from the earlier versions of the blog. (I relied heavily on the magnificent Internet Archive which I think everyone should support.) By my estimate, the posts archive now contains at least 90% of the posts I ever published to my blog. There honestly isn’t much to be proud of. My 2007 phase of trying to fashion myself an internet marketing guru is particularly cringe. But I like the idea of my personal website as a reflection of my many past selves, so I leave everything for posterity.

The blog laid dormant for many years, before I decided to bring it back to life in late 2023. Like so many others, I had become disillusioned by the state of the big social platforms. Withdrawing from those, breathing life into my blog again as a place to express, collect and share whatever interested me seemed an obvious move.

Nowadays, I think of my website as not just a blog, but an online home. My personal space to do whatever I want. And a place to experiment and tinker with tech. You know, like we used to do back when tech was exciting and spoke to a world full of possibilities as opposed the dystopian timeline we stumbled upon as we ceded our lives to a handful of algorithms. Turns out that part is mostly optional, even today. I’ve built functionality to replace centralised services like Goodreads and Strava, and share my reading and workouts on my blog.

Admittedly, those are mostly just things that aren’t doing the thing. Because the thing I really want to do is write more. To the extent that I have a goal for my blog, it is simply to write more.

What does your creative process look like when it comes to blogging?

There’s a stanza from the song Marching Bands of Manhattan by Death Cab for Cutie. It’s one of my favourite songs, by one of my favourite bands, and the particular line is this:

And it is true what you said That I live like a hermit in my own head

To the extent that I have a creative process, it is living like a hermit in my own head. Always thinking, contemplating, obsessing over some thing or other. It can be exhausting, and often leaves me feeling restless. But committing my thoughts to paper is something of an antidote. The song continues:

But when the sun shines again I’ll pull the curtains and blinds to let the light in

Putting my thoughts to the sword by writing them down, examine if they make sense, sometimes feels like pulling the curtains and letting the light in. It helps me discard that which doesn’t make sense. Which is to say most of it. I can then spend my energy on that which does make sense.

Of course, what I’m thinking about is, to a large extent, determined by input. That would be the "content" I consume. And that’s why I had to step back from social media. The hot-takes and constant negativity and never-ending dread made me depressed. Now I try to control my inputs to a great extent. Avoiding the 24 hour news cycle and social media. I don’t really watch TV either. Instead, I read books and listen to audiobooks and long-form podcasts, for education and entertainment.

Inspiration to write comes from these sources, but also my daily life — particularly my children. They never cease to amaze me and they frequently force me to challenge my own assumptions and perspectives, letting me (hopefully) grow with them. To the extent that I’ve written anything worth reading, it was probably inspired by my children.

My technical setup is as simple as can be. I do all my writing in my plain text editor of choice, Sublime Text, using simple Markdown for formatting. If I have one enormous weakness as a writer, it is my aversion to reading my own writing. I believe it induces similar feelings in me as many people experience when hearing a recording of their own voice. I dread it. Proof reading… well, let’s say I have room to grow. It’s usually just write it, and if I have a vague feeling of what I wrote having made some sense, I try to be quick to publish. If I don’t publish something the same day I write the bulk of it, it is likely to end up in my enormous pile of mostly not even half finished drafts.

Do you have an ideal creative environment? Also do you believe the physical space influences your creativity?

That’s easy.

The sun is about to come up. I’m sat at the kitchen table and through the window I see world come back to life. I’m sat at the kitchen table. My laptop in front of me, a cup of coffee on the side. The rest of the house is still asleep. No matter how sleepy I might be, I can access something in these moments that is locked off and unavailable at all other times. Creativity never comes more naturally to me.

Unfortunately, life often gets in the way and too often I only find myself with time to spare for writing in the evenings. At night, I’ll be tired and groggy and anything that requires effort feels like a tall ask.

Surroundings definitely influence my creativity and ability to get work done. Concentration is hard to come by in an untidy environment. Usually, I start any work session by tidying up the room around me. Some people excel in chaotic surroundings. Me, I’m at my best, creatively and productively, in quiet, comfortable and familiar settings.

Dialogue is especially distracting to me, and it will consistently throw me off. Even music will eat into my concentration. I’ve found one exception: ambient music. A pair of noise cancelling headphones and Brian Eno’s Music for Airports (good luck purchasing that in a digital format) and Boards of Canada’s Tomorrow’s Harvest have saved me many times.

A question for the techie readers: can you run us through your tech stack?

I mentioned earlier that I do all of my writing in a plain text editor. This after a desire to simplify my tech stack a couple of years back. In the same process, I also threw out my CMS and — because all the existing static site generators confused me to no end — put together a few Python scripts to generate a static version of my website based on markdown content files. It was quite a challenge, but an enjoyable one.

When I’ve finished a post I dump the file in a specific directory. The scripts take over, generate the new and updated pages of my website, before uploading it to my web host. Speaking of web hosts, I rent a Virtual Machine (VM) from OpenBSD.amsterdam. They are an independent host that contribute to an independent Free and Open Source (FOSS) initiative. That, and the opportunity to learn more about working in the command line and doing some simple server administration, was why I chose them. And they’ve been great! If I have a question, I just send them an email. An actual human being responds within a reasonable time frame, answering my question. What a luxury!

My domain registrar of choice is Hover. I think I’ve been a customer for close to fifteen years. I’ve never had any problems, which is all I want from my registrar.

Given your experience, if you were to start a blog today, would you do anything differently?

That depends entirely where you’re coming from. For someone who wants to start a blog primarily to write and share their thoughts, I certainly wouldn’t recommend going down the path of obsessing about the tech. Do the thing! Get a domain name and start with a service like Bearblog or Micro.blog. Both are small, independent services that work for the betterment of the open web.

Financial question since the Web is obsessed with money: how much does it cost to run your blog? Is it just a cost, or does it generate some revenue? And what’s your position on people monetising personal blogs?

A virtual machine from OpenBSD.amsterdam costs €69.00 per year, and I pay Hover $18.99 per year for my domain name. Let’s consolidate that in a common currency, and say that keeping my blog alive each year costs me £74.76. Were I more cost conscious, I could easily get away with half or less. I’m privileged to be able to afford some idealism in these choices.

Similarly, I have no real need for, or interest in, monetising my blog. I’ve long dreamed of carving out a little niche of my own on the web and spend my days providing something people value enough that it could generate enough income to sustain my lifestyle. Today, my blog is not that. It is a public notebook, a playground and a biography.

Monetisation is, to me, inherently linked to providing something of value. I’m just not providing anything of value on my blog. Nor would I want to commit to doing that. If someone else thinks differently about that, I have nothing against it at all. In fact, I’ve supported a few independent web writers whose work I enjoy in recent years.

The 2007 internet marketing guru version of me would probably be full of advice on how someone could best earn a pretty penny from their blog. Today, though, I have fewer opinions on the matter. What I will say is this: If someone is creating something that you enjoy on a regular basis, whether that’s writing, audio, software or whatever, you should find a way to help them sustain their practice. Otherwise, you have no right to be upset when they change or disappear.

Time for some recommendations: any blog you think is worth checking out? And also, who do you think I should be interviewing next?

You should interview V.H. Belvadi. Venkatram’s writing often makes me stop, think and question myself. His blog is also one of the most aesthetically pleasing websites you’ll find.

There are so many blogs out there worth mentioning, but I’ll try to stick to a few:

Slice of pi is always a delightful read. Pete writes in a playful and unpretentious manner, which I find inspiring.

Alex Chan’s writing is equally inspiring, in a completely different manner. Her language is precise and to the point, while still remaining personable and engaging. A very difficult balance to to strike.

Likewise, I enjoy Meadow’s blog as well, but for another entirely different set of reasons. He is a smart thinker and a gifted writer who isn’t afraid to be personal. He also become somewhat of a hero to me when he told me that, just like me, English wasn’t his native tongue.

My friend Fabian writes with both curiosity and authority at once, and comes across as wise beyond his years. I always sit up straighter and try to get ready to learn when he’s published a new post.

Through the 32-Bit Cafe forum (another recommendation!) I also recently came across Stephanie’s blog. I’ve been enjoying her well thought out posts.

One last suggestion will be Ye Olde Blogroll. Whenever I’m in the mood for some "doom scrolling" I go there and visit a few blogs I haven’t visited before. It’ll leave you feeling much better than spending an hour or two on your algorithmic engagement-farm of choice. Promise!

Final question: is there anything you want to share with us?

I’ve got nothing, so I’ll end by sharing a profound experience and a call to action.

My daughter, four years old, started dancing ballet this year. Yesterday, she was part of her first recital. A big production. In the local theatre with professional sound and lightning. Hers was a small role. But she got on the big stage in front of hundreds of spectators and did her dance together with her ballet classmates. It wasn’t so much her role, but the whole spectacle that blew me away.

There must have been several dozen dancers on stage throughout the two hour show, and they were (to my admittedly untrained) eye so, so great at what they were doing. Sitting there and watching all these children, small and big, perform at an amazing level, I realised that each and every one of them must have worked diligently and with passion for years to be there that day.

The kids are alright.

My call to action, therefore, is this: If you have the chance, get involved with someone in your local community who is working to provide opportunities like these for children. Be it sports, dancing, singing or theatre, or computer clubs or whatever. If you can’t get involved personally, make a donation. Give money if you can, or some old stuff you’ve got lying around. You can make a difference to someone. Providing as many kids as possible with the opportunity to explore their interests, find ways to express themselves and become part of a community is how we ensure that they continue to be alright.