Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

There was another post on HN a few days ago which likened publishing blogposts to increasing your luck surface area and I very much relate.

When I get hit with writer’s block and can’t seem to come up with my own work - which can be months at a time - I end up reverting to something like email interviews to highlight other peoples’ work and still have content for my blog.[0] Similarly, guest posts (that you seek out, don’t let random writers write guest posts aka insert links on your blog) can keep your blog “alive” through periods where it otherwise would have died.

[0] www.thehighestcritic.com

Most writers are huge introverts. Blogs are great to know people that you probably would never meet in real life. It feels like magic that you can connect with someone from a different culture, that is interested in the same things that you do, and with whom you share a similar sense of humour.

On that note, what would be a recommended approach to connecting with individuals? Just throw in a contact email? I hate the idea of a Disqus or other commenting system forcing you to throw away ownership of the user interaction.

It's become a catch all reference page for all my work, and that's extremely handy and also happens to help solidify some credibility when I need it. I can just send canonical links to anyone interested in what I've worked on.

BTW, as a long-time Hugo user: I hear you. If one doesn’t have the time to tinker with it, things can get nasty in a hurry. (Same is true for most if not all other static site generators, to be fair.)