Digital Gardens

I’ve been thinking a lot about starting a digital garden. Not in this blog space, but in its own site of sorts. I have something like that in my Obsidian vault. Something for my eyes only, where all my notes are allowed to grow and spread.

And that’s what a digital garden is—a space that exists in some form online, that one continually adds onto as they encounter new information or new ideas. Like a real garden, it needs to be maintained. Old, rotting bits need to be removed from budding or steady growth. It’s closer to a wiki, in a way, but not quite the same thing.

Wikis are generally meant to inform, whereas a garden can be a source of personal notes. It might not mean a lot to the casual observer, like many gardens. But it’s significant to the gardener.

I’m tempted to post my current garden online, so that readers and fans of my work can see how I form notes. These notes will relate to my writing as a whole, particularly world building. And for series like Last Train Home and Early Adopter, world building means everything. It lays stepping stones for the overall story, and brings light to any stones left unturned.

Obsidian Publish has been used to cultivate many digital gardens, which is what exposed me to the concept. And yet, I’m not quite ready to make the leap. Money is a constant issue, but I like to think I can achieve something similar at a lower rate and more flexible setup. My ideal site for this kind of thing would be a static one, with minimal imagery and coding. Bear is a good alternative, should I choose to go that route.

I’ll continue to play around with ideas, as it’s a lesser priority right now. But if I can’t find a suitable alternative by spring, I’ll seriously consider Obsidian Publish. I’m already a big fan of the services this company provides, so what harm is there? I even use Sync, just to keep some of my writing backed up and synced across multiple devices.