chapter9(The Year of Building)

An Introduction to 6 Projects in 12 Months

I am going to deliver you some gifts right to your inbox. I just need to make them first.

A brief history of making stuff

I've been creating stuff on the web since about 2011. My first CSS was written for a Wordpress blog that I grew into a business from 2011 to 2012. That blog was the last project I launched completely on my own. That was almost a decade ago.

From 2012 to 2015, I did a bunch of high-profile work for companies like Comcast, IKEA, and Groupon. Plenty of people saw my work, but it wasn't really my work. It was work I was doing for someone else. Someone else's brand, someone else's plans, someone else's designs. All I did was make it interactive (I actually had the title of "Interactive Developer" for a while).

I'm extremely grateful for all of that work, and I'm proud of the work I'm doing now. For my own sake, though, I think I need to do more.

Launching 6 Projects in 12 Months

I recently planned out my ideal future and translated that plan into goals for this year. The common theme for my life seems to be something along the lines of "Using creativity to make people's lives easier and more fun". That, to me, says I need to start practicing making stuff for people.

Which brings us to my original promise: I'm going to make some stuff for you. Over the course of this year, I'm going to be working on 6 projects-- that's 2 months for each project. Most of them are going to be completely different kinds of projects. I'm still planning things out, but here is what I'm currently cooking up:

• Two web apps
• A music album of instrumentals (likely centered around a single theme)
• A collection of art (probably portraits, but we'll see)
• A simple video game in Unity (my weakest area, but I'm going to give it a go)
• A novella (not sure what it's going to be about, but I have a ton of ideas saved up)

This challenge (if you want to call it that) is inspired by the 12 startups in 12 months challenge first popularized by Pieter Levels. I first heard about it from Monica Lent and the format I plan to follow is largely inspired by her attempt.

I'll be making my best effort to build all of this publicly so you can follow along and see all the stuff I'm creating for you.

Failure is a feature

Here's the thing: I don't intend to do a great job on all of this. In fact, I'm planning on having some serious failures. I haven't planned out how long any of this should take, but they're each going to fit into 2 months. I'm not skilled in all of these areas, but I'm working in them anyway. The only important aspect is that I set some requirements and meet them by the deadline. Subjective quality will not factor into requirements.

Failure is a feature, not a bug. To accomplish what I want to accomplish in life, I need to become more comfortable with failure. I need to be willing to shoot for the stars and fall short. The cycle of failure and perseverance is the most consistent way to achieve great things in life. I've followed that cycle plenty of times, but now I'm doing it publicly.

Watch me make stuff for you

The only thing you need to do is follow me on Twitter. If you don't want to miss any updates, I encourage you to turn on notifications. I'll be updating this page as well, but Twitter is more fun and you can point out my failures in real time!

That's it. I need to get to work.

Project #1: Discover HTML

What is it?

I first thought of this idea years ago, when I first started to learn about HTML semantic elements.

"Wouldn't it be great to have a tool that makes it easy to figure out which element I should use?"

I thought of this idea again years after that, when I first learned about ARIA roles and attributes for accessibility.

"Would it be great to have a tool that makes it easy to figure out how to make your HTML accessible?

In between these thoughts, I did a lot of Googling.

And when I say "a lot" I don't mean all I once. I mean a little bit of work repeated many times over a span of years. The cycle goes something like this:

1. Not sure what HTML to use
2. Google to find the best element or ARIA implementation
3. Spend 10 minutes looking for and deciding on an option
4. Use it
5. Forget it
6. Repeat

The problem is, most of the HTML that is available to use is also non-essential. How often do you need an <aside>, a <summary>, or a <time>? What do they even mean? If you've gone this far without them, why should you start caring now?

That's a good question, and frankly, I don't have the answer. Well, not a full answer, anyway.

Why build it?

HTML is a fundamental part of what we do. And I'm not just talking about developers--almost everyone in the modern world is affected by HTML. If you've used a computer, then you've skimmed an <ol> or clicked on a <button>.

But you've also occasionally clicked on an <a> that should have been a <button>. And every day you probably encounter hundreds of <div> elements that have the opportunity to be...any other element. Most of us never notice because it almost never affects us, but there are plenty of people it does affect.

I'm far from an accessibility expert, but I once held a role where I was the go-to person for accessibility issues. Since then, it's been a part of how I operate, and Discover HTML is an opportunity for me to not only learn more, but to teach others as well.

Status: Building 🔨

I've actually been working on Discover HTML on and off for a few months, which is why I'm only giving myself an additional month to work on it.

The current date is January 31, 2021. This month, I've been updating this blog and preparing for the rest of the year. Next month, I will be building and launching Discover HTML.