4 ms·

As stupid as this is going to sound, I think about this quite a bit in terms of writing a blog. I've wanted to do it for a long time and in the past people hav

As stupid as this is going to sound, I think about this quite a bit in terms of writing a blog. I've wanted to do it for a long time and in the past people have been very kind and supportive of my writing. However, when I think about the reality of what it takes to make a successful blog, I get very nervous about it. I mean, it's dumb because the chances of writing a successful blog is next to nil. And the way to exit the scene is easy: stop writing content. But it's the path that worries me. You need to write a lot of relevant content -- almost certainly more content than you can reasonably think about critically. You will be judged on that content. If you make a mistake or change your mind, then you can be treated very harshly. It seems that the masses have this binary view of their celebrities: genius or moron. The more popular you get, the more people have you in their sights aiming to plonk you firmly in the latter category. For a long time, I've spent ridiculous amounts of time writing in safe havens like HN comment sections: because I truly love writing. I like thinking about stuff and breaking it down. I like explaining the insights that I find. And most of all, I like the fact that somebody reads what I write. I like thinking that I've connected with somebody else who I don't even know. I seem to remember a set of rules for writers by Stephen King (although my recollection doesn't seem to match what Google returns to me). In one of them he says to prepare yourself for an unbelievable amount of criticism. It's this that worries me the most. I don't mind criticism, per se, but I don't want to have to deal with a reputation based on ideas formed from my prose. "He's the dufus who believes that unit tests shouldn't test requirements. What a moron," is fine when I'm dealing with people who know me. It's down right terrifying when dealing with people who are potentially going to interview me for a job :-) A slight miscalculation in how you describe something, a popular misconception arising from rumours of your writing, or even just having a derpy day because you didn't think it through before you put pen to paper... And suddenly, you are the moron in the eyes of millions. Like I said, it's putting the cart before the horse by a long, long way, but it still stops me from writing, which is a massive shame. Somehow I must overcome it (advice is welcome, BTW!)

elvinyung 8y ago
I relate to this so much. I look up so much to people like Scott Alexander (Slate Star Codex) and Murat Demirbas (Metadata) and innumerable multitudes of other writers and scholars, I think that I'll never get anywhere nearly as successful with my writing. But then I realized I very very much don't care about socially-constructed standards of success, and I just stop giving a shit and write what I want, when I want.
stone-monkey 8y ago
Why not write under a pseudonym? If you don't want people to associate you with every little detail of your writing, the easiest thing to do is to disassociate your writing identity with your offline identity.
- mikekchar 8y ago
  That's a good idea :-). It never even occurred to me...
  - pjc50 8y ago
    Although when you get successful the amount of effort devoted to breaking your pseudonym increases. We lost several UK police bloggers to this and there was a nasty campaign by the press against Brooke Magnanti.
    - pixl97 8y ago
      Yep, maintaining your secrecy is hard. As an individual you have hundreds of different patters that define who you are. Even the market you post to can geographically limit the location you are in. Use an uncommon, but correct, spelling of a word?
  - sh87 8y ago
    Yeah but what if I want, at some later date, to prove that I am indeed the original author of the said text instead of an imposter ?
pdimitar 8y ago
I relate to this 100% and at my age I started questioning if I should even continue to be a programmer, but then again, once you had the money and the way of life, it's impossible to toss it away for a very, VERY insecure future where you will be bashed, demeaned, and thrown pennies for stuff you poured your soul into. No thanks. Writing to me should be strictly hobby and no money should be involved because every job eventually burns you out by the mere premise that you are EXPECTED to continue doing it. Best course of action is probably a pseudonym + random thoughts with an enabled comment section in a new blog. If the comments get toxic, delete/disable the entire comment section and continue writing regardless. Many writers do the writing just to unload from their heads and souls into paper / electronic documents, and publish 5-10% of what they actually write. In the end, do what makes your soul feel good, as cliche as it sounds. I am pondering the same thing I suggested and I am sure that I will eventually get to it. Don't forget that very creative and outright genius people "blossomed" past their 35 or even 45 years old mark. You are not on a schedule. Take your personal development at your own pace.
TangoTrotFox 8y ago
This is, in my opinion, one of the biggest reasons for why anonymity is so important. Do you know what you call a person who never changes his view, even in rather extreme ways? Somebody who has the worldview of a child. I give extensive thought and research to most, and I'd like to imagine all, things I believe. Yet because of this my views change somewhat regularly as more evidence comes to light, or past evidence I relied on is shown to be doubtful. And consequently if you took my views over time as a 'blog', I'd seem to contradict myself constantly over the years - which ironically would be quite well on that path to moron categorization. I think this is yet another reason any form of social media, under actual identity, is just a bad idea. It encourages people to double down even when they know they're wrong for fear of the evolution of their views being used against them. Get sufficiently far into the spotlight and you'll no longer be able to make a single statement without fear of it being scrutinized, analyzed, and ultimately weaponized against you if possible. And it never ends. Did you hear Einstein was a racist? Yeah, totally. Because the media got their hands on a handful of private observations he wrote in his diary in the early 1920s...
RBerenguel 8y ago
Been writing on my blog, on and off, for... I don't even remember anymore (12 years?) I try to write as I am (a bit toned down probably): if I write something that a potential employer might not like, it was going to happen anyway in person (and I'm not so sure a potential employer may be that interested in digging into my writing). If you want to write, write!
pjc50 8y ago
I have something in common: I find it much easier to write comments, or stackoverflow answers, because I'm not writing into a blank page and I have something to engage with. I've genuinely considered trying to automatically extract my top N HN comments (I have 36k karma), roughly categorise them, and turn them into a book with extra commentary and thematic linking. I'd call it "Silicon Valley on ten upvotes a day". I've also considered trying to write a definitive long-form answer for all those people on electronics.stackexchange who get confused by electrons and current flow.
- Kagerjay 8y ago
  I too write better on comments, reddit/hackernews/etc. Because you are actually talking with someone. I use these writings as a starting point when I write a blogpost. I look at my hackernews posts when I get stuck, but its kind of messy to find all the comments I've made Scraping yourself and doing big data on yourself is what I am ultimately moving towards as well. Hackernews has an open API
picsao 8y ago
Annonimity
Kagerjay 8y ago
My writing is terrible when it comes to my personal blog. I write much better content in hackernews, because I'm actually conversing with someone. I think it really depends what you want out your blog. Mine is a personal blog. Its not going to be "successful" and I don't intend it to be. For the record I have 10,000 page views. Because I write it for myself, not anyone else. People mediate, I blog. That's how I reflect on things I learned. I want those experiences to live somewhere outside my mind, because its a lot of cognitive overhead to remember. It could be a blog. Or a vlog. Doesn't matter. But it needs to be public though attached with my real name. I've spent far too long writing under pseudonyms, some having 100k+ views on a page. Normally I lock myself in a room for 3 hours once every 2 weeks. Then I force myself to write about one topic, of the 100 idea drafts I have. Most of these writing topics come from posting comments from hackernews. > And suddenly, you are the moron in the eyes of millions. I'd rather be known as a once previous moron than be an unknown no one knows about. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.
sh87 8y ago
I can totally relate to this. I have a bunch of notes and potential blog posts in plain text and markdown waiting to be published. I like to write, its one of my most cherished skills. My fear of petty, shallow criticism and my fear of being stereotyped keeps me from publishing them but nothing will ever stop me from writing it. Writing has given me the clarity and stability of thought that nothing else has. Also converting them into posts that someone might need is pretty simple as long as the essence of the thoughts are captured. I'd say keep writing. Publish opinions anonymously and technical/unopinionated content attributed to your real name. That seems the sanest approach I can think of with least side effects.

elvinyung 8y ago

I relate to this so much. I look up so much to people like Scott Alexander (Slate Star Codex) and Murat Demirbas (Metadata) and innumerable multitudes of other writers and scholars, I think that I'll never get anywhere nearly as successful with my writing. But then I realized I very very much don't care about socially-constructed standards of success, and I just stop giving a shit and write what I want, when I want.

stone-monkey 8y ago

Why not write under a pseudonym? If you don't want people to associate you with every little detail of your writing, the easiest thing to do is to disassociate your writing identity with your offline identity.

mikekchar 8y ago
That's a good idea :-). It never even occurred to me...
- pjc50 8y ago
  Although when you get successful the amount of effort devoted to breaking your pseudonym increases. We lost several UK police bloggers to this and there was a nasty campaign by the press against Brooke Magnanti.
  - pixl97 8y ago
    Yep, maintaining your secrecy is hard. As an individual you have hundreds of different patters that define who you are. Even the market you post to can geographically limit the location you are in. Use an uncommon, but correct, spelling of a word?
- sh87 8y ago
  Yeah but what if I want, at some later date, to prove that I am indeed the original author of the said text instead of an imposter ?

pdimitar 8y ago

I relate to this 100% and at my age I started questioning if I should even continue to be a programmer, but then again, once you had the money and the way of life, it's impossible to toss it away for a very, VERY insecure future where you will be bashed, demeaned, and thrown pennies for stuff you poured your soul into. No thanks. Writing to me should be strictly hobby and no money should be involved because every job eventually burns you out by the mere premise that you are EXPECTED to continue doing it. Best course of action is probably a pseudonym + random thoughts with an enabled comment section in a new blog. If the comments get toxic, delete/disable the entire comment section and continue writing regardless. Many writers do the writing just to unload from their heads and souls into paper / electronic documents, and publish 5-10% of what they actually write. In the end, do what makes your soul feel good, as cliche as it sounds. I am pondering the same thing I suggested and I am sure that I will eventually get to it. Don't forget that very creative and outright genius people "blossomed" past their 35 or even 45 years old mark. You are not on a schedule. Take your personal development at your own pace.

TangoTrotFox 8y ago

This is, in my opinion, one of the biggest reasons for why anonymity is so important. Do you know what you call a person who never changes his view, even in rather extreme ways? Somebody who has the worldview of a child. I give extensive thought and research to most, and I'd like to imagine all, things I believe. Yet because of this my views change somewhat regularly as more evidence comes to light, or past evidence I relied on is shown to be doubtful. And consequently if you took my views over time as a 'blog', I'd seem to contradict myself constantly over the years - which ironically would be quite well on that path to moron categorization. I think this is yet another reason any form of social media, under actual identity, is just a bad idea. It encourages people to double down even when they know they're wrong for fear of the evolution of their views being used against them. Get sufficiently far into the spotlight and you'll no longer be able to make a single statement without fear of it being scrutinized, analyzed, and ultimately weaponized against you if possible. And it never ends. Did you hear Einstein was a racist? Yeah, totally. Because the media got their hands on a handful of private observations he wrote in his diary in the early 1920s...

RBerenguel 8y ago

Been writing on my blog, on and off, for... I don't even remember anymore (12 years?) I try to write as I am (a bit toned down probably): if I write something that a potential employer might not like, it was going to happen anyway in person (and I'm not so sure a potential employer may be that interested in digging into my writing). If you want to write, write!

pjc50 8y ago

I have something in common: I find it much easier to write comments, or stackoverflow answers, because I'm not writing into a blank page and I have something to engage with. I've genuinely considered trying to automatically extract my top N HN comments (I have 36k karma), roughly categorise them, and turn them into a book with extra commentary and thematic linking. I'd call it "Silicon Valley on ten upvotes a day". I've also considered trying to write a definitive long-form answer for all those people on electronics.stackexchange who get confused by electrons and current flow.

Kagerjay 8y ago
I too write better on comments, reddit/hackernews/etc. Because you are actually talking with someone. I use these writings as a starting point when I write a blogpost. I look at my hackernews posts when I get stuck, but its kind of messy to find all the comments I've made Scraping yourself and doing big data on yourself is what I am ultimately moving towards as well. Hackernews has an open API

picsao 8y ago

Annonimity

Kagerjay 8y ago

My writing is terrible when it comes to my personal blog. I write much better content in hackernews, because I'm actually conversing with someone. I think it really depends what you want out your blog. Mine is a personal blog. Its not going to be "successful" and I don't intend it to be. For the record I have 10,000 page views. Because I write it for myself, not anyone else. People mediate, I blog. That's how I reflect on things I learned. I want those experiences to live somewhere outside my mind, because its a lot of cognitive overhead to remember. It could be a blog. Or a vlog. Doesn't matter. But it needs to be public though attached with my real name. I've spent far too long writing under pseudonyms, some having 100k+ views on a page. Normally I lock myself in a room for 3 hours once every 2 weeks. Then I force myself to write about one topic, of the 100 idea drafts I have. Most of these writing topics come from posting comments from hackernews. > And suddenly, you are the moron in the eyes of millions. I'd rather be known as a once previous moron than be an unknown no one knows about. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

sh87 8y ago

I can totally relate to this. I have a bunch of notes and potential blog posts in plain text and markdown waiting to be published. I like to write, its one of my most cherished skills. My fear of petty, shallow criticism and my fear of being stereotyped keeps me from publishing them but nothing will ever stop me from writing it. Writing has given me the clarity and stability of thought that nothing else has. Also converting them into posts that someone might need is pretty simple as long as the essence of the thoughts are captured. I'd say keep writing. Publish opinions anonymously and technical/unopinionated content attributed to your real name. That seems the sanest approach I can think of with least side effects.