9 ms·

Why you should write

231 points by grwthckrmstr 6y ago

jsilence 6y ago
I think authors of advice like this underestimate the amount of exhaustion a lot of people have to cope with. I set out with the intention of getting into the habit of being creative instead of consuming only to realize I Was putting myself under more pressure. I have to say though that simply doodling on a Synth and enjoying the sounds, playing an instrument without trying to make a song, can be very relaxing and satisfying. Especially when you are a beginner at it. Otherwise you might be trying too hard to create something meaningful, destroying the pleasure in the process. So my advice would be not to attempt to create, but to simply indulge in the act and enjoy the flow.
- Hendrikto 6y ago
  I think it is a similar situation to the people advising to have side-hustles and hone your skills in your free time. It’s great if that’s your thing. But it is not for everybody, and nobody should feel obligated.
- sanedigital 6y ago
  Agreed, although I’ve found that some of this pressure is due to the incredible amount of momentum towards consumption you have to overcome when trying to become a creator. When I’m out of my writing habit, sitting down and getting something out is a huge chore. My brain constantly wants to pick up my phone, check my email, read the news, etc. But once I’ve spent a few days limiting that impulse, I feel like the chains are off and I’m able to just sit down and write. Last year I participated in Nanowrimo, and it was insane how quickly the words came after the first five days. I highly recommend it to anyone who has felt similar friction in their creative practice.
  - jsilence 6y ago
    Never heard about NaNoWriMo before. Great pointer! Relayed to my wife, who has let her writing talent lay dormant for quite some time.
    - sanedigital 6y ago
      NaNo is a blast, especially if you can find a group online or in person to work through it together. I'm a bit obsessed with it, if you or your wife have any questions about it don't hesitate to email me at james@sane.digital .
- nicbou 6y ago
  That's great advice. When going back to work after a few months, I had to shelve so many projects. I had no energy for anything. Sometimes, I could do little more than cook dinner. That's as a single, childless person with a low stress job. Let people relax. Stop appropriating every good thing and turning it into another competition. This reminds me of a lovely article I've read recently: an app can be a home-cooked meal. In other words, you can create small scale, short-lived things for private consumption. It's a lot more relaxing.
  - mrmonkeyman 6y ago
    It's your life, but I'll give you some unsollicitated advice: that's not healthy. Either your job sucks or your stress tolerance and I suspect it's the latter. That can be trained. You should feel like this after 100 hours of work, not 40.
  - wizzwizz4 6y ago
    Relevant thread (includes links): https://sunbeam.city/@tty/103297788574962594 https://sunbeam.city/@tty/103297788574962594
    - nicbou 6y ago
      The linked articles were worth a read. Thanks for sharing
  - latexr 6y ago
    > an app can be a home-cooked meal. I second a recommendation to that article: https://www.robinsloan.com/notes/home-cooked-app/ https://www.robinsloan.com/notes/home-cooked-app/
- KarimDaghari 6y ago
  If I may: https://karimdaghari.netlify.app/blog/get-things-done/ https://karimdaghari.netlify.app/blog/get-things-done/
  - arvinsim 6y ago
    > Conclusion > Q. How to actually get stuff done? > A. Give yourself permission to produce shit. This should be shown in a poster in my room!
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - jsilence 6y ago
      Yes, this! There is one musician on YT who said that he is simply doodling away on his groovebox frequently and that more than 90 percent of the results are shitty. But from those ideas that are somewhat decent he develops his music.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - nicbou 6y ago
      That's good advice. Before you learn how to make a dish, you must learn various ways to ruin a dish. You can read all the books in the world, but only dozens of bad omelettes will teach you how to make a good one.
- ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
  I read the article, but started to get a bit disappointed, when it got to competing and advancing one's career/impact. It espouses a different motivation from the one that drives me. I'm not against these. After all, it's why most folks get into whatever they are doing. We all need to keep a roof over our heads, and food on the table. We also want to feel good about what we do. It's just not why I do what I do. I do what I do, directly as a love of the craft, and all my work is an act of creation. I get up early every morning, and walk a couple of miles. It's usually dark, when I do, and I use the time to sort through what I'll be doing that day. A lot of that "sorting" is a moral and motivational inventory. I figure out what I want to do, and also why I want to do it. If I can't come up with a compelling why, then I have to reconsider the what. I do enjoy writing. I've done a lot of it[0], and will do more. I don't have a schedule for writing prose. I tend to churn something out once a month or so, but I will sometimes do a couple of articles in fairly quick succession. I do them for myself. It's nice if people read them, but they really help me to clarify what and why I do, as well as how. Like everything else I do, I apply a lot of polish and refinement; even if I am the only person that will ever read it. One of my habits, is that everything I do, I do as "ship." When even my casual throwaway experiments consist of a level of quality not seen in many large-scale industrial apps, then the stuff I'm serious about, is likely to be fairly robust. The one daily thing that I like to do, is write code every day. Not just LeetCode (in fact, I never practice that stuff). I like to write "keeper" code, every day, 366 days a year. Of course, I'm not able to actually get that done every day, but I get most days done. My GH Activity Graph is pretty much solid green[1]. I've been at this game a while, and a lot of what I do is almost "instinctual." Basically, "muscle memory." When I'm working on a a project, I don't whip out my GoF Design Patterns book, and figure out which of the Basic Patterns I'll be using, or my copy of Rapid Development, to set out a project plan; I just start writing an OBSERVER or ADAPTER, without bothering to call it that. In fact, the only reason that I tend to use industry jargon, is when I'm trying to leave a trail of breadcrumbs for maintainers. Otherwise, I often make up my own terminology. I'm a bit "on the spectrum," and tend to live in my own world. It can be a massively productive world, but is insular. When I write -especially about how I do stuff, it often forces me to get out of "muscle memory," and into the same world everyone else lives in. I have to explain what I do to an audience that is larger than just myself. So, it's great if people like what I write, but it really doesn't matter that much (at, least, to me). [0] https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/ https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/ [1] https://github.com/ChrisMarshallNY#github-stuff https://github.com/ChrisMarshallNY#github-stuff
- powersnail 6y ago
  I've found that counter-intuitively, the best way to get over the hurdle of creating is to learn it seriously, at least for a while, to get over the beginner period. And not just just hobbies of creation, but also sports. It takes a beginner significantly more energy to enjoy an activity, but once you are proficient in the basics (like keyboard playing for improvisation) the mental barrier is much lower, and you are more likely to just jump into it and enjoy yourself. My father liked badminton, but was never good, and rarely played. Then, at some point in his busy life, he scheduled a lesson once a week, for two months. It made such a dramatic change; he started to play weekly, even after the lesson ended, and each time with rejoicing and cheerfulness. I've seen the same pattern on myself and my friends as well, in both arts and sports. So, I'd say if you think there's something you might enjoy doing often, schedule some time to study it (again, doesn't have to be long). Get better and get happier.
  - nonbirithm 6y ago
    Same. I have found that I'm usually only interested in doing things I'm already good at, and cannot do well attempting to be an autodidact. The obligation of setting up and getting to an appointment on time means you have no choice but to have someone experienced see you work, and no choice but to have them guide you. If I am given a choice, as in left to my own devices without any other person to force or obligate me to keep going, I will usually end up stopping. My biggest problem is either not being able to tell if I have actually made any progress, or have made too little progress over too long a period of time. It seems to be accepted that if you put in a lot of effort then you'll get better, but they never mention how much better. I don't see the point in getting to point X in 10 years when being smarter about my resources would have gotten me to point X in 3 years, if getting there faster means getting to the point where I actually start enjoying it faster. Time is precious and non-renewable. Some forms of practice are simply better than others, and I believe that I can't always figure them out entirely alone.
  - watwut 6y ago
    I had opposite experience. I always tender to take things seriously and felt like doing them just bit is wrong or weak and "unserious". Result was that I stopped those activities soon, because they were draining. Meanwhile, people who just unseriously dabbled in them, tender to learn and get habits. They were not drained by them and had fun.
varbhat 6y ago
I have to disagree. Please don't write for the sake of writing. Only write if you love writing or have some ideas to share , don't worry about amount of readers. I see many writing because of "others are writing " often end up with not so good work(articles/blogs). Briefly to summarize, Write only if you have something shareable information or you love writing. Don't write because someone told you that Writing is Very good idea. Then you end up with something people won't like to read.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  I write, not because I love writing, but I think I have thinks (edit: this is a typo, but not one I can bring myself to kill) I want other people to know. Actually, often these are things that I have said in piecemeal many times in other places and it can be remarkably useful to just sit down and force myself into the constraint of “ok, I need to get these all together in a coherent thought that someone else will want to read”. It’s often a pretty painful experience, to be honest, but I have found it can be really helpful in getting to “what really is my opinion on this thing? Why do I want to talk about it so much? How can I distill it into something that others can understand? What parts can I support with evidence? Which parts don’t really make sense anymore?”
  - varbhat 6y ago
    You write because You have shareable information, You feel like your thoughts must be documented/organized. You do it for greater good even though you don't much like/love writing. Actually by "if you love writing" , i meant writers who are fond of writing stories/other entertainment. It could also mean some writers who love writing tech doc/daily notes. What I criticizing were writers who write spam,skiddie hack articles, false news,low quality spam,etc. If you don't know about what you are writing,then you are wrong.
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      Yeah, I think we all agree that blogspam is not fun to wade through. I interpreted your comment as “don’t write unless you love writing and have things you want to share” when I think you really mean or.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
rustybolt 6y ago
I'm pretty tired of articles telling me I should do things.
- abdulhaq 6y ago
  The interesting question is, why do we still read these things? We already kind of know what they are going to say, and we already have well informed and stable opinions about them. I think personally deep down maybe I'm hoping they're going to convince me that what I say does actually matter to someone else... I'm yet to be convinced ;-)
  - fsnowdin 6y ago
    For me, I've become absolutely sick of these types of self-help articles. But once in a while, I'll read one in the hope that it'll actually teach me something new and make me re-consider how I viewed something. Usually that doesn't happen. The ones that do are pretty technical, a recent example is the 'What does code readability mean?' article hanging around on the HN front page right now.
    - nicbou 6y ago
      I love the ones that tell you the opposite. How To Do Nothing is my favourite example. I also like those that remind us to build silly things that don't matter. It's good to be reminded that maybe there is more to life than being really really really ridiculously productive.
- sergeykish 6y ago
  Authors node is people who don't know where to put their time and need some push.
- cambalache 6y ago
  That is because you are taking the article at face-value. This is just content marketing for a kid with a start-up, nothing more.
aspyct 6y ago
Common obstacles to writing: 5. Time, 6. Priorities
tug0fwar 6y ago
In the midst of Covid-19 isolation, meeting with less distractions, I too had thoughts on theses lines. It almost came as a revelation. Keep creating, everyone's a creative force. But create value, not nonsensical stuff. Kudos for the author of this article. If I may, RWE's 'Self-Reliance' too mentions something on these lines.
michaelluang 6y ago
Publish what you learn is a good way for learning. https://twitter.com/paul_irish/status/139822888323776514?s=20 https://twitter.com/paul_irish/status/139822888323776514?s=2...
wombatmobile 6y ago
TFA heading is misleading. TFA isn’t saying everyone should write. Rather: > With this blog post, I’m pulling at the strings that connect people who want to create stuff, have the ability to create stuff, and want to get started but haven’t yet. More specifically, my blog might appeal to people who have the ability and desire to write.
boyter 6y ago
I write blogs mostly because I want something to refer back to over time. If someone else finds it useful that’s great but ideally I am the target audience. I tend to write while I’m doing anything as loose notes which I can then turn into something after the fact. So I get the benefit of what I was thinking at the time and then years later can get back into that mindset. It works for me, and is relatively low effort. What I have found though is that it helps job wise because I stand out just a little, which is more important than ever as I get older.
DrNuke 6y ago
Doers (less and less)... teachers (less)... networkers (more)... writers (more and more)... the trend just shows the sad indictment of an economic tsunami in the making, where opportunities and real money are scarce?
scriptstar 6y ago
I have been reading a book just 5 pages (some days more) and writing for 136 days without a break. I am super enjoying my journey. Check out https://5pagesaday.com/ https://5pagesaday.com/ It's not a plug to hop you to my site. I sincerely appreciate your feedback. I see a lot of benefits, like I improved my ability to express my views concisely. I am now a lot better at summarising things and packing so much of value in short sentences. I would highly recommend building a habit, like reading and writing.
ebj73 6y ago
An interesting read on writing is Stephen King's "On Writing - A Memoir of The Craft": https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10569.On_Writing https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10569.On_Writing One of the things he mentions in his book is to be judicious in editing your own texts, removing any words that do not add to the actual message that you're trying to get across. For instance, in the last sentence, I ought to have removed the word 'actual'. I think some of this advice could probably apply to this article as well.
- raister 6y ago
  This book is a gem for all writers, fiction, papers, etc. So many advice. I like the one: write from start to finish then let it rest for 6 weeks and edit out 10% of everything you wrote. Classic book. Read it twice already.
maverickJ 6y ago
Writing puts thoughts to paper. Muffled thoughts don't make good sentences. A collection of sentences makes a paragraph. Therefore, muffled thoughts can't make a paragraph. Where am I going with the above: By writing, we find out if our thoughts are muffled or not. This means that writing is like a mirror to our thoughts. Now there is a difference between writing for personal use and writing for the public. I think everyone should write for personal use. Examples of writing for personal use are 1. Journalling. 2. Self Reflection. 3. Project analysis. When it comes to writing for public consumption, it's a different thing all together. You would want to have a topic or interest area you want to write about. It also takes much more time than you can imagine. I started writing recently for the public and the process has been rewarding. I have learnt alot about myself. You can check out my newsletter at https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/ https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/
- zikzak 6y ago
  Did you mean "muddled" or was "muffled" intentional? I agree with your premise, regardless.
  - maverickJ 6y ago
    Muddled.
    - nicbou 6y ago
      Muffled made sense too. Writing for yourself allows you to write down thoughts that might not be suitable for others (unless you are Charles Bukowski). Writing about your negative emotions feels very therapeutic. Older journals are a delightful read. It's fun to remember the things that made you tick back then, whether it was a short-lived obsession with old maps or lust for a girl that - let's face it - really wasn't that special.
jedimastert 6y ago
Slightly on topic; I wrote a small blog post about my dealings with the urge to create. https://aarontag.dev/2020/06/14/the-urge.html https://aarontag.dev/2020/06/14/the-urge.html
Ayesh 6y ago
I started to work on one tech site, and I often write many technical documents,and I'm planning to complete a documentation before a new release this December. For every post I wrote, I personally learn a lot, specially edge cases. That alone is worth it for me the process. I disagree that you have to put content out. I suppose the author is from South Asia, and there is a competition there that seemingly small things matter more. Bring in Hacktoberfest PR counts, GSoC gaming, and of course a stellar Medium.com content for the full picture.
hazz99 6y ago
The book "Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student" is a great resource to improve your authorship. It's dense, meticulous, and for me, invaluable. I consider it the literary equivalent of a technical manual. It's quite dense, not a passive read. [0] https://www.amazon.com.au/Classical-Rhetoric-Modern-Student-Corbett/dp/0195115422 https://www.amazon.com.au/Classical-Rhetoric-Modern-Student-...
barrenko 6y ago
Stop trying to force yourself to do stuff. Soon you'll only be able to function by making a project out of even stuff that won't be bending themselves to such, well , projects.
- tayo42 6y ago
  Idk if that's right, if I didn't force my self to do anything I'd be sitting around watching TV, ordering food and smoking weed. I think most if not all lean naturally lazy.
k__ 6y ago
Writing is like rubber duck debugging for me. People always ask questions like "How are you thoughts if you are dead/blind?" I'm neither of this and most of my thoughts don't look like images, text, or sound. They are their own convulted thing, a thought. Talking and writing about them helps me to "linearize" them and to find the holes. Especially technical writing helps to get things in check. Did I miss some steps? Can I reproduce my conclusion from my text alone, without any extra input? Write something, try to explain things, it can help you to understand better; even if you think you already know them well. You don't even need to publish your stuff, though others people input can help greatly too, even if the just ask questions because they don't know the topic as well as you.
- nicbou 6y ago
  The Feyman Method!
  - k__ 6y ago
    Nice! Didn't know this was a thing :D
drewbent 6y ago
Regarding the author's point that you "need to narrow down and focus on a small enough splice, such that when you tug at its strings, you have a real chance to get noticed" — reminds me of a friend who sends the occasionally newsletter. Rather than boasting a large email list, the friend signs off every email with the line, "sent to 27 subscribers." You have no idea who those 26 other people are, but you know you were hand-picked. This is not a list you sign up for, but it's one where you are likely to pay attention. Audience matters a lot.
vehemenz 6y ago
I agree about the writing, but don't try to be a philosopher. Philosophy is a field where reputable, long-tenured experts routinely get it wrong. Many philosophers stake their entire career on a mistake. Being the expert in your field, even having 30+ years of experience, does not make you a philosopher. A beginner in philosophy has at least an undergraduate degree and 5-10 additional years of moderate study. Stick to what you know, and you will always be able to translate your experience into valuable insights for others.
- tyrust 6y ago
  Just because you might not make a rigorous contribution to a field doesn't mean you should avoid it. Applying a philosophical concept in the context of your life, for example, is a fine thing to write about.
  - vehemenz 6y ago
    Insofar as a a philosopher's job is to think clearly, analyze concepts, and provide arguments, I agree. Like cycling or any other activity, there are levels to philosophy. But that doesn't mean you should enter the Tour de France because you're interested in mathematical Platonism.
- pcmaffey 6y ago
  Don’t try to “be” anything. Do it, and let being emerge.
seattle_spring 6y ago
Question for folks that write on a regular basis: what medium do you use to write? Paper and pen? Laptop? Tablet? Something else? I find pros and cons to all of the above, and ultimately have a hard time getting into the flow. I used to write all of the time on a laptop before I started working in software.
- codazoda 6y ago
  I write a bit. I use my laptop. I change my methods frequently (text files, notion, html, markdown, wiki, wordpress). Lately I've slacked a bit and so a couple days ago I decided to simply write letters to myself. This is very, very easy. I don't have to worry about how good it is, I'm only writing to myself. I also put a note in my calendar to go back and read my letters about once a month. Sometimes I'll expand letters into blog posts or small books. I've published several small books in the past, the most recent being my introduction to computer programming for absolute beginners, which is called "Splash of Code by Joel Dare".
- ghaff 6y ago
  Either laptop of desktop depending on whether I need a lot of reference material open. I wrote with a typewriter for years before computers and I can't really handwrite for an extended period any longer (or read what I've written half the time).
- iainctduncan 6y ago
  I use Scrivener. It's basically a "pretty good writer's IDE". Yes I could make something more sophisticated and tuned for my workflow hacking up emacs or vim, and it's not Jet-Brains level of polish, but after trying both routes I realized for writing, Good Enough is just fine. And the advantages of Scrivener outweigh the lack of vim bindings... :-) Put it in full screen, and everything you need to write is there, with all of the other distractions from your general OS hidden out of the way. Decent outlining and note taking tools, plays well with git, multiple ways of looking at the same data, and Composer Mode, where your page becomes a typewriter. It's pretty slick and fairly priced. I will also outline on paper and index cards. Index cards are great for outlining and can be spread around the desk easily.
tayo42 6y ago
Thought it was interesting this focused on opinion or blog style stuff. Wonder if he ever does fiction or creative writing things.
vincentmarle 6y ago
My problem with writing is the inevitable cringe I get after rereading what I wrote (especially on stuff that I wrote longer than a year ago), since by the time I reread it, I have already learned so much more and have gotten totally different insights, or the environment has changed so much that my writing is no longer relevant. And then I feel embarrassed, because if I cringe, then I start to think how many other people would cringe if they would read it. Trying to hedge against all these outcomes results in an unhealthy high level of expectation that my writings be timeless pieces of novel and truth that it cripples my writing to the point that I stopped writing a long time ago. Any tips to overcome this?
- nicbou 6y ago
  I wrote a personal journal during my motorcycle travels. Not a blog, just a personal journal. I wrote down what happened and how I felt, with no regards for any audience. That was after I gave up on writing a blog about it. I read some of it a bit later. I couldn't make it through a single blog article, but poured through the journal with a wide grin. It was enjoyable precisely because it was so raw. It perfectly captured everything: the fear, the excitement, the anger, the embarrassment, the lust, the boredom. That was the story, not the diluted version I felt comfortable sharing. It felt much more real with the bad parts left in. Write for yourself, as a record. Be angry, be lewd, be irrational, but be honest.
dt3ft 6y ago
I wrote about setting up SSL for Confluence on Windows: https://20-things.com/Thing?thingId=1028 https://20-things.com/Thing?thingId=1028 Don't think anyone will ever read it, but if I ever need to do this again, I will use the article I wrote as a howto reminder.
senectus1 6y ago
Finding time to Do something creative on a regular basis is a serious power up move. Don't care if its banging bits of wood together, drawing/painting, writing, singing or gardening. Do something that is creative and not work. do it for yourself. It helps keep your brain and self in balance.

231 points by grwthckrmstr 6y ago

I think authors of advice like this underestimate the amount of exhaustion a lot of people have to cope with. I set out with the intention of getting into the habit of being creative instead of consuming only to realize I Was putting myself under more pressure. I have to say though that simply doodling on a Synth and enjoying the sounds, playing an instrument without trying to make a song, can be very relaxing and satisfying. Especially when you are a beginner at it. Otherwise you might be trying too hard to create something meaningful, destroying the pleasure in the process. So my advice would be not to attempt to create, but to simply indulge in the act and enjoy the flow.

Hendrikto 6y ago
I think it is a similar situation to the people advising to have side-hustles and hone your skills in your free time. It’s great if that’s your thing. But it is not for everybody, and nobody should feel obligated.
sanedigital 6y ago
Agreed, although I’ve found that some of this pressure is due to the incredible amount of momentum towards consumption you have to overcome when trying to become a creator. When I’m out of my writing habit, sitting down and getting something out is a huge chore. My brain constantly wants to pick up my phone, check my email, read the news, etc. But once I’ve spent a few days limiting that impulse, I feel like the chains are off and I’m able to just sit down and write. Last year I participated in Nanowrimo, and it was insane how quickly the words came after the first five days. I highly recommend it to anyone who has felt similar friction in their creative practice.
- jsilence 6y ago
  Never heard about NaNoWriMo before. Great pointer! Relayed to my wife, who has let her writing talent lay dormant for quite some time.
  - sanedigital 6y ago
    NaNo is a blast, especially if you can find a group online or in person to work through it together. I'm a bit obsessed with it, if you or your wife have any questions about it don't hesitate to email me at james@sane.digital .
nicbou 6y ago
That's great advice. When going back to work after a few months, I had to shelve so many projects. I had no energy for anything. Sometimes, I could do little more than cook dinner. That's as a single, childless person with a low stress job. Let people relax. Stop appropriating every good thing and turning it into another competition. This reminds me of a lovely article I've read recently: an app can be a home-cooked meal. In other words, you can create small scale, short-lived things for private consumption. It's a lot more relaxing.
- mrmonkeyman 6y ago
  It's your life, but I'll give you some unsollicitated advice: that's not healthy. Either your job sucks or your stress tolerance and I suspect it's the latter. That can be trained. You should feel like this after 100 hours of work, not 40.
- wizzwizz4 6y ago
  Relevant thread (includes links): https://sunbeam.city/@tty/103297788574962594 https://sunbeam.city/@tty/103297788574962594
  - nicbou 6y ago
    The linked articles were worth a read. Thanks for sharing
- latexr 6y ago
  > an app can be a home-cooked meal. I second a recommendation to that article: https://www.robinsloan.com/notes/home-cooked-app/ https://www.robinsloan.com/notes/home-cooked-app/
KarimDaghari 6y ago
If I may: https://karimdaghari.netlify.app/blog/get-things-done/ https://karimdaghari.netlify.app/blog/get-things-done/
- arvinsim 6y ago
  > Conclusion > Q. How to actually get stuff done? > A. Give yourself permission to produce shit. This should be shown in a poster in my room!
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - jsilence 6y ago
    Yes, this! There is one musician on YT who said that he is simply doodling away on his groovebox frequently and that more than 90 percent of the results are shitty. But from those ideas that are somewhat decent he develops his music.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - nicbou 6y ago
    That's good advice. Before you learn how to make a dish, you must learn various ways to ruin a dish. You can read all the books in the world, but only dozens of bad omelettes will teach you how to make a good one.
ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
I read the article, but started to get a bit disappointed, when it got to competing and advancing one's career/impact. It espouses a different motivation from the one that drives me. I'm not against these. After all, it's why most folks get into whatever they are doing. We all need to keep a roof over our heads, and food on the table. We also want to feel good about what we do. It's just not why I do what I do. I do what I do, directly as a love of the craft, and all my work is an act of creation. I get up early every morning, and walk a couple of miles. It's usually dark, when I do, and I use the time to sort through what I'll be doing that day. A lot of that "sorting" is a moral and motivational inventory. I figure out what I want to do, and also why I want to do it. If I can't come up with a compelling why, then I have to reconsider the what. I do enjoy writing. I've done a lot of it[0], and will do more. I don't have a schedule for writing prose. I tend to churn something out once a month or so, but I will sometimes do a couple of articles in fairly quick succession. I do them for myself. It's nice if people read them, but they really help me to clarify what and why I do, as well as how. Like everything else I do, I apply a lot of polish and refinement; even if I am the only person that will ever read it. One of my habits, is that everything I do, I do as "ship." When even my casual throwaway experiments consist of a level of quality not seen in many large-scale industrial apps, then the stuff I'm serious about, is likely to be fairly robust. The one daily thing that I like to do, is write code every day. Not just LeetCode (in fact, I never practice that stuff). I like to write "keeper" code, every day, 366 days a year. Of course, I'm not able to actually get that done every day, but I get most days done. My GH Activity Graph is pretty much solid green[1]. I've been at this game a while, and a lot of what I do is almost "instinctual." Basically, "muscle memory." When I'm working on a a project, I don't whip out my GoF Design Patterns book, and figure out which of the Basic Patterns I'll be using, or my copy of Rapid Development, to set out a project plan; I just start writing an OBSERVER or ADAPTER, without bothering to call it that. In fact, the only reason that I tend to use industry jargon, is when I'm trying to leave a trail of breadcrumbs for maintainers. Otherwise, I often make up my own terminology. I'm a bit "on the spectrum," and tend to live in my own world. It can be a massively productive world, but is insular. When I write -especially about how I do stuff, it often forces me to get out of "muscle memory," and into the same world everyone else lives in. I have to explain what I do to an audience that is larger than just myself. So, it's great if people like what I write, but it really doesn't matter that much (at, least, to me). [0] https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/ https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/ [1] https://github.com/ChrisMarshallNY#github-stuff https://github.com/ChrisMarshallNY#github-stuff
powersnail 6y ago
I've found that counter-intuitively, the best way to get over the hurdle of creating is to learn it seriously, at least for a while, to get over the beginner period. And not just just hobbies of creation, but also sports. It takes a beginner significantly more energy to enjoy an activity, but once you are proficient in the basics (like keyboard playing for improvisation) the mental barrier is much lower, and you are more likely to just jump into it and enjoy yourself. My father liked badminton, but was never good, and rarely played. Then, at some point in his busy life, he scheduled a lesson once a week, for two months. It made such a dramatic change; he started to play weekly, even after the lesson ended, and each time with rejoicing and cheerfulness. I've seen the same pattern on myself and my friends as well, in both arts and sports. So, I'd say if you think there's something you might enjoy doing often, schedule some time to study it (again, doesn't have to be long). Get better and get happier.
- nonbirithm 6y ago
  Same. I have found that I'm usually only interested in doing things I'm already good at, and cannot do well attempting to be an autodidact. The obligation of setting up and getting to an appointment on time means you have no choice but to have someone experienced see you work, and no choice but to have them guide you. If I am given a choice, as in left to my own devices without any other person to force or obligate me to keep going, I will usually end up stopping. My biggest problem is either not being able to tell if I have actually made any progress, or have made too little progress over too long a period of time. It seems to be accepted that if you put in a lot of effort then you'll get better, but they never mention how much better. I don't see the point in getting to point X in 10 years when being smarter about my resources would have gotten me to point X in 3 years, if getting there faster means getting to the point where I actually start enjoying it faster. Time is precious and non-renewable. Some forms of practice are simply better than others, and I believe that I can't always figure them out entirely alone.
- watwut 6y ago
  I had opposite experience. I always tender to take things seriously and felt like doing them just bit is wrong or weak and "unserious". Result was that I stopped those activities soon, because they were draining. Meanwhile, people who just unseriously dabbled in them, tender to learn and get habits. They were not drained by them and had fun.

varbhat 6y ago

I have to disagree. Please don't write for the sake of writing. Only write if you love writing or have some ideas to share , don't worry about amount of readers. I see many writing because of "others are writing " often end up with not so good work(articles/blogs). Briefly to summarize, Write only if you have something shareable information or you love writing. Don't write because someone told you that Writing is Very good idea. Then you end up with something people won't like to read.

saagarjha 6y ago
I write, not because I love writing, but I think I have thinks (edit: this is a typo, but not one I can bring myself to kill) I want other people to know. Actually, often these are things that I have said in piecemeal many times in other places and it can be remarkably useful to just sit down and force myself into the constraint of “ok, I need to get these all together in a coherent thought that someone else will want to read”. It’s often a pretty painful experience, to be honest, but I have found it can be really helpful in getting to “what really is my opinion on this thing? Why do I want to talk about it so much? How can I distill it into something that others can understand? What parts can I support with evidence? Which parts don’t really make sense anymore?”
- varbhat 6y ago
  You write because You have shareable information, You feel like your thoughts must be documented/organized. You do it for greater good even though you don't much like/love writing. Actually by "if you love writing" , i meant writers who are fond of writing stories/other entertainment. It could also mean some writers who love writing tech doc/daily notes. What I criticizing were writers who write spam,skiddie hack articles, false news,low quality spam,etc. If you don't know about what you are writing,then you are wrong.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    Yeah, I think we all agree that blogspam is not fun to wade through. I interpreted your comment as “don’t write unless you love writing and have things you want to share” when I think you really mean or.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

rustybolt 6y ago

I'm pretty tired of articles telling me I should do things.

abdulhaq 6y ago
The interesting question is, why do we still read these things? We already kind of know what they are going to say, and we already have well informed and stable opinions about them. I think personally deep down maybe I'm hoping they're going to convince me that what I say does actually matter to someone else... I'm yet to be convinced ;-)
- fsnowdin 6y ago
  For me, I've become absolutely sick of these types of self-help articles. But once in a while, I'll read one in the hope that it'll actually teach me something new and make me re-consider how I viewed something. Usually that doesn't happen. The ones that do are pretty technical, a recent example is the 'What does code readability mean?' article hanging around on the HN front page right now.
  - nicbou 6y ago
    I love the ones that tell you the opposite. How To Do Nothing is my favourite example. I also like those that remind us to build silly things that don't matter. It's good to be reminded that maybe there is more to life than being really really really ridiculously productive.
sergeykish 6y ago
Authors node is people who don't know where to put their time and need some push.
cambalache 6y ago
That is because you are taking the article at face-value. This is just content marketing for a kid with a start-up, nothing more.

aspyct 6y ago

Common obstacles to writing: 5. Time, 6. Priorities

tug0fwar 6y ago

In the midst of Covid-19 isolation, meeting with less distractions, I too had thoughts on theses lines. It almost came as a revelation. Keep creating, everyone's a creative force. But create value, not nonsensical stuff. Kudos for the author of this article. If I may, RWE's 'Self-Reliance' too mentions something on these lines.

michaelluang 6y ago

Publish what you learn is a good way for learning. https://twitter.com/paul_irish/status/139822888323776514?s=20 https://twitter.com/paul_irish/status/139822888323776514?s=2...

wombatmobile 6y ago

TFA heading is misleading. TFA isn’t saying everyone should write. Rather: > With this blog post, I’m pulling at the strings that connect people who want to create stuff, have the ability to create stuff, and want to get started but haven’t yet. More specifically, my blog might appeal to people who have the ability and desire to write.

boyter 6y ago

I write blogs mostly because I want something to refer back to over time. If someone else finds it useful that’s great but ideally I am the target audience. I tend to write while I’m doing anything as loose notes which I can then turn into something after the fact. So I get the benefit of what I was thinking at the time and then years later can get back into that mindset. It works for me, and is relatively low effort. What I have found though is that it helps job wise because I stand out just a little, which is more important than ever as I get older.

DrNuke 6y ago

Doers (less and less)... teachers (less)... networkers (more)... writers (more and more)... the trend just shows the sad indictment of an economic tsunami in the making, where opportunities and real money are scarce?

scriptstar 6y ago

I have been reading a book just 5 pages (some days more) and writing for 136 days without a break. I am super enjoying my journey. Check out https://5pagesaday.com/ https://5pagesaday.com/ It's not a plug to hop you to my site. I sincerely appreciate your feedback. I see a lot of benefits, like I improved my ability to express my views concisely. I am now a lot better at summarising things and packing so much of value in short sentences. I would highly recommend building a habit, like reading and writing.

ebj73 6y ago

An interesting read on writing is Stephen King's "On Writing - A Memoir of The Craft": https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10569.On_Writing https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10569.On_Writing One of the things he mentions in his book is to be judicious in editing your own texts, removing any words that do not add to the actual message that you're trying to get across. For instance, in the last sentence, I ought to have removed the word 'actual'. I think some of this advice could probably apply to this article as well.

raister 6y ago
This book is a gem for all writers, fiction, papers, etc. So many advice. I like the one: write from start to finish then let it rest for 6 weeks and edit out 10% of everything you wrote. Classic book. Read it twice already.

maverickJ 6y ago

Writing puts thoughts to paper. Muffled thoughts don't make good sentences. A collection of sentences makes a paragraph. Therefore, muffled thoughts can't make a paragraph. Where am I going with the above: By writing, we find out if our thoughts are muffled or not. This means that writing is like a mirror to our thoughts. Now there is a difference between writing for personal use and writing for the public. I think everyone should write for personal use. Examples of writing for personal use are 1. Journalling. 2. Self Reflection. 3. Project analysis. When it comes to writing for public consumption, it's a different thing all together. You would want to have a topic or interest area you want to write about. It also takes much more time than you can imagine. I started writing recently for the public and the process has been rewarding. I have learnt alot about myself. You can check out my newsletter at https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/ https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/

zikzak 6y ago
Did you mean "muddled" or was "muffled" intentional? I agree with your premise, regardless.
- maverickJ 6y ago
  Muddled.
  - nicbou 6y ago
    Muffled made sense too. Writing for yourself allows you to write down thoughts that might not be suitable for others (unless you are Charles Bukowski). Writing about your negative emotions feels very therapeutic. Older journals are a delightful read. It's fun to remember the things that made you tick back then, whether it was a short-lived obsession with old maps or lust for a girl that - let's face it - really wasn't that special.

jedimastert 6y ago

Slightly on topic; I wrote a small blog post about my dealings with the urge to create. https://aarontag.dev/2020/06/14/the-urge.html https://aarontag.dev/2020/06/14/the-urge.html

Ayesh 6y ago

I started to work on one tech site, and I often write many technical documents,and I'm planning to complete a documentation before a new release this December. For every post I wrote, I personally learn a lot, specially edge cases. That alone is worth it for me the process. I disagree that you have to put content out. I suppose the author is from South Asia, and there is a competition there that seemingly small things matter more. Bring in Hacktoberfest PR counts, GSoC gaming, and of course a stellar Medium.com content for the full picture.

hazz99 6y ago

The book "Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student" is a great resource to improve your authorship. It's dense, meticulous, and for me, invaluable. I consider it the literary equivalent of a technical manual. It's quite dense, not a passive read. [0] https://www.amazon.com.au/Classical-Rhetoric-Modern-Student-Corbett/dp/0195115422 https://www.amazon.com.au/Classical-Rhetoric-Modern-Student-...

barrenko 6y ago

Stop trying to force yourself to do stuff. Soon you'll only be able to function by making a project out of even stuff that won't be bending themselves to such, well , projects.

tayo42 6y ago
Idk if that's right, if I didn't force my self to do anything I'd be sitting around watching TV, ordering food and smoking weed. I think most if not all lean naturally lazy.

k__ 6y ago

Writing is like rubber duck debugging for me. People always ask questions like "How are you thoughts if you are dead/blind?" I'm neither of this and most of my thoughts don't look like images, text, or sound. They are their own convulted thing, a thought. Talking and writing about them helps me to "linearize" them and to find the holes. Especially technical writing helps to get things in check. Did I miss some steps? Can I reproduce my conclusion from my text alone, without any extra input? Write something, try to explain things, it can help you to understand better; even if you think you already know them well. You don't even need to publish your stuff, though others people input can help greatly too, even if the just ask questions because they don't know the topic as well as you.

nicbou 6y ago
The Feyman Method!
- k__ 6y ago
  Nice! Didn't know this was a thing :D

drewbent 6y ago

Regarding the author's point that you "need to narrow down and focus on a small enough splice, such that when you tug at its strings, you have a real chance to get noticed" — reminds me of a friend who sends the occasionally newsletter. Rather than boasting a large email list, the friend signs off every email with the line, "sent to 27 subscribers." You have no idea who those 26 other people are, but you know you were hand-picked. This is not a list you sign up for, but it's one where you are likely to pay attention. Audience matters a lot.

vehemenz 6y ago

I agree about the writing, but don't try to be a philosopher. Philosophy is a field where reputable, long-tenured experts routinely get it wrong. Many philosophers stake their entire career on a mistake. Being the expert in your field, even having 30+ years of experience, does not make you a philosopher. A beginner in philosophy has at least an undergraduate degree and 5-10 additional years of moderate study. Stick to what you know, and you will always be able to translate your experience into valuable insights for others.

tyrust 6y ago
Just because you might not make a rigorous contribution to a field doesn't mean you should avoid it. Applying a philosophical concept in the context of your life, for example, is a fine thing to write about.
- vehemenz 6y ago
  Insofar as a a philosopher's job is to think clearly, analyze concepts, and provide arguments, I agree. Like cycling or any other activity, there are levels to philosophy. But that doesn't mean you should enter the Tour de France because you're interested in mathematical Platonism.
pcmaffey 6y ago
Don’t try to “be” anything. Do it, and let being emerge.

seattle_spring 6y ago

Question for folks that write on a regular basis: what medium do you use to write? Paper and pen? Laptop? Tablet? Something else? I find pros and cons to all of the above, and ultimately have a hard time getting into the flow. I used to write all of the time on a laptop before I started working in software.

codazoda 6y ago
I write a bit. I use my laptop. I change my methods frequently (text files, notion, html, markdown, wiki, wordpress). Lately I've slacked a bit and so a couple days ago I decided to simply write letters to myself. This is very, very easy. I don't have to worry about how good it is, I'm only writing to myself. I also put a note in my calendar to go back and read my letters about once a month. Sometimes I'll expand letters into blog posts or small books. I've published several small books in the past, the most recent being my introduction to computer programming for absolute beginners, which is called "Splash of Code by Joel Dare".
ghaff 6y ago
Either laptop of desktop depending on whether I need a lot of reference material open. I wrote with a typewriter for years before computers and I can't really handwrite for an extended period any longer (or read what I've written half the time).
iainctduncan 6y ago
I use Scrivener. It's basically a "pretty good writer's IDE". Yes I could make something more sophisticated and tuned for my workflow hacking up emacs or vim, and it's not Jet-Brains level of polish, but after trying both routes I realized for writing, Good Enough is just fine. And the advantages of Scrivener outweigh the lack of vim bindings... :-) Put it in full screen, and everything you need to write is there, with all of the other distractions from your general OS hidden out of the way. Decent outlining and note taking tools, plays well with git, multiple ways of looking at the same data, and Composer Mode, where your page becomes a typewriter. It's pretty slick and fairly priced. I will also outline on paper and index cards. Index cards are great for outlining and can be spread around the desk easily.

tayo42 6y ago

Thought it was interesting this focused on opinion or blog style stuff. Wonder if he ever does fiction or creative writing things.

vincentmarle 6y ago

My problem with writing is the inevitable cringe I get after rereading what I wrote (especially on stuff that I wrote longer than a year ago), since by the time I reread it, I have already learned so much more and have gotten totally different insights, or the environment has changed so much that my writing is no longer relevant. And then I feel embarrassed, because if I cringe, then I start to think how many other people would cringe if they would read it. Trying to hedge against all these outcomes results in an unhealthy high level of expectation that my writings be timeless pieces of novel and truth that it cripples my writing to the point that I stopped writing a long time ago. Any tips to overcome this?

nicbou 6y ago
I wrote a personal journal during my motorcycle travels. Not a blog, just a personal journal. I wrote down what happened and how I felt, with no regards for any audience. That was after I gave up on writing a blog about it. I read some of it a bit later. I couldn't make it through a single blog article, but poured through the journal with a wide grin. It was enjoyable precisely because it was so raw. It perfectly captured everything: the fear, the excitement, the anger, the embarrassment, the lust, the boredom. That was the story, not the diluted version I felt comfortable sharing. It felt much more real with the bad parts left in. Write for yourself, as a record. Be angry, be lewd, be irrational, but be honest.

dt3ft 6y ago

I wrote about setting up SSL for Confluence on Windows: https://20-things.com/Thing?thingId=1028 https://20-things.com/Thing?thingId=1028 Don't think anyone will ever read it, but if I ever need to do this again, I will use the article I wrote as a howto reminder.

senectus1 6y ago

Finding time to Do something creative on a regular basis is a serious power up move. Don't care if its banging bits of wood together, drawing/painting, writing, singing or gardening. Do something that is creative and not work. do it for yourself. It helps keep your brain and self in balance.