6 ms·

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 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.
sanedigital 6y ago
Hard disagree. I think you may be conflating writing and publishing. Just because you’ve written something doesn’t mean that you have to publish that thing. Writing has far-reaching effects on how you think and communicate. Lots of people believe their thoughts are well organized and that they’re capable of communicating them. But then they sit down to write those thoughts out and they can’t get anywhere. Writing, as a practice, helps you begin to make sense of all the disjointed ideas in your head. It helps you make connections between things you otherwise may not have noticed. And it helps you improve those ideas and connections because you can review and edit them later. Think of it like exercising: just because you life weights, doesn’t mean you have to start wearing sleeveless t-shirts.
- varbhat 6y ago
  I agree with you. By writing, i meant "write and publish". Writing is very good mental exercise. I totally agree.
- cgriswald 6y ago
  I use writing as an indicator where I land on Bloom's taxonomy for a given topic. I also use it as a tool to increase my own comprehension; and—to put it bluntly—to call myself out on my own bullshit. When it's in writing, I've got to defend anything I claim in a way that's a lot more rigorous than when it's just in my head.
nicbou 6y ago
I disagree. Not everything you do has to be valuable to others. I doodle in my notebook, build crappy furniture and pluck on my guitar because it's fun. Writing can be a skill you hone for your own pleasure, and a useful way to structure your thoughts or capture your current state of mind.
- varbhat 6y ago
  You do those because you love it. That's what i meant. You either want to love it or you want to share something useful to otters. That's when you must do.
- nonbirithm 6y ago
  At the point that I have a finished product sitting in my hands, there is no combination of reasoning that will prevent me from desperately wanting to share it with others. It does not matter that I did it for myself - in fact, that is always how it starts - but I personally feel that it's a waste if I end up passing on before I declare it ready to show to the world. I believe this indicates a problem in my line of thinking: desperation to affect the world or get someone to care. My belief is that if I keep everything I do to myself, then I have not "affected the world" in any way, and this is not good. My accomplishments will die with me and nobody will ever know what kind of a person I was, and all my life boiled down to was essentially finding a way to be independent and survive and then participate in solitary hedonism for the rest of it. For whatever reason I find this a suboptimal use of my own life. I am in a position in the midst of failed startups and college applications and poverty to have enough time and capital to work on my ideas, to do nearly anything, and I can squander it in any number of ways. I lose the game every day knowing this and only remembering it if someone publishes a life advice article but ignoring it the rest of the time. It feels as if my worth is tied to other people irrespective of what I tell myself otherwise, because of my desperation to have someone to confide in, but not in a way that is effortless. I keep believing I have to spend a lot of effort working on skills to deserve the kind of friends I want to know that have also worked very hard to hone skills. I don't really understand why, except maybe I don't know anyone that fits into my perfectly idealized view of the world. My family wasn't pushing me to overachieve either. My standards for people and things are just too high. Do I enjoy creating things? Not necessarily, but not creating enough things that pass my arbitrary filter before I die is supposedly worse. But this is only a vague ideal and not a concrete goal. It just looms over me constantly, as if I should have a constant reason to criticize the way I am living as "not what I really want." But I still believe the vague goal if I end up writing it out concretely. I don't want it to go away, or I will miss wanting, even mildly, to become "that kind of person." I understand this is discouraging me and I have to work on it somehow. Maybe getting the recognition from someone that I can accomplish things I set my mind to and that there is a path to what I want to do would clear out most of the issue. (But I don't mean people telling me them over Internet messages or therapy sessions just because I asked. It doesn't seem to work. I can tell all of these things to myself, but for some reason I can't personally believe them until someone wiser than me can confide in me enough to recognize and confirm them through what I actually do, not what I say.)
cik 6y ago
It's also reasonable to write for its own sake. I find writing therapeutic, as a result I've yet again started a blog. I don't care if anyone reads it, the act of writing and publishing is what makes me relax.
sergeykish 6y ago
Desire to publish helps to overcome 80% remaining work. Even then 9 out of 10 remains in the shelf, it is too hard. Again and again I am finding myself after a day with something that is not ready. All I can do is scrap it for now and turn to something small. Like 674 bytes small [1] but I think it is beautiful. [1] http://sergeykish.com/find-in-head-script-style-test http://sergeykish.com/find-in-head-script-style-test
balfirevic 6y ago
> Then you end up with something people won't like to read. Why is that a problem?
ssdspoimdsjvv 6y ago
So what? It's not like the internet is running out of space.

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.

sanedigital 6y ago

Hard disagree. I think you may be conflating writing and publishing. Just because you’ve written something doesn’t mean that you have to publish that thing. Writing has far-reaching effects on how you think and communicate. Lots of people believe their thoughts are well organized and that they’re capable of communicating them. But then they sit down to write those thoughts out and they can’t get anywhere. Writing, as a practice, helps you begin to make sense of all the disjointed ideas in your head. It helps you make connections between things you otherwise may not have noticed. And it helps you improve those ideas and connections because you can review and edit them later. Think of it like exercising: just because you life weights, doesn’t mean you have to start wearing sleeveless t-shirts.

varbhat 6y ago
I agree with you. By writing, i meant "write and publish". Writing is very good mental exercise. I totally agree.
cgriswald 6y ago
I use writing as an indicator where I land on Bloom's taxonomy for a given topic. I also use it as a tool to increase my own comprehension; and—to put it bluntly—to call myself out on my own bullshit. When it's in writing, I've got to defend anything I claim in a way that's a lot more rigorous than when it's just in my head.

nicbou 6y ago

I disagree. Not everything you do has to be valuable to others. I doodle in my notebook, build crappy furniture and pluck on my guitar because it's fun. Writing can be a skill you hone for your own pleasure, and a useful way to structure your thoughts or capture your current state of mind.

varbhat 6y ago
You do those because you love it. That's what i meant. You either want to love it or you want to share something useful to otters. That's when you must do.
nonbirithm 6y ago
At the point that I have a finished product sitting in my hands, there is no combination of reasoning that will prevent me from desperately wanting to share it with others. It does not matter that I did it for myself - in fact, that is always how it starts - but I personally feel that it's a waste if I end up passing on before I declare it ready to show to the world. I believe this indicates a problem in my line of thinking: desperation to affect the world or get someone to care. My belief is that if I keep everything I do to myself, then I have not "affected the world" in any way, and this is not good. My accomplishments will die with me and nobody will ever know what kind of a person I was, and all my life boiled down to was essentially finding a way to be independent and survive and then participate in solitary hedonism for the rest of it. For whatever reason I find this a suboptimal use of my own life. I am in a position in the midst of failed startups and college applications and poverty to have enough time and capital to work on my ideas, to do nearly anything, and I can squander it in any number of ways. I lose the game every day knowing this and only remembering it if someone publishes a life advice article but ignoring it the rest of the time. It feels as if my worth is tied to other people irrespective of what I tell myself otherwise, because of my desperation to have someone to confide in, but not in a way that is effortless. I keep believing I have to spend a lot of effort working on skills to deserve the kind of friends I want to know that have also worked very hard to hone skills. I don't really understand why, except maybe I don't know anyone that fits into my perfectly idealized view of the world. My family wasn't pushing me to overachieve either. My standards for people and things are just too high. Do I enjoy creating things? Not necessarily, but not creating enough things that pass my arbitrary filter before I die is supposedly worse. But this is only a vague ideal and not a concrete goal. It just looms over me constantly, as if I should have a constant reason to criticize the way I am living as "not what I really want." But I still believe the vague goal if I end up writing it out concretely. I don't want it to go away, or I will miss wanting, even mildly, to become "that kind of person." I understand this is discouraging me and I have to work on it somehow. Maybe getting the recognition from someone that I can accomplish things I set my mind to and that there is a path to what I want to do would clear out most of the issue. (But I don't mean people telling me them over Internet messages or therapy sessions just because I asked. It doesn't seem to work. I can tell all of these things to myself, but for some reason I can't personally believe them until someone wiser than me can confide in me enough to recognize and confirm them through what I actually do, not what I say.)

cik 6y ago

It's also reasonable to write for its own sake. I find writing therapeutic, as a result I've yet again started a blog. I don't care if anyone reads it, the act of writing and publishing is what makes me relax.

sergeykish 6y ago

Desire to publish helps to overcome 80% remaining work. Even then 9 out of 10 remains in the shelf, it is too hard. Again and again I am finding myself after a day with something that is not ready. All I can do is scrap it for now and turn to something small. Like 674 bytes small [1] but I think it is beautiful. [1] http://sergeykish.com/find-in-head-script-style-test http://sergeykish.com/find-in-head-script-style-test

balfirevic 6y ago

> Then you end up with something people won't like to read. Why is that a problem?

ssdspoimdsjvv 6y ago

So what? It's not like the internet is running out of space.