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I also hired an editor to look at my essays for a prestigious scholarship. Although the application ultimately was unsuccessful, I can say without a doubt that

I also hired an editor to look at my essays for a prestigious scholarship. Although the application ultimately was unsuccessful, I can say without a doubt that it is some of the strongest writing I've ever put together. My editor did exactly what Samantha asked of Michael: asked me why, over and over again. Why I am I telling this story? Why should anyone else care? Why should they read past the first paragraph? Why is this sidebar here? I always thought editors as being like the New Yorker's Comma Queen, focused on sharpening syntax. But while that is certainly part of their purview, they are masters at crafting compelling stories and tailoring the facts of the matter to the intended audience.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago
I'd like to do more blogging myself, sometimes, but I feel like I don't have much to talk about, AND a crippling sense of impostor syndrome; if confronted with questions like "why", I'd start to seriously doubt myself. I mean I've got plenty to talk about but I can't get consistent. For now I'll stick to shitposting on HN I guess.
- Spearchucker 6y ago
  I tried blogging once. Also didn't have enough ideas for content and no compelling theme, to boot. Used to have imposter syndrome bad, but at some point I just stopped caring about it. What I DID do was to write things down. Any time I discovered a new thing (risk managment, recovery-oriented computing, various consulting tips/tricks/and so on) I wrote down what I wanted to remember. But I wrote that down on my web site, in HTML. Sometimes when I procrastinate I look to improve the layout, language or content. There's not a huge amount of content there (maybe 20 posts?), but it seems to interest others so that's ok I guess. I'm happy with my blogging-but-not-blogging thing. It scratches the itch without consuming me, my time, and I don't need an editor. That said there's a lot of other stuff on there that floats my boat, so there's that work/play variety which floats my boat. https://www.wittenburg.co.uk/work https://www.wittenburg.co.uk/work
  - stevekemp 6y ago
    I did something similar, back in the day. I setup debian-administration.org at least partly to document things I'd learned, tried, or discovered. It was a useful resource for a few years, but it never really took off and I had the pain of dealing with spam and user-support. So now the site is read-only archive-only, and offline. But it was a good experience. Forcing myself to document things "nicely" really helped make sure I learned things and didn't need to refer back to my own notes in the future.
- wolco2 6y ago
  Perhaps you found your blog. Imposter syndrome blogs are rare and you can speak from the heart.
- sbuccini 6y ago
  One thing I might suggest is to simply write for yourself and not worry about engagement. I don't have any trackers on my blog because I really don't care if anyone will reads my work since I'm writing for an audience of one. Obviously, many of those posts aren't meaty enough to hire an editor for, but I've found that simply writing creates knock-on effects I wouldn't have expected.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    In general, I find that there's way too much obsession with engagement/monetization/etc. Of course, it helps if you already have a well-paying job. Nonetheless, most people don't expect to monetize their hobbies but somehow, at least in the context of somewhere like HN, a lot of people seem to expect that any personal project has to be a side hustle. As to other comments about "having something to say," I'd just observe that many of the earliest blogs and proto-blogs (think Jerry Pournelle's Chaos Manner column in Byte) were basically just journals. Not everything has to be great thought.
- cafard 6y ago
  A quotation from somebody--the book I got it from is upstairs, but somebody's working in that room: "Who is entitled to write his memoirs? Everyone. Because no one is required to read them."
  - quickthrower2 6y ago
    But if you have grandchildren ... they'll probably read them one day :-)
  - cafard 6y ago
    I find that this was Alexander Herzen in Pole Star: Simon Leys quotes him in an essay collected in The Hall of Uselessness.
BurningFrog 6y ago
My understanding is that a lot of the great books we know are heavily influenced by unknown editors who can easily be considered coauthors.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago

I'd like to do more blogging myself, sometimes, but I feel like I don't have much to talk about, AND a crippling sense of impostor syndrome; if confronted with questions like "why", I'd start to seriously doubt myself. I mean I've got plenty to talk about but I can't get consistent. For now I'll stick to shitposting on HN I guess.

Spearchucker 6y ago
I tried blogging once. Also didn't have enough ideas for content and no compelling theme, to boot. Used to have imposter syndrome bad, but at some point I just stopped caring about it. What I DID do was to write things down. Any time I discovered a new thing (risk managment, recovery-oriented computing, various consulting tips/tricks/and so on) I wrote down what I wanted to remember. But I wrote that down on my web site, in HTML. Sometimes when I procrastinate I look to improve the layout, language or content. There's not a huge amount of content there (maybe 20 posts?), but it seems to interest others so that's ok I guess. I'm happy with my blogging-but-not-blogging thing. It scratches the itch without consuming me, my time, and I don't need an editor. That said there's a lot of other stuff on there that floats my boat, so there's that work/play variety which floats my boat. https://www.wittenburg.co.uk/work https://www.wittenburg.co.uk/work
- stevekemp 6y ago
  I did something similar, back in the day. I setup debian-administration.org at least partly to document things I'd learned, tried, or discovered. It was a useful resource for a few years, but it never really took off and I had the pain of dealing with spam and user-support. So now the site is read-only archive-only, and offline. But it was a good experience. Forcing myself to document things "nicely" really helped make sure I learned things and didn't need to refer back to my own notes in the future.
wolco2 6y ago
Perhaps you found your blog. Imposter syndrome blogs are rare and you can speak from the heart.
sbuccini 6y ago
One thing I might suggest is to simply write for yourself and not worry about engagement. I don't have any trackers on my blog because I really don't care if anyone will reads my work since I'm writing for an audience of one. Obviously, many of those posts aren't meaty enough to hire an editor for, but I've found that simply writing creates knock-on effects I wouldn't have expected.
- ghaff 6y ago
  In general, I find that there's way too much obsession with engagement/monetization/etc. Of course, it helps if you already have a well-paying job. Nonetheless, most people don't expect to monetize their hobbies but somehow, at least in the context of somewhere like HN, a lot of people seem to expect that any personal project has to be a side hustle. As to other comments about "having something to say," I'd just observe that many of the earliest blogs and proto-blogs (think Jerry Pournelle's Chaos Manner column in Byte) were basically just journals. Not everything has to be great thought.
cafard 6y ago
A quotation from somebody--the book I got it from is upstairs, but somebody's working in that room: "Who is entitled to write his memoirs? Everyone. Because no one is required to read them."
- quickthrower2 6y ago
  But if you have grandchildren ... they'll probably read them one day :-)
- cafard 6y ago
  I find that this was Alexander Herzen in Pole Star: Simon Leys quotes him in an essay collected in The Hall of Uselessness.

BurningFrog 6y ago

My understanding is that a lot of the great books we know are heavily influenced by unknown editors who can easily be considered coauthors.