5 ms·

So I’ve been publishing regularly on my blog for 10 years, over 1500 articles and counting. Ranging from 300 word missives to 3000 word deep digs. A couple book

by Swizec 6y ago

So I’ve been publishing regularly on my blog for 10 years, over 1500 articles and counting. Ranging from 300 word missives to 3000 word deep digs. A couple books too. Here’s what I learned: It’s easier to be prolific. When you write every day it comes easy. Like brushing your teeth. You wake up and you’re full of thoughts on your general topic and you write them down. A quick edit, hit publish, and done. If it goes viral, fantastic. If peopel love it, amazing. If not, no big you try again next time. And then life happens. You can’t just write every day, you have to create things worth writing about! Experiences, research, work. You reduce your writing output. And the ideas dry up. Writing becomes hard. You eke out 2, maybe 3, articles per week and it’s hard work. You struggle. You drag them out of your brain. It doesn’t feel right. Nothing feels important enough to write about. With 2 at-bats per week, there’s a lot riding on every missive. It’s hard. It’s demoralizing. And it shows in your writing. The readers can’t tell. Future you can’t tell. Neil Gaiman is right – 5 months from now you won’t see the difference between the writing that was work and the writing that flowed. But you today, you know. You know you’re rusty. You know it wasn’t as easy as it could be. You see that it’s rough. And I haven’t found a solution.

simonw 6y ago
A couple of tricks that have worked really well for me over the last two years. First: weeknotes. Every week I write a summary of what I've got done. I'm on a streak, so I can't let myself break that streak. I'm at 73 weeks now and it's ensured that I write something at least once a week - and like you said, that habit makes it easier. https://simonwillison.net/tags/weeknotes/ https://simonwillison.net/tags/weeknotes/ Second: TILs. These are basically blog entries where the only criteria is "did I just learn something" - which makes them very low friction. I often knock one out in 5-10 minutes. https://til.simonwillison.net/ https://til.simonwillison.net/
keiferski 6y ago
I have made this [letter] longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter. - Pascal I think the solution is simple: write constantly, publish rarely.
kuu 6y ago
Asking out of curiosity (and assuming you write as a hobby): what's the point of writing 2-3 per week if you don't think you have any relevant/interesting to say? I understand that you want to be regular so you don't just "become lazy" and probably to avoid getting stuck, but I don't see neither what's the objective of forcing to do something you don't like - as long as we're talking about a hobby.
- zimpenfish 6y ago
  > what's the point of writing 2-3 per week if you don't think you have any relevant/interesting to say? What might not be relevant/interesting to you could well be relevant/interesting to others. There's also the Field Notes philosophy - "I'm not writing it down to remember it later; I'm writing it down to remember it now" - blogging about something can solidify it in your mind because you have to work out how to express / explain it.
  - richeyryan 6y ago
    I totally relate to this. Even if you never "publish" what you write it has an effect of clarifying what you think. It also makes it possible to develop and refine your thinking because you have a point of reference. I wrote a post a little while ago where I thought I had a good handle on what I wanted to say. I researched certain elements to make sure what I was saying was backed up. I finished the first draft and thought, "Cool, with a couple of revisions I'll be done". The funny thing was now that I had clarified my thoughts I began to encounter ideas that refined my perspective further and lead me to new and better ways of looking at the whole thing. This was in part because I was researching more and reading more as time went on but I'm pretty sure I would not have been primed for those breakthroughs if I hadn't already put what I thought in writing. As it stands, I don't intend to use that first draft and its ideas will reused in something largely different but writing it was invaluable.
- watwut 6y ago
  I think that original comment answers the what is the point question. When writing often, following happens: > It’s easier to be prolific. When you write every day it comes easy. Like brushing your teeth. You wake up and you’re full of thoughts on your general topic and you write them down. A quick edit, hit publish, and done. If it goes viral, fantastic. If peopel love it, amazing. If not, no big you try again next time. When writing only once in a while, following happens: > You reduce your writing output. And the ideas dry up. Writing becomes hard. You eke out 2, maybe 3, articles per week and it’s hard work. You struggle. You drag them out of your brain. It doesn’t feel right. So, you write often, to keep yourself in "writing is easy" mode. And you are also probably improving in writing every time you do it little bit. Personally, I have observed the same effect on (different) creative activities. When you do it often, it is easy. When you do it only when you plan masterpiece, it is hard to impossible.
inglor_cz 6y ago
My blog is nearing 5 years and some 600 articles. Five books published so far. If anything, I grew more careful about frequency. I want my readers to know that if they receive a post notification in mail, it is worth reading. And quality seems to be in a slightly inverted relation to frequency in my case. But I do not feel 'rusty' until the gap extends to two weeks or so. Which it rarely does.
- TurkishPoptart 6y ago
  How do I get started? I use Zettelkasten and have hundreds of pages of notes but can't focus to and don't have the confidence to put them into publishable entries.
CaptArmchair 6y ago
> you have to create things worth writing about Really? Why make writing conditional? And what do you mean by 'worth'? Worth to whom? I fell into the same bear trap and I ended up blocking myself. The challenge is to step away from attributing self-importance to what you write and make your writing superfluous. There are no rules except for those you encumber yourself with. For sure, it's perfectly valid to set goals for yourself. Like attaining wide readership, connecting with others, sharing what you know and what you've experienced, establishing an identity for yourself as a writer, contributing to a field of knowledge,... Even so, those are choices you make for yourself, not obligations. You don't owe your readers your writing. Sol LeWitt wrote a response to Eva Hesse who made the same complaint about the hardships of creation. Here's Benedict Cumberbatch reading that letter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnSMIgsPj5M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnSMIgsPj5M Both artists became front-runners of post-modernism and post-minimalism. Now, none of the above implies that selecting, curating, editing, reviewing, reflecting,... should go out of the window. It means that when you sit at your desk - feet in the air, shooting pencils at your ceiling, thinking about what you're going to write - becoming acutely aware of how you judge yourself in the back of your head and being able to step back from that becomes a valuable skill. Per Neil Gaiman, your Inner Inquisition won't even remember the finer details of the hour long questioning sessions it submitted your thought process to in 5 months time.
petecooper 6y ago
>With 2 at-bats per week Does this refer to the baseball 'at bat' or some other writing terminology, please? Thank you.
- Swizec 6y ago
  It’s the baseball metaphor. If it takes 10 at-bats to produce an article that resonates, you’d prefer to get there in 2 weeks than in 2 months.
alainchabat 6y ago
Wow impressive. Which external benefits did you see from writing this past 10 years? Some questions I might have... - Are people reaching you out to work with you? - Any deals thanks to your blog? - Are People influenced in what you write about? - Anything else?
- Swizec 6y ago
  The 2 O-1 visas and upcoming greencard have been pretty solid outcomes. As has the roughly $250k in infoproduct sales, a consulting business, and now SFBA dayjobs. All directly and indirectly thanks to my writing.
codethief 6y ago
> you have to create things worth writing about Sure, but how about you intertwine the process of creating things and writing about them? I don't remember the exact reference but I remember reading an article by someone who uses something like a Zettelkasten to write down his thoughts and insights in small digestable pieces and then creates an outline for an article / a book once a pattern of thought emerges and he feels ready. I really liked this approach as you don't need to filter yourself in your daily writing practice – no one will read your notes, so it's okay if they're not perfect or relevant to millions of people or whatever. EDIT: Found the reference! It wasn't Zettelkasten but Evergreen note-taking (though the author does reference Zettelkasten): https://notes.andymatuschak.org/z3PBVkZ2SvsAgFXkjHsycBeyS6Cw1QXf7kcD8 https://notes.andymatuschak.org/z3PBVkZ2SvsAgFXkjHsycBeyS6Cw...

by Swizec 6y ago

simonw 6y ago

A couple of tricks that have worked really well for me over the last two years. First: weeknotes. Every week I write a summary of what I've got done. I'm on a streak, so I can't let myself break that streak. I'm at 73 weeks now and it's ensured that I write something at least once a week - and like you said, that habit makes it easier. https://simonwillison.net/tags/weeknotes/ https://simonwillison.net/tags/weeknotes/ Second: TILs. These are basically blog entries where the only criteria is "did I just learn something" - which makes them very low friction. I often knock one out in 5-10 minutes. https://til.simonwillison.net/ https://til.simonwillison.net/

keiferski 6y ago

I have made this [letter] longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter. - Pascal I think the solution is simple: write constantly, publish rarely.

kuu 6y ago

Asking out of curiosity (and assuming you write as a hobby): what's the point of writing 2-3 per week if you don't think you have any relevant/interesting to say? I understand that you want to be regular so you don't just "become lazy" and probably to avoid getting stuck, but I don't see neither what's the objective of forcing to do something you don't like - as long as we're talking about a hobby.

zimpenfish 6y ago
> what's the point of writing 2-3 per week if you don't think you have any relevant/interesting to say? What might not be relevant/interesting to you could well be relevant/interesting to others. There's also the Field Notes philosophy - "I'm not writing it down to remember it later; I'm writing it down to remember it now" - blogging about something can solidify it in your mind because you have to work out how to express / explain it.
- richeyryan 6y ago
  I totally relate to this. Even if you never "publish" what you write it has an effect of clarifying what you think. It also makes it possible to develop and refine your thinking because you have a point of reference. I wrote a post a little while ago where I thought I had a good handle on what I wanted to say. I researched certain elements to make sure what I was saying was backed up. I finished the first draft and thought, "Cool, with a couple of revisions I'll be done". The funny thing was now that I had clarified my thoughts I began to encounter ideas that refined my perspective further and lead me to new and better ways of looking at the whole thing. This was in part because I was researching more and reading more as time went on but I'm pretty sure I would not have been primed for those breakthroughs if I hadn't already put what I thought in writing. As it stands, I don't intend to use that first draft and its ideas will reused in something largely different but writing it was invaluable.
watwut 6y ago
I think that original comment answers the what is the point question. When writing often, following happens: > It’s easier to be prolific. When you write every day it comes easy. Like brushing your teeth. You wake up and you’re full of thoughts on your general topic and you write them down. A quick edit, hit publish, and done. If it goes viral, fantastic. If peopel love it, amazing. If not, no big you try again next time. When writing only once in a while, following happens: > You reduce your writing output. And the ideas dry up. Writing becomes hard. You eke out 2, maybe 3, articles per week and it’s hard work. You struggle. You drag them out of your brain. It doesn’t feel right. So, you write often, to keep yourself in "writing is easy" mode. And you are also probably improving in writing every time you do it little bit. Personally, I have observed the same effect on (different) creative activities. When you do it often, it is easy. When you do it only when you plan masterpiece, it is hard to impossible.

inglor_cz 6y ago

My blog is nearing 5 years and some 600 articles. Five books published so far. If anything, I grew more careful about frequency. I want my readers to know that if they receive a post notification in mail, it is worth reading. And quality seems to be in a slightly inverted relation to frequency in my case. But I do not feel 'rusty' until the gap extends to two weeks or so. Which it rarely does.

TurkishPoptart 6y ago
How do I get started? I use Zettelkasten and have hundreds of pages of notes but can't focus to and don't have the confidence to put them into publishable entries.

CaptArmchair 6y ago

> you have to create things worth writing about Really? Why make writing conditional? And what do you mean by 'worth'? Worth to whom? I fell into the same bear trap and I ended up blocking myself. The challenge is to step away from attributing self-importance to what you write and make your writing superfluous. There are no rules except for those you encumber yourself with. For sure, it's perfectly valid to set goals for yourself. Like attaining wide readership, connecting with others, sharing what you know and what you've experienced, establishing an identity for yourself as a writer, contributing to a field of knowledge,... Even so, those are choices you make for yourself, not obligations. You don't owe your readers your writing. Sol LeWitt wrote a response to Eva Hesse who made the same complaint about the hardships of creation. Here's Benedict Cumberbatch reading that letter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnSMIgsPj5M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnSMIgsPj5M Both artists became front-runners of post-modernism and post-minimalism. Now, none of the above implies that selecting, curating, editing, reviewing, reflecting,... should go out of the window. It means that when you sit at your desk - feet in the air, shooting pencils at your ceiling, thinking about what you're going to write - becoming acutely aware of how you judge yourself in the back of your head and being able to step back from that becomes a valuable skill. Per Neil Gaiman, your Inner Inquisition won't even remember the finer details of the hour long questioning sessions it submitted your thought process to in 5 months time.

petecooper 6y ago

>With 2 at-bats per week Does this refer to the baseball 'at bat' or some other writing terminology, please? Thank you.

Swizec 6y ago
It’s the baseball metaphor. If it takes 10 at-bats to produce an article that resonates, you’d prefer to get there in 2 weeks than in 2 months.

alainchabat 6y ago

Wow impressive. Which external benefits did you see from writing this past 10 years? Some questions I might have... - Are people reaching you out to work with you? - Any deals thanks to your blog? - Are People influenced in what you write about? - Anything else?

Swizec 6y ago
The 2 O-1 visas and upcoming greencard have been pretty solid outcomes. As has the roughly $250k in infoproduct sales, a consulting business, and now SFBA dayjobs. All directly and indirectly thanks to my writing.

codethief 6y ago

> you have to create things worth writing about Sure, but how about you intertwine the process of creating things and writing about them? I don't remember the exact reference but I remember reading an article by someone who uses something like a Zettelkasten to write down his thoughts and insights in small digestable pieces and then creates an outline for an article / a book once a pattern of thought emerges and he feels ready. I really liked this approach as you don't need to filter yourself in your daily writing practice – no one will read your notes, so it's okay if they're not perfect or relevant to millions of people or whatever. EDIT: Found the reference! It wasn't Zettelkasten but Evergreen note-taking (though the author does reference Zettelkasten): https://notes.andymatuschak.org/z3PBVkZ2SvsAgFXkjHsycBeyS6Cw1QXf7kcD8 https://notes.andymatuschak.org/z3PBVkZ2SvsAgFXkjHsycBeyS6Cw...