5 ms·

Does anyone else have the problem where they write a lot, but it all seems to go into the void and never produce any tangible benefit? How do I produce writing

by reidjs 4y ago

Does anyone else have the problem where they write a lot, but it all seems to go into the void and never produce any tangible benefit? How do I produce writing that people want to read?

Octokiddie 4y ago
What do you notice people reading in your area of interest? You might try emulating that a few times and see what happens. Also, you might try distributing your writing more widely - not to promote it, but to get feedback. Find alternate distribution channels.
neilv 4y ago
My New Year's resolution, to achieve positive text-writing valuation, is to join the HN 10Karma Club. It doesn't pay the rent, but one can't deny the quantitative validation of imaginary Internet points.
- DiggyJohnson 4y ago
  I resent you for making me aware of that this could be a goal. Cheers, and godspeed.
  - neilv 4y ago
    I mean, it's right there, in the corner of the screen, like the score in a video game. :)
- Veen 4y ago
  I’ve been quite tempted to delete my account and start again so getting to 10,000 doesn’t become a goal. It’s fake internet points but I feel the temptation nevertheless.
yesenadam 4y ago
What do you write about?
- reidjs 4y ago
  Mostly observations, rambling thoughts about topics, and ideas. I originally started writing because I wanted to get into comedy/entertainment, so I have a lot of half baked jokes and humor in there. Since then, I have branched out to thoughts, career goals, notes, daily records and logs. I find it hugely beneficial to myself, so maybe that’s enough. But one day I would like to connect my writing to others. Maybe I am chasing fame, or searching for validation that my thoughts are accurate and I’m not deluding myself into some false reality.
matheusiacono 4y ago
I would suggest you to take some time to edit your writing. So you can improve on that and find a theme if you don't have one.
thenerdhead 4y ago
About two years ago I did. It was mostly a fear of being a failure & the potential to be successful. After I got over that, I wrote two books in two years and sold over 100 copies each as a first time author. Much of my validation came from posting comments including my writing in places like HN, Reddit, Twitter, etc. The internet voting machine would do its work of what people want to read while I would direct my energy towards something I wanted to read.
nicbou 4y ago
Writing for its own sake has its benefits. It forces you to flesh out your ideas, to consider how you actually feel, and to flex your writing skills. I like having a record of my thinking. I read a travel journal I wrote some time ago, and it painted a much more faithful picture of my trip than dozens of photos. I had a good chuckle at some passages, and at my doodles in the margins. I also write in public, mostly to share solutions, but occasionally to share my thoughts. I've shared a few posts here and loved the ensuing discussion. Some people have reached out because they somehow came across a post I wrote. It's cool to help a guy from Tennessee change his break pads, or to meet a guy from Berlin because he thinks we'd get along (we do). In the end, I write for the sake of writing. It's like practicing guitar. I have no dream of being a rockstar; I just enjoy the process. However, doing things in public occasionally bears fruit in the most unexpected ways.
jsemrau 4y ago
You have two problems. (1) It's a function of audience. I am writing on Medium with moderate success (~1.4K followers, prior top 5% of business writers worldwide), and I noticed that content discovery on the platform is just broken. The same applies to Twitter. (2) In 2022, we are competing with content farms that drown out smaller "creators" ...start to hate that word. It used to be true, that I would write an article about Apple's product launch and gathered 40K views. Not anymore. But then, I am now mostly on Youtube for content consumption. So I guess, that makes me part of the problem.
abudabi123 4y ago
> http://stars.astro.illinois.edu/sow/antares.html http://stars.astro.illinois.edu/sow/antares.html I am new to astro and enjoy reading Jim Kaler's writing which has a lasting effect on me.
maegul 4y ago
Putting aside the need for an audience, I think the whole personal wiki or Zettelkasten thing helps with writing for yourself as the process becomes about building up your network of thoughts, then browsing it, writing back into it, … etc.
- Cardinal7167 4y ago
  Yes. Just as important as the habit of writing Zettel notes is reviewing and condensing Zettel notes into “literature” notes. That’s the part I have to consciously focus on but I have found opening a rich text editor separate from my typical Zettel flow works better for long form literature note writing than my typical Zettel editor does.
telchior 4y ago
In my experience, having spent some years as a professional writer with a bunch of colleagues, every writer comes with their own distinctive flaws. In terms of output, for some people getting words out is like juicing a stone. For others, the words flow freely but the juice is bad. In fact, the single most productive writer I worked with was also the absolute worst to read on a word-by-word basis. He was also one of the most successful in his career. The trick was combing through his masses of thought-assault to identify out the good bits and fix the mediocre bits (obviously, throwing away the bad bits). I always got a chuckle out of how the end readers had no idea how much of the original writing was schlock, but his success was fully deserved on many other levels. So in short: recognize that what you're experiencing is totally normal and acceptable, and work to your strengths. Write your crappy stuff that nobody wants to read and then fix it. If you can't fix it -- then editing is what you need to work hard on improving (and editing ≠ writing).
- torh 4y ago
  > (and editing ≠ writing) This. For many years I though I had to write like I read, that the words had to be perfect the first time -- like you are used to read. But the finished work is nothing like the first draft. Just write, don't stop even to fix typos. Never stop the flow. Then, once you have dumped your brain into words, leave it for a while and come back to do the editing later. Like Stephen King also mentioned in his book (on Writing): write the first draft with the door closed, and the second with the door open. The first draft is for you, the second is for an audience (of selected people). I wrote a quick blog post about it a while back: https://blog.torh.net/2022/06/14/writing-is-hard/ https://blog.torh.net/2022/06/14/writing-is-hard/
paulpauper 4y ago
That is 99.5-99.9% of writers. only a handful are ever successful at it. Obviously it ain't easy. Creative writing is among the hardest things in the world to be successful at, because there is no obvious market or audience for it.
jamesjyu 4y ago
My belief is that everyone has 6 or 7 substantial things to say when they meet someone new or have a deeper discussion with an acquaintance. These may be stories, anecdotes, or knowledge that people find interesting. It's likely you've honed them over years. Write these down and sharpen them. Share them with friends and get their feedback. This removes the problem of what to write, which can be daunting as a new writer. And you may end up discovering something new in these old conversation pieces!
weird-eye-issue 4y ago
Learn SEO and figure out how to find long tail, low competition keywords. Then write about those and you'll get organic traffic. I make around $20k/mo doing this. Surprised literally nobody mentioned this
- sagarpatil 4y ago
  I know there are thousands of guides on how to find long tail, low competition keywords but I don’t think those are written by someone making $20k/mo. If you could be kind enough, could you talk more about how do you find a niche and long tail, low competition keywords assuming I have access to necessary SEO tools.
  - vpribish 4y ago
    Do you have a newsletter about long tail, low competition keywords? I could really use $20k/month simply by writing about my niche subject. Any favorite SEO tools for reaching these long tail, niche, low-competition keywords?
krick 4y ago
Your question kinda took me by surprise. I write a ton (I take notes on literally everything that happens) and none of it is supposed to be read by anyone. I'm not even sure how much of it I'll read myself later, the point is I'll be able to, if I need. Otherwise, I just cannot remember anything of what I read, saw or heard a year later.
phs318u 4y ago
I'm just guessing here, but I imagine most writers would recommend you produce writing that you want to write.
fn1 4y ago
Have you giving your writing to people to see if they want to read it?
yojo 4y ago
Having just self-published a book that capped out at 10 sales, yes. For me, the hardest problem is even getting the word out. I’ve used a few different platforms to get my book in front of people. And by and large, the ones who start it also finish it. But even giving away content, it is surprisingly hard to connect to an audience of any size. Pick any kind of writing, and you’ll find the marketplace is incredibly crowded. There is so much content vying for a finite set of eyeballs. And it’s not just other writers; you’re competing with all other uses of leisure time: Netflix, Fortnite, Twitter, TikTok, hell, even Tinder I think you have to enjoy writing because it scratches your own itch. If you’re lucky, maybe you’ll attract a few like-minded followers. If you’re hoping for a more sizable audience, you’d better enjoy marketing.
- VladimirGolovin 4y ago
  Could you link the book? I'm interested because I'm considering self-publishing a book as well, and I definitely don't enjoy marketing.
  - yojo 4y ago
    Sure, here's the Goodreads page: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63250637-the-anshar-gambit https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63250637-the-anshar-gamb... I'll probably write a blog post at some point covering the things I've tried, which is admittedly not a lot. There are vanishingly few free marketing channels, and paid marketing typically only makes financial sense once you've got at least a few books to increase your revenue per reader. Otherwise your customer acquisition costs exceed your margins. If you're writing fiction, the best freebie I've found is sending advance review copies through Voracious Readers Only. They limit you to twenty without paying, but that at least got me a pair of reviews on Goodreads (sadly nothing on Amazon). If you have specific questions, I'll answer them to the best of my ability. Whether you want to take advice from the guy who only sold ten copies is up to you.
- bryanrasmussen 4y ago
  3 books, 0 sales. Sure don't enjoy marketing either, but it seems like I am doing too much of it for this result :(
candu 4y ago
First: writing has other tangible benefits! Journaling can get difficult thoughts / stressors out of your head and on paper, helping you process and move past them. Taking notes improves comprehension, and is also (often) of higher value in a professional context than most people realise. Things I've heard writers / bloggers / etc. in my life say about writing: - There is no magic bullet; you just have to practice, practice, practice and be willing to throw away large sections or even entire drafts. Most people, including famous authors, write large volumes of crap. - If you're explicitly looking for an audience, you have to test with that audience! Get feedback early and often, and use that feedback to improve what (and how) you write. (If you have any product / design / UX training, you'll notice how similar this advice is to best practices in those fields!) (On the second point: using Notion, Google Docs, or any other tool that gives you an easily shared link and allows inline commenting is a great way to get useful feedback!)
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
iLemming 4y ago
There are two biggest tragedies of all time. The thoughts that were never written, and the scribbles that no one would read. For some reason, only people who don't frequently write think that the latter is real.

by reidjs 4y ago

Does anyone else have the problem where they write a lot, but it all seems to go into the void and never produce any tangible benefit? How do I produce writing that people want to read?

Octokiddie 4y ago

What do you notice people reading in your area of interest? You might try emulating that a few times and see what happens. Also, you might try distributing your writing more widely - not to promote it, but to get feedback. Find alternate distribution channels.

neilv 4y ago

My New Year's resolution, to achieve positive text-writing valuation, is to join the HN 10Karma Club. It doesn't pay the rent, but one can't deny the quantitative validation of imaginary Internet points.

DiggyJohnson 4y ago
I resent you for making me aware of that this could be a goal. Cheers, and godspeed.
- neilv 4y ago
  I mean, it's right there, in the corner of the screen, like the score in a video game. :)
Veen 4y ago
I’ve been quite tempted to delete my account and start again so getting to 10,000 doesn’t become a goal. It’s fake internet points but I feel the temptation nevertheless.

yesenadam 4y ago

What do you write about?

reidjs 4y ago
Mostly observations, rambling thoughts about topics, and ideas. I originally started writing because I wanted to get into comedy/entertainment, so I have a lot of half baked jokes and humor in there. Since then, I have branched out to thoughts, career goals, notes, daily records and logs. I find it hugely beneficial to myself, so maybe that’s enough. But one day I would like to connect my writing to others. Maybe I am chasing fame, or searching for validation that my thoughts are accurate and I’m not deluding myself into some false reality.

matheusiacono 4y ago

I would suggest you to take some time to edit your writing. So you can improve on that and find a theme if you don't have one.

thenerdhead 4y ago

About two years ago I did. It was mostly a fear of being a failure & the potential to be successful. After I got over that, I wrote two books in two years and sold over 100 copies each as a first time author. Much of my validation came from posting comments including my writing in places like HN, Reddit, Twitter, etc. The internet voting machine would do its work of what people want to read while I would direct my energy towards something I wanted to read.

nicbou 4y ago

Writing for its own sake has its benefits. It forces you to flesh out your ideas, to consider how you actually feel, and to flex your writing skills. I like having a record of my thinking. I read a travel journal I wrote some time ago, and it painted a much more faithful picture of my trip than dozens of photos. I had a good chuckle at some passages, and at my doodles in the margins. I also write in public, mostly to share solutions, but occasionally to share my thoughts. I've shared a few posts here and loved the ensuing discussion. Some people have reached out because they somehow came across a post I wrote. It's cool to help a guy from Tennessee change his break pads, or to meet a guy from Berlin because he thinks we'd get along (we do). In the end, I write for the sake of writing. It's like practicing guitar. I have no dream of being a rockstar; I just enjoy the process. However, doing things in public occasionally bears fruit in the most unexpected ways.

jsemrau 4y ago

You have two problems. (1) It's a function of audience. I am writing on Medium with moderate success (~1.4K followers, prior top 5% of business writers worldwide), and I noticed that content discovery on the platform is just broken. The same applies to Twitter. (2) In 2022, we are competing with content farms that drown out smaller "creators" ...start to hate that word. It used to be true, that I would write an article about Apple's product launch and gathered 40K views. Not anymore. But then, I am now mostly on Youtube for content consumption. So I guess, that makes me part of the problem.

abudabi123 4y ago

> http://stars.astro.illinois.edu/sow/antares.html http://stars.astro.illinois.edu/sow/antares.html I am new to astro and enjoy reading Jim Kaler's writing which has a lasting effect on me.

maegul 4y ago

Putting aside the need for an audience, I think the whole personal wiki or Zettelkasten thing helps with writing for yourself as the process becomes about building up your network of thoughts, then browsing it, writing back into it, … etc.

Cardinal7167 4y ago
Yes. Just as important as the habit of writing Zettel notes is reviewing and condensing Zettel notes into “literature” notes. That’s the part I have to consciously focus on but I have found opening a rich text editor separate from my typical Zettel flow works better for long form literature note writing than my typical Zettel editor does.

telchior 4y ago

In my experience, having spent some years as a professional writer with a bunch of colleagues, every writer comes with their own distinctive flaws. In terms of output, for some people getting words out is like juicing a stone. For others, the words flow freely but the juice is bad. In fact, the single most productive writer I worked with was also the absolute worst to read on a word-by-word basis. He was also one of the most successful in his career. The trick was combing through his masses of thought-assault to identify out the good bits and fix the mediocre bits (obviously, throwing away the bad bits). I always got a chuckle out of how the end readers had no idea how much of the original writing was schlock, but his success was fully deserved on many other levels. So in short: recognize that what you're experiencing is totally normal and acceptable, and work to your strengths. Write your crappy stuff that nobody wants to read and then fix it. If you can't fix it -- then editing is what you need to work hard on improving (and editing ≠ writing).

torh 4y ago
> (and editing ≠ writing) This. For many years I though I had to write like I read, that the words had to be perfect the first time -- like you are used to read. But the finished work is nothing like the first draft. Just write, don't stop even to fix typos. Never stop the flow. Then, once you have dumped your brain into words, leave it for a while and come back to do the editing later. Like Stephen King also mentioned in his book (on Writing): write the first draft with the door closed, and the second with the door open. The first draft is for you, the second is for an audience (of selected people). I wrote a quick blog post about it a while back: https://blog.torh.net/2022/06/14/writing-is-hard/ https://blog.torh.net/2022/06/14/writing-is-hard/

paulpauper 4y ago

That is 99.5-99.9% of writers. only a handful are ever successful at it. Obviously it ain't easy. Creative writing is among the hardest things in the world to be successful at, because there is no obvious market or audience for it.

jamesjyu 4y ago

My belief is that everyone has 6 or 7 substantial things to say when they meet someone new or have a deeper discussion with an acquaintance. These may be stories, anecdotes, or knowledge that people find interesting. It's likely you've honed them over years. Write these down and sharpen them. Share them with friends and get their feedback. This removes the problem of what to write, which can be daunting as a new writer. And you may end up discovering something new in these old conversation pieces!

weird-eye-issue 4y ago

Learn SEO and figure out how to find long tail, low competition keywords. Then write about those and you'll get organic traffic. I make around $20k/mo doing this. Surprised literally nobody mentioned this

sagarpatil 4y ago
I know there are thousands of guides on how to find long tail, low competition keywords but I don’t think those are written by someone making $20k/mo. If you could be kind enough, could you talk more about how do you find a niche and long tail, low competition keywords assuming I have access to necessary SEO tools.
- vpribish 4y ago
  Do you have a newsletter about long tail, low competition keywords? I could really use $20k/month simply by writing about my niche subject. Any favorite SEO tools for reaching these long tail, niche, low-competition keywords?

krick 4y ago

Your question kinda took me by surprise. I write a ton (I take notes on literally everything that happens) and none of it is supposed to be read by anyone. I'm not even sure how much of it I'll read myself later, the point is I'll be able to, if I need. Otherwise, I just cannot remember anything of what I read, saw or heard a year later.

phs318u 4y ago

I'm just guessing here, but I imagine most writers would recommend you produce writing that you want to write.

fn1 4y ago

Have you giving your writing to people to see if they want to read it?

yojo 4y ago

Having just self-published a book that capped out at 10 sales, yes. For me, the hardest problem is even getting the word out. I’ve used a few different platforms to get my book in front of people. And by and large, the ones who start it also finish it. But even giving away content, it is surprisingly hard to connect to an audience of any size. Pick any kind of writing, and you’ll find the marketplace is incredibly crowded. There is so much content vying for a finite set of eyeballs. And it’s not just other writers; you’re competing with all other uses of leisure time: Netflix, Fortnite, Twitter, TikTok, hell, even Tinder I think you have to enjoy writing because it scratches your own itch. If you’re lucky, maybe you’ll attract a few like-minded followers. If you’re hoping for a more sizable audience, you’d better enjoy marketing.

VladimirGolovin 4y ago
Could you link the book? I'm interested because I'm considering self-publishing a book as well, and I definitely don't enjoy marketing.
- yojo 4y ago
  Sure, here's the Goodreads page: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63250637-the-anshar-gambit https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63250637-the-anshar-gamb... I'll probably write a blog post at some point covering the things I've tried, which is admittedly not a lot. There are vanishingly few free marketing channels, and paid marketing typically only makes financial sense once you've got at least a few books to increase your revenue per reader. Otherwise your customer acquisition costs exceed your margins. If you're writing fiction, the best freebie I've found is sending advance review copies through Voracious Readers Only. They limit you to twenty without paying, but that at least got me a pair of reviews on Goodreads (sadly nothing on Amazon). If you have specific questions, I'll answer them to the best of my ability. Whether you want to take advice from the guy who only sold ten copies is up to you.
bryanrasmussen 4y ago
3 books, 0 sales. Sure don't enjoy marketing either, but it seems like I am doing too much of it for this result :(

candu 4y ago

First: writing has other tangible benefits! Journaling can get difficult thoughts / stressors out of your head and on paper, helping you process and move past them. Taking notes improves comprehension, and is also (often) of higher value in a professional context than most people realise. Things I've heard writers / bloggers / etc. in my life say about writing: - There is no magic bullet; you just have to practice, practice, practice and be willing to throw away large sections or even entire drafts. Most people, including famous authors, write large volumes of crap. - If you're explicitly looking for an audience, you have to test with that audience! Get feedback early and often, and use that feedback to improve what (and how) you write. (If you have any product / design / UX training, you'll notice how similar this advice is to best practices in those fields!) (On the second point: using Notion, Google Docs, or any other tool that gives you an easily shared link and allows inline commenting is a great way to get useful feedback!)

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

iLemming 4y ago

There are two biggest tragedies of all time. The thoughts that were never written, and the scribbles that no one would read. For some reason, only people who don't frequently write think that the latter is real.