10 years of writing a blog nobody reads (opens in new tab)

Writing down opinions on things have done wonders for my ability to reason about them, especially when the opinions are built on 10 years of "hunch" and no discussion.

My point is that you don't need a massive audience. If you can reach one person and make them laugh, or teach someone something new, or give someone hope when they really needed it, then your writing will be worth it.

I clerked for a judge who helped us become really good writers. I know this is shocking to some, but some judges actually really do care and don't try to write thousands of pages. He really cared about trying to write opinions everyone could read and understand.

We would all get together as clerks, read the draft we had written out loud to the judge and the other clerks, and remove excess words, rewrite sentences that were too complicated, you name it. For every sentence, he encouraged us to think about who the audience really was and what we want the reader to take away from it.

If you want to make your writing shorter, this is a good approach whether you read it out loud or not. Lots of engineers write very long things because they are unsure who the audience is, or they don't think about how each sentence helps them convey something to that audience. Or they are trying to guess what questions they will get asked. Pick an audience. Go through every sentence. Remove the ones that don't actually help you convey something to your audience. Be ruthless to yourself. It's better to answer questions people have later than try to guess what they will ask you and answer it in the piece.

If you are trying to be persuasive, i'd double down on making it short, and add "order your writing and arguments in order of strength", and then "remove all the weak arguments". People won't read all the way through most of the time, and either it's convincing or it isn't. If your strongest arguments don't convince someone, your weak ones will probably make people feel like you are grasping at straws, and make the whole thing less convincing overall.

Some of my worst habits formed seeing early posts go viral and then getting addicted to that endorphin hit. The amount of time I wasted checking analytics and new subs would probably equal the time it would take me to write 10 more posts or read a couple books.

But congrats at sticking to it for 10 years!

The whole question of how you get in front of the right people and tweak your message based on their reactions, and then setup a routine so you have a dependable performance-audience, all seem to be lost on many folks.

“But is there still value in human produced writing? Subjectively, yes. Objectively? I'm not sure. I think there's a lot of personal value in writing though.”

There is value because I felt compelled to engage, but if it turns out you’re a bot then I’ll feel cheated and less likely to read other blog posts.

Because I moved to Sweden just about a year later, I started a new blog https://jeena.net/something-new where I would write in English, because I thought then both the people from Germany (to a lesser extend) and the people I know in Sweden would be able to read my blog.

It was a good decision to switch to English (which back then I didn't speak fluently at all, but writing was ok), because 5 Years ago I again moved countries, now I'm in South Korea and am still blogging in English.

It definitely helped me to learn English, which now is my main language at work and at home.

I had a friend message me saying they came across my blog googling how to run home assistant on k3s. And that's a satisfaction no money can buy.

This is really interesting. This is the opposite I do when writing for myself and what I would probably do if publishing a blog. I really like adding nuance when taking notes as it helps me when reading them later. But now I'll pay attention to not adding them when publishing.

I have a lot to say. About lot of things.

I don't blog because, most of the time, I'm worried about what people might think. Sometimes I speak up in public and people are confused, so - I think - it will only be amplified online. Sometimes I want to share a bit of code, and I'm not sure if the formatting will please everyone. Or naming convention.

But most of all it's putting it all together.

There was this famous kid who only talked in tweets because he had ADHD. Sometimes series of tweets. Like 20 of them. But always in tweets, because that gave him control, and removed - or add, depends on your point of view - constraints.

Anyway - don't be like me. Speak up. Tell people what you want them to hear.

The sheer act of writing helps me structure my thoughts and helps others grow. Win win!

https://dsebastien.net

What I did a while ago was splitting notes and articles: https://notes.dsebastien.net

Publishing unpolished notes is a great way to remove needless pressure

This is what I'm encouraged by Grammarly as well. To some extent, perhaps the book "Elements of style" encourages this too.

However, I read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. She writes long (wordy?) sentences that are clear, and even feels beautiful to read. I really enjoyed her writing.

But I'm not a native speaker. A question for the native speakers: what's your take on this? Has Shelly's writing style gone out of fashion, or are these two (Shelley's style and succinctness) different things?

My grandad used to be a farmer, and used to keep a diary in which he wrote an entry every day before bed. It was all just really simple sentences of the things he did from one day to the next. What he had for breakfast, the work he did, what he sold, who he met down at the market and the little things going on in his life and the lives of those around him.

I do the same now, as a programmer. I write down what happened in my day, albeit digitally, and with a few more thoughts and ideas than he did (he was much more serious and hardworking than me). The place I put them is public, because sometimes I share a link when I've written something I think a family member or close friend might find interesting.

Both he did, and I do it for the same reason. It's for us, the writers, to use as an outlet. I don't think grandad ever looked back at things in his book, and nor do I with my digital entries. We just date them, write them, and forget them. I think it's just useful as a place to write everything off of the brain. The actual writing process can help you in your writing, which is always a bonus, regardless of how many people are viewing it.

When he died a couple of years ago, I kept his books. A part of me actually feels odd reading them, like they are not for me, despite the normal contents. I think that, as a matter of fact, he would actually have wanted me to destroy them. He was always a very serious person. I'm keeping them stored away, like my own, because those books are a bit like having him here. When I do read bits, it's like he is still here. I can see him from the simple things he's written down, even if he wasn't an author or professional writer.

Maybe when I'm gone, my descendants will read my writings in the same way as I've found his.

That apps spots problems I often don't see in first drafts. Weakeners like adverbs/passive voice. Complicated sentences. Fancy words over simple words. Etc. Stuff that makes writing harder to read.

Not perfect here at all! Always practicing. But more and more use helps me spot problems in first drafts, or avoid them altogether.

I've been blogging since 2006 and I feel the same way. The past few years I blog less, but I do try to write more to the point and use less idioms and spoken writing style.

But since then I moved it to Gemini, the real Gemini, not google's thing. I find that far easier to maintain.

https://www.rxjourney.net/

What?

good times.