Ask HN: How to learn writing blog posts?

This ^

The first part of "On Writing" is fantastic, in the sense that it tells you through King's own life that there are no shortcuts: you must learn by writing. And sometimes, you'll have people to criticize what you wrote, and that'll be the best thing.

The biggest tip I can give is getting the length to reward ratio right. Its trivial to spew out 20 paragraphs on a relatively basic and uninteresting topic that could have been covered in 2 paragraphs. Sometimes people have done incredible amounts of novel research that require pages to properly explain but its worth it for all the learning it provides.

You should also think about the audience for the post. Is it just general reading where you expect people to browse reddit and see it or is it something highly specialized where your readers will likely come from google search looking for reference information.

Shoot me an email would be happy to help! nick@holler.com

I’ve written thousands of blog posts and happy to point you in the right direction!

I know that the HN crowd were not very receptive of Julian's[1] writing style but I found him inspiring. Recently he tweeted the working style of Ed Sheeran and Neil Gaiman on how they are the top in their field by doing a whole lot of bad writing to come to a good one - Creativity Faucet. You might want to read that tweet at https://twitter.com/Julian/status/1327765347936522240

1. https://www.julian.com

So, I struggled with writing for most of my life (33 now). But around 4 years ago, I took a college 'composition' course...for the fourth time. I failed it three times previously. I had to pass the class this time because I had a mission to get my degree. This class stood in my way. I was fortunate enough to have a great teacher for both level 1 and level 2, I passed both with an A&B respectively. Surprisingly enough, I learned that I already had good habits (journaling, rereading old entries, lack of judgment when writing, comfortable with numerous edits spread overtime). I discovered this through anon blogging and my personal journal after I dropped out of college after my third failing. So, I fell into the good habits but they are practical. They just take time and continuous practice.

So, I said all this, in a rambling way, to say that you can do this without paying others. Just be disciplined about it. Maybe take the 100 day challenge to blogging. Post it anon, if you're worried about criticism.

Good luck. I also second nondeveloper's two book recommends (Elements of Style and On Writing Well), if you need a lot of helpful advice.