71–80 of 80 posts
1.) Mostly to complain about things, and to do a little writing. Well, almost entirely to complain about things.
2.) Unexpectedly, it's become a minor obsession. If I don't post something once a week, I feel like I'm letting my readers (both of them) down.
Also, it improves my writing skills.
Plus, it's kind of cathartic. Starting a company is very stressful and not very rewarding in the early stages. Writing about it helps me to blow off a little bit of steam.
Finally, what I'm writing might be interesting/useful/comedic to others.
No. I don't have a blog because my perfectionism keeps me from even starting to write. I feel like if what I write isn't extraordinary, I have no business putting it out there at all.
How can you ever start writing something that's extraordinary if you never start writing at all? Do you really think Mark Twain started out writing Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer? It is a skill that requires effort to become good at.
The same hangup keeps me from trying many of my software ideas. It's a feeling that I'm constantly learning to fight.
Yes. Originally I had lofty ideas about writing interesting articles, but now I mainly just use it as a dumping ground for solutions to annoying technical problems to help other people who might be dealing with the same issues, or to remind myself how I solved a problem if I run into it again.
I started blogging this year as a way to overcome procrastination. The blog software I wrote forces me to post once a week or else it finks on me. http://milesforrest.com
But I can make a very comprehensive, "perennial" blog post on some topic. And rather than setting out to stick to the one topic, I can just let it get filtered by other sites. The resulting site essentially describes all my best work.
When I write about food and recipes, I send an email to three or four people I know will be interested. When I write about a backpacking or travel destination, it's an email to a different handful of people. When I write about exercise, I put it on a private blog where I record my food, exercise, and weight every day. When I write about software, I usually throw it away, though I often find an opportunity to recycle the thoughts and language in a discussion online or in person. When I write about a book, I share what I've learned by talking to a friend who would be interested. Et cetera.
I've thought about putting everything on a blog and just sending links to people when there's an entry they'd be interested in, but writing a blog that has no consistent readership and constantly bugging people to read it just feels pathetic for some reason.
No. I don't have a blog because my perfectionism keeps me from even starting to write. I feel like if what I write isn't extraordinary, I have no business putting it out there at all.