How I motivate myself to write
blog.pragmaticengineer.com
How I motivate myself to write
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Re: How I motivate myself to write
#2My experience and techniques have been remarkably similar, albeit on a smaller scale than Gergely. A few years ago I decided to start writing one post per month on any subject within tech/software development. I've missed that goal a couple of times but my average since then has still been ~1.4 posts per month.
I write about whatever is interesting to me and most often that's exploring topics in tech that were a mystery to me before like compilers, databases, etc. Like Gergely I keep an ever growing list of projects or topics that seem interesting to tackle at some point.
One book I'd recommend most to folks writing in tech (whether it's technical or not) is On Writing Well, which teaches you the same kinds of things Gergely uses Hemingway Editor for. That is, to be concise and precise.
I think the biggest benefit to writing consistently is that you improve as a writer and that you get to explore interesting topics. Even if you are doing coding projects to improve as a developer, it's a whole new level to start trying to explain that work in blog posts. It's easier in coding to get things right without understanding exactly how/why they worked. When you write to explain you have to actually dig into that how/why.
Some people say tech blogging is great for getting jobs but in my experience, of all the things that helped me get work, my blog didn't contribute much. But I'm just one data point. I say this so that you don't get discouraged if you don't suddenly unlock emails from hiring managers because you start writing more.
Re: How I motivate myself to write
#3Write regularly yes, but quantity does not lead inherently to quality. You have to hold a higher and then higher standard for what’s good
Re: How I motivate myself to write
#4Write regularly yes, but quantity does not lead inherently to quality. You have to hold a higher and then higher standard for what’s good
I disagree. If you're putting effort into writing, writing often and on new themes/ideas is much more likely to lead to better habits and learning to write more effectively.
It's like drawing 100 one hour drawings vs one 100 hour drawings - same effort in terms of time but you're far more likely to learn how to be a better artist by learning to start quickly and progress further each time within the given amount of time. The traditional way of learning to draw is often subdivided into multiple 2 minute, 5 minute, 15 minute, and then longer form practice pieces. You can learn to start an artwork more efficiently with just two minute sketches that you would never get to practice if you only did long effort works.
Writing more often is even better than that, since you develop better habits compared to writing less often. It's like drawing 100 one hour drawings vs one 25 hour drawing, instead. Consistently practicing as often as you can be productive for is how you learn skills of all kinds.
Re: How I motivate myself to write
#5Write regularly yes, but quantity does not lead inherently to quality. You have to hold a higher and then higher standard for what’s good
I disagree. If you're putting effort into writing, writing often and on new themes/ideas is much more likely to lead to better habits and learning to write more effectively. It's like drawing 100 one hour drawings vs one 100 hour drawings - same effort in terms of time but you're far more likely to learn how to be a better artist by learning to start quickly and progress further each time within the given amount of t…
Not really disagreeing- just stressing that there is a large literature on what’s called expert performance, which shows a powerful function for what they call deliberate practice. Stressing the explicit effort to get better. Not like some who play golf for 40 years yet never improve.
Re: How I motivate myself to write
#6> I also use Grammarly to catch spelling, and grammar issues, and sometimes take suggestions the tool gives - though I just as frequently reject them.
Grammarly has become a crutch. It either fails to catch typos or distracts me when I am writing. Moreover, I feel like I am progressively becoming bad at catching grammar mistakes.
Re: How I motivate myself to write
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. If you're putting effort into writing, writing often and on new themes/ideas is much more likely to lead to better habits and learning to write more effectively. It's like drawing 100 one hour drawings vs one 100 hour drawings - same effort in terms of time but you're far more likely to learn how to be a better artist by learning to start quickly and progress further each time within the given amount of t…
Not really disagreeing- just stressing that there is a large literature on what’s called expert performance, which shows a powerful function for what they call deliberate practice. Stressing the explicit effort to get better. Not like some who play golf for 40 years yet never improve.
I think my point is that practice should stress 'deliberate practice' but also consistency, frequency, and also quantity. less deliberate practice is going to be worse than more deliberate practice. deliberate practice doesn't preclude quantity, and in fact quantity is a good measure of your ability to put out words.
I'd rather get 500-1000 words an hour and go back to edit, than get 250 perfect words that I'm likely going to have to go back and edit anyways. The standard you talked about is related to the final draft, and the product of writing is rarely the product of the first unedited draft. Quantity has a very large value in learning to write.
Re: How I motivate myself to write
#8> I also use Grammarly to catch spelling, and grammar issues, and sometimes take suggestions the tool gives - though I just as frequently reject them. Grammarly has become a crutch. It either fails to catch typos or distracts me when I am writing. Moreover, I feel like I am progressively becoming bad at catching grammar mistakes.
I began writing recently in a browser editor (substack) that doesn't do the corrective spelling. I could barely write because I had to constant stop and figure out how to really spell the word. Totally revealed, for better or worse, how sloppy I had become as a typist.
Re: How I motivate myself to write
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not really disagreeing- just stressing that there is a large literature on what’s called expert performance, which shows a powerful function for what they call deliberate practice. Stressing the explicit effort to get better. Not like some who play golf for 40 years yet never improve.
I think my point is that practice should stress 'deliberate practice' but also consistency, frequency, and also quantity. less deliberate practice is going to be worse than more deliberate practice. deliberate practice doesn't preclude quantity, and in fact quantity is a good measure of your ability to put out words. I'd rather get 500-1000 words an hour and go back to edit, than get 250 perfect words that I'm likely…
One very poor practice in higher ed and universities is that people rarely go through an editorial process where they can see how much early drafts can be improved through re-writes. So students write 100 essays, submitted and graded, with not a single polished work. At least that was my experience as a student and teacher
Re: How I motivate myself to write
#10> I also use Grammarly to catch spelling, and grammar issues, and sometimes take suggestions the tool gives - though I just as frequently reject them. Grammarly has become a crutch. It either fails to catch typos or distracts me when I am writing. Moreover, I feel like I am progressively becoming bad at catching grammar mistakes.
I began writing recently in a browser editor (substack) that doesn't do the corrective spelling. I could barely write because I had to constant stop and figure out how to really spell the word. Totally revealed, for better or worse, how sloppy I had become as a typist.
My go to is MS notepad. I will write everything in paragraphs in notepad then copy paste it in. Nothing is more fast and convenient than the classic Notepad.
If only I could find something that is as fast as notepad, as convenient as notepad, as easy to work with as notepad but with Vim key bindings. That would be fantastic. Tried Gvim but that is no notepad.