I've spent the last several years looking for the perfect blogging tool. As soon as I find one....
/s
Ask HN: What's stopping you from blogging?
31–40 of 67 posts
Re: Ask HN: What's stopping you from blogging?
#32I fit in that classic category of "built a website to blog on" and then never wrote a single post. Not really sure why I never posted anything.
Re: Ask HN: What's stopping you from blogging?
#33I know some people are comfortable writing blog posts as markdown files and publishing to e.g. GitHub Pages via Jekyll/Hugo/etc., but that's too much friction for me. What little motivation I have to write dissipates quickly when I think about having to go through this process to publish something. And I can't easily write posts from my phone when I'm on the go.
For a brief period of time, I self-hosted Ghost[1], which was great from a writing perspective, but I was really dismayed with how crappy the average request latencies were for visitors.
[1]: https://ghost.org
Re: Ask HN: What's stopping you from blogging?
#34I struggled for years to get going. My primary blockers were 1) not having a clear vision for why I was blogging or what my blog should be, and 2) concern about finding an audience. I finally started over this summer and am 12 posts in (about one per week).
Re: Ask HN: What's stopping you from blogging?
#35I don't do interesting stuff.
Re: Ask HN: What's stopping you from blogging?
#36Many of the people who still write in public are funneling attention they get into those buckets:
1) Power. An example in the tech community are the "public intellectuals." Examples include Tim O'Reilly, Reid Hoffman, etc. They are already commercially successful. But are effectively cultivating influence and power by advocating for their ideas and world view.
2) Sales. Basically anyone who uses Twitter or LinkedIn well is selling themselves, their products, company, etc.
You might've noticed that many successful operators and investors who have gone mostly silent and have mostly stopped writing about their thoughts in public, but are hyping their investments, products, company/culture, etc.
The downsides are far too great, and so PR firms are engaged to obfuscate and filter.
It's a real shame. I found many friends and colleagues through public forums and shared ideas. Most all of them have retreated to private channels like: Signal, iMessage, Discord, etc.
Re: Ask HN: What's stopping you from blogging?
#37I have been writing a daily diary (journal) since 11 years, and also I take lots of notes, almost about everything I learn. I've been thinking to start writing a blog since 10 years.
I think that the primary idea in my head is to find a way to convert my experiences, lessons from life into a blog. For that, I have to dig through old journals, and it makes me feel dreaded to start it. I also think on writing about what's happening in my life, but then I feel who is going to care about it. So I do not start.
Also I read lot of books. Of lately, I started taking notes, and have been thinking to start writing book reviews - at least. My most of notes are in handwritten form, and I used to convert my analog stuff manually typing to digital form. The thought of making a visual summary of books along with traditional text format (digital) deviates me to search yet another tool, or excuse of not putting time to create book summaries.
Basically, what to write about (with a bit of "how"), is the question stopping me from starting.
I found this quite helpful though: https://perell.com/essay/the-ultimate-guide-to-writing-onlin...
Re: Ask HN: What's stopping you from blogging?
#38Checkbox ticked. Done. Next thing in the list.
Re: Ask HN: What's stopping you from blogging?
#39Hmm. Probably because I don't know where to put it.
I put something on gitbook.com but pretty much stopped posting because the latest software became closed source.
I would want something with built-in network effects, but... I don't like Medium or Twitter logs. Is Instagram good for posting text?
Maybe I could try posting markdown directly in Github without a static site generator, and instead only generate the recent or tag-post lists.
I'd also want a place to post random, non-technical, unprofessional content.
Re: Ask HN: What's stopping you from blogging?
#40I've been blogging forever, but the audience left and went to all the walled gardens, so I was forced to follow. I usually post longer things I write here and elsewhere to my blog as a reference, but I'd be surprised if anyone ever referenced something I posted there.