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What to blog about

simonwillison.net

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Re: What to blog about

#61

Post by bemmu »

swyx wrote: post #35

So there's two things here: TILs and projects. I'm running a dev writers' retreat next week and happen to be thinking about this, want to suggest more: - Superlatives: An interesting story about the first/last/best/worst experience when you did X. You see a lot of these in Rachelbythebay's work ( https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... ) . Mtlynch focuses more on documenting his journey semi-r…

Writing about data seems reliably popular. There’s even a company that just writes viral blog posts for clients about their data (Pricenomics).

Whenever you run an experiment or gather data, consider whether it might be shareable as a post. It’s a win-win because people love learning the truth in numbers about a topic, and at the same time you get to have a chance at a decently popular post about your obscure thing.

Say you’re a toilet paper manufacturer. Probably nobody wants to read your company blog, but if you had a post with real data about how much TP is wasted by hotels not using rolls completely for example, that might just break through.

Re: What to blog about

#62

Post by II2II »

layer8 wrote: post #52

IMO this is backwards in term of goals and motivation. You should write a blog post if and when there’s something you want to write about. You shouldn’t start from wanting to have a blog but not actually having topics you’re passionate writing about.

I think the advice fits fairly well with what you're saying: presumably a person works on projects they are passionate about and they learn about things they are interested in.

Re: What to blog about

#63

Post by ar_lan »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #60
guynamedloren wrote: post #6

My problem is I get stuck at the very last step: publishing. I take copious, detailed, organized notes for everything I do (house renovations, DIY projects, programming projects) with a robust system that I've fine tuned over the years. This habit has proven to be invaluable for me, as I continuously reference notes and learnings from many years prior. However, by the time it comes to editing and publishing, I've alr…

I've been looking at the Zettelkasten note taking method recently, and one of the things it forces you to do is write notes that are pretty much publication-ready. The main use case of the method is publication actually. Of course it's more upfront investment, but then you arrive at a state where it's more about selecting the notes you want to put together to form your article and just write a few sentences to connec…

I’ve tried Zettelkasten for about a year now - it’s a massive time sink, and I’m not sure I’ve seen enough fruits to be worth it, to be honest.

But I also don’t publish writing so maybe that’s my fault!

Re: What to blog about

#64

Post by iLoveOncall »

ar_lan wrote: post #63
iLoveOncall wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been looking at the Zettelkasten note taking method recently, and one of the things it forces you to do is write notes that are pretty much publication-ready. The main use case of the method is publication actually. Of course it's more upfront investment, but then you arrive at a state where it's more about selecting the notes you want to put together to form your article and just write a few sentences to connec…

I’ve tried Zettelkasten for about a year now - it’s a massive time sink, and I’m not sure I’ve seen enough fruits to be worth it, to be honest. But I also don’t publish writing so maybe that’s my fault!

> But I also don’t publish writing so maybe that’s my fault!

My understanding is that it's indeed 100% pointless if you don't use it with the specific goal to publish.

Re: What to blog about

#65

Post by soldeace »

guynamedloren wrote: post #6

My problem is I get stuck at the very last step: publishing. I take copious, detailed, organized notes for everything I do (house renovations, DIY projects, programming projects) with a robust system that I've fine tuned over the years. This habit has proven to be invaluable for me, as I continuously reference notes and learnings from many years prior. However, by the time it comes to editing and publishing, I've alr…

For the record, I'm now interested in your note-taking system and would love to read more about it.

Re: What to blog about

#66

Post by ar_lan »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #64
ar_lan wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve tried Zettelkasten for about a year now - it’s a massive time sink, and I’m not sure I’ve seen enough fruits to be worth it, to be honest. But I also don’t publish writing so maybe that’s my fault!

> But I also don’t publish writing so maybe that’s my fault! My understanding is that it's indeed 100% pointless if you don't use it with the specific goal to publish.

I wouldn’t say that - it’s been effective for some of my designs, and I’ve referred to notes for small hacks I’ve acquired, but it’s inefficient IMHO.

Re: What to blog about

#67

Post by audiodude »

It's also helpful for me to practice the polar opposite: morning pages. Where I write 750 words in the morning about just about anything, where I know it will be unpublished and remain private. It's kind of like journaling or keeping a diary, without the mental pressure of having it chronicle your day or make any sense.

I actually find that it's more valuable to just get thoughts and mental cruft out on a page in order to free up my creative brain, than to actually look back or reflect on anything I've written.

Re: What to blog about

#68

Post by quadrifoliate »

An addition that most posts, including this would benefit from:

Be incredibly kind when judging other people for their projects. What goes around comes back around.

IMO a lot of the problem is not in finding things to blog about, but the fact that the Internet hive mind will casually toss off incredibly unkind criticism about your projects.

I remember https://harthur.wordpress.com/2013/01/24/771/ making the rounds almost ten years ago, and it played a big part in making me and many others nervous about exposing our projects to the world. The fact that there was any debate at all around whether or not the people criticizing that project uninvited was terrifying.

Of course, I have developed a thicker skin since then. And things are a lot better in 2022, and I imagine (or at least hope) that most people around here would not have such negative reactions to a hobbyist project. But it's good to remind ourselves every now and then.*

Re: What to blog about

#69

Post by skydhash »

cafeinux wrote: post #49
quietbritishjim wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the truth is somewhere in between. If someone wants to write about what they've done for writing's sake, then fair enough to go the extra step of posting a blog about it. But there are plenty of blogs that seem to exist because the person first decided they wanted to have a blog and then came up with something to write about. Not SEO spam, more like résumé spam maybe? Those are still awful to wade through on…

I've always wanted to write a blog but never dared to do it because I feel like I have nothing of interest to add to what already exists. Now after reading that article, I feel like I could indeed start a blog, and there would be a good chance that it will be boring and/or low quality, at least at first, but it would be my content and I could be proud of it. If I hold myself to a high standard that makes me want to o…

Just stay away from analytics. I added it to my site, then I realized I was spending most of the time looking at the dashboard to see how well I'm doing. I disabled it, and now I consider my site as just a more public version of my notes systems.
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