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Advice for a friend who wants to start a blog

henrikkarlsson.xyz

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Re: Advice for a friend who wants to start a blog

#61

Post by thaumasiotes »

rednafi wrote: post #43

I have been maintaining a semi-successful blog [1] for the last five years and have learned a few things along the way: - Own your content: Medium, Substack, Hashnode, Dev.to—all of them suck. Your readers deserve better. Don’t waste their time. - No one cares about the technology behind your site unless it’s huge. So it should be the least of your concerns. Don’t be that JS guy who rewrites their entire site every w…

> That said, if it took less time to write than it would take someone to read, it’s probably not worth writing.

Is that actually a possibility? I can't type faster than I can read.

Re: Advice for a friend who wants to start a blog

#62

Post by jopsen »

Unless you aim for your blog grow a following. You really don't need to overthink anything!

A picture and 3 sentences can be a blog post.

You can talk about a hobby, a trip, a vacation or random thoughts.

Sometimes people will find a how-to blog post through Google. Sometimes an old friend or former teacher will look you up.

In reality, you'll probably be happier if your blog never grows a steady following :)

Re: Advice for a friend who wants to start a blog

#63

Post by idlewords »

alxexperience wrote: post #55
idlewords wrote: post #13

The best writing advice I ever got was from a college professor—"everybody's got 100 bad essays in them. You just have to get them out." I feel like this is what blogging is especially good for. You can clear out the awful stuff and then try to incrementally improve. I would diametrically disagree with point #7—if you want to write well, you need to revise the hell out of it. I guess pick whose writing you like bette…

While I agree, I know it can be hard to start writing as well, because you are so worried about the quality. One of my professors from college brought up a great point that "No one will read your shitty first draft except you." I find that phrase very helpful, because usually when I write, the first draft is always a giant mess. But you're able to craft it and edit it the best way that you can. So you can push out wh…

It is very scary. Oddly that makes blogs kind of a good place to start, since almost no one will find them or read them. It's public writing, but a lot less nerve-wracking than putting yourself out there in other formats (like forum posts).

Re: Advice for a friend who wants to start a blog

#64

Post by kqr »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #61
rednafi wrote: post #43

I have been maintaining a semi-successful blog [1] for the last five years and have learned a few things along the way: - Own your content: Medium, Substack, Hashnode, Dev.to—all of them suck. Your readers deserve better. Don’t waste their time. - No one cares about the technology behind your site unless it’s huge. So it should be the least of your concerns. Don’t be that JS guy who rewrites their entire site every w…

> That said, if it took less time to write than it would take someone to read, it’s probably not worth writing. Is that actually a possibility? I can't type faster than I can read.

You can if yountype complicated tjings and include typos that make it hard to decode anything much less a run on sentence like this that includes redundancies and extra meaningless words saying the same thing which is easy to type but takes ages to read.

Re: Advice for a friend who wants to start a blog

#65

Post by fsckboy »

rednafi wrote: post #43

I have been maintaining a semi-successful blog [1] for the last five years and have learned a few things along the way: - Own your content: Medium, Substack, Hashnode, Dev.to—all of them suck. Your readers deserve better. Don’t waste their time. - No one cares about the technology behind your site unless it’s huge. So it should be the least of your concerns. Don’t be that JS guy who rewrites their entire site every w…

>Don’t be that JS guy who rewrites their entire site every week in a different stack and writes a blog post about it.

seems like a perfectly reasonable idea for a blog about different stacks. I'm not advocating it, but there's nothing wrong with it if that's what interests you.

Re: Advice for a friend who wants to start a blog

#66

Post by 1dom »

idlewords wrote: post #63
alxexperience wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree, I know it can be hard to start writing as well, because you are so worried about the quality. One of my professors from college brought up a great point that "No one will read your shitty first draft except you." I find that phrase very helpful, because usually when I write, the first draft is always a giant mess. But you're able to craft it and edit it the best way that you can. So you can push out wh…

It is very scary. Oddly that makes blogs kind of a good place to start, since almost no one will find them or read them. It's public writing, but a lot less nerve-wracking than putting yourself out there in other formats (like forum posts).

I don't consider myself a writer, but it sounds like you do.

I find forum posts far, far less nerve-wracking than a blog post. For me, a forum post is almost like how the original article describes a chat: it feels closer to realtime, and feels easier, because it's just like playing a normal role in a conversation. It's normally a response to something, expecting a response.

A blog post feels closer to a formal publication, and I feel like they're more expected to stand on their own, without the justification and context helpfully provided by others' posts.

Re: Advice for a friend who wants to start a blog

#67

Post by eclipsed0x01 »

fsckboy wrote: post #65
rednafi wrote: post #43

I have been maintaining a semi-successful blog [1] for the last five years and have learned a few things along the way: - Own your content: Medium, Substack, Hashnode, Dev.to—all of them suck. Your readers deserve better. Don’t waste their time. - No one cares about the technology behind your site unless it’s huge. So it should be the least of your concerns. Don’t be that JS guy who rewrites their entire site every w…

> Don’t be that JS guy who rewrites their entire site every week in a different stack and writes a blog post about it. seems like a perfectly reasonable idea for a blog about different stacks. I'm not advocating it, but there's nothing wrong with it if that's what interests you.

That close minded opinion you quoted left a bad taste in my mouth and makes me not want to check the OP's blog out.

Almost every opinion people have has been covered by someone else in some way unless you are working at the forefront of something, so it usually depends on how you value-add to existing things with your own experience.

It's also that sort of I-know-what's-better attitude that turns a personal thing into a competitive thing.

What is semi-successful anyway...

Re: Advice for a friend who wants to start a blog

#68

Post by 1dom »

al_borland wrote: post #18
Animats wrote: post #2

Do they have something to say, or is this like "I want to be in a band" of a previous generation?

This is a question more people need to ask. Be it a blog, YouTube channel, podcast, or whatever else, they all need to be rooted in having something worth to sharing to some small piece of the world. Many people get caught up in thinking the blog, YouTube, or podcast is the thing, when it’s just the thing that lets you share the real thing. It took me longer than I’d like to admit to really integrate this lesson.

That sounds like a chicken/egg scenario: how are you supposed to know if you have something worth sharing without producing that something first to make that assessment?

I think putting more questions and uncertainty in the way of actually just writing/podcasting/youtubing is what stops a lot of people really building the habit in the first place.

Re: Advice for a friend who wants to start a blog

#69

Post by gffrd »

fsckboy wrote: post #65
rednafi wrote: post #43

I have been maintaining a semi-successful blog [1] for the last five years and have learned a few things along the way: - Own your content: Medium, Substack, Hashnode, Dev.to—all of them suck. Your readers deserve better. Don’t waste their time. - No one cares about the technology behind your site unless it’s huge. So it should be the least of your concerns. Don’t be that JS guy who rewrites their entire site every w…

> Don’t be that JS guy who rewrites their entire site every week in a different stack and writes a blog post about it. seems like a perfectly reasonable idea for a blog about different stacks. I'm not advocating it, but there's nothing wrong with it if that's what interests you.

You’re missing the point.

OP is saying don’t be the person who says they want to write about Frogs, but who then spends an immense amount of effort not writing about Frogs, and writing about procrastination instead.

Re: Advice for a friend who wants to start a blog

#70

Post by nthingtohide »

idlewords wrote: post #13

The best writing advice I ever got was from a college professor—"everybody's got 100 bad essays in them. You just have to get them out." I feel like this is what blogging is especially good for. You can clear out the awful stuff and then try to incrementally improve. I would diametrically disagree with point #7—if you want to write well, you need to revise the hell out of it. I guess pick whose writing you like bette…

> then try to incrementally improve

My technique is Da Vinci method just collect / discover lot of shiny pieces. Then stitch them together later. Develop these pieces separately like colored glass pieces in a mosaic, sort of inversion of divide and conquer, collect and assemble.

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