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10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

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Re: 10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

#151

Post by dan-bailey »

DannyBee wrote: post #146

"I often write "too much" and struggle to really condense my thoughts into a sharpened essay. Most of my posts are 2000+ words...nowadays I'm trying to restrict myself to 1000 words. The limit forces me to really think about the core idea I want to share." I clerked for a judge who helped us become really good writers. I know this is shocking to some, but some judges actually really do care and don't try to write tho…

The "reading out loud" method is something I do, too -- learned it while getting my B.A. in Creative Writing -- it's great for helping you understand when a sentence is awkward or too wordy, or when the rhythm of a longer piece of writing is off. Writing is just speech with the benefit of an extra filter. Use the filter.

Re: 10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

#152

Post by zdragnar »

rkomorn wrote: post #148
eloisant wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe in US, if you learn to write in a simple and straightforward way. In France essays are all about writing in a complex way to show how smart you are. Which not only is not a useful skill to have, it's detrimental because we learn to write in obscure and hard to understand ways.

This is painfully true. I went to a US university after high school in France and had a really hard time adjusting to the American style of essays. So many paragraphs with sentences crossed off for being too long, in particular. Hitting word limits when, in a French dissertation, you'd just be getting started (an exaggeration, yes, but still). It wasn't a "language" problem because I was already a fluent American Eng…

This reminds me a bit of my Korean professor from college. Perhaps the most memorable thing from his class was when he explained the Korean style of writing essays was to not explain up front what you are going to cover but to "beat around the bush" until the end. He accompanied the bit in quotes with a mime of him swinging a stick at various parts of a really big bush.

For some reason, that image will forever accompany that phrase in my mind.

Re: 10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

#154

Post by rkomorn »

zdragnar wrote: post #152
rkomorn wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is painfully true. I went to a US university after high school in France and had a really hard time adjusting to the American style of essays. So many paragraphs with sentences crossed off for being too long, in particular. Hitting word limits when, in a French dissertation, you'd just be getting started (an exaggeration, yes, but still). It wasn't a "language" problem because I was already a fluent American Eng…

This reminds me a bit of my Korean professor from college. Perhaps the most memorable thing from his class was when he explained the Korean style of writing essays was to not explain up front what you are going to cover but to "beat around the bush" until the end. He accompanied the bit in quotes with a mime of him swinging a stick at various parts of a really big bush. For some reason, that image will forever accomp…

I watch a lot of k-dramas and all I can say is: that tracks.

Re: 10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

#155

Post by card_zero »

DannyBee wrote: post #146

"I often write "too much" and struggle to really condense my thoughts into a sharpened essay. Most of my posts are 2000+ words...nowadays I'm trying to restrict myself to 1000 words. The limit forces me to really think about the core idea I want to share." I clerked for a judge who helped us become really good writers. I know this is shocking to some, but some judges actually really do care and don't try to write tho…

> It's better to answer questions people have later than try to guess what they will ask you and answer it in the piece.

Kind of. Sometimes you can see quibbles coming a mile away and want to head them off at the pass. Without guessing questions in advance, you create a duty for yourself to interact and answer them later, and maybe you don't wanna. Besides, the whole piece is providing answers to questions guessed in advance. That's why you'd put any writing out there. So it's right to do some guessing.

The problem is guessing badly.

Re: 10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

#156

Post by peterspath »

zeroq wrote: post #82

Totally random rant. I have a lot to say. About lot of things. I don't blog because, most of the time, I'm worried about what people might think. Sometimes I speak up in public and people are confused, so - I think - it will only be amplified online. Sometimes I want to share a bit of code, and I'm not sure if the formatting will please everyone. Or naming convention. But most of all it's putting it all together. The…

> Sometimes I want to share a bit of code, and I'm not sure if the formatting will please everyone. Or naming convention.

Do what pleases you. Write and share first and most importantly for yourself. If other people find it interesting or useful they will read, if not, they will not.

Writing is a muscle you need to train, so start with small topics you want to say stuff about, learn, it will become easier. Then do the big topics you want to say a lot about.

Re: 10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

#157

Post by cindyllm »

card_zero wrote: post #155
DannyBee wrote: post #146

"I often write "too much" and struggle to really condense my thoughts into a sharpened essay. Most of my posts are 2000+ words...nowadays I'm trying to restrict myself to 1000 words. The limit forces me to really think about the core idea I want to share." I clerked for a judge who helped us become really good writers. I know this is shocking to some, but some judges actually really do care and don't try to write tho…

> It's better to answer questions people have later than try to guess what they will ask you and answer it in the piece. Kind of. Sometimes you can see quibbles coming a mile away and want to head them off at the pass. Without guessing questions in advance, you create a duty for yourself to interact and answer them later, and maybe you don't wanna. Besides, the whole piece is providing answers to questions guessed in…

[dead]

Re: 10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

#158

Post by moron4hire »

GMoromisato wrote: post #61

[Self-promotion warning] My blog that nobody read turned into a published book. An editor for a small publishing firm happened to come across my blog and thought that it might be good as a book. He contacted me and after about a year of work (more than I expected) I finished the book and got it published. It's not that popular, but I'm very happy with it. My point is that you don't need a massive audience. If you can…

I have a friend who used to complain about wanting to publish a novel, not being able to finish, blah blah blah. So I made a bet with him that I would self-publish a book before he did. That night, I packed 3 years of blog posts into a PDF and pushed "submit" on Kindle Direct Publishing. It was the kick in the pants he needed to finally finish his manuscript.

Re: 10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

#159

Post by gaoshan »

petterroea wrote: post #99

One of the tough pills I and probably many other developers have had to swallow when maturing is that "non-programming skills" from schools are useful and very valuable, actually. Writing is one of them. Everyone loves a programmer that can explain themselves. An opinion isn't worth having if you aren't able to defend it either. Maintaining a blog therefore seems like a great way of improving your writing skills whil…

"One of the tough pills I and probably many other developers have had to swallow when maturing is that "non-programming skills" from schools are useful and very valuable, actually."

It is interesting in how challenging it can be to convince some younger developers of this. Some of the stronger and more technically proficient developers (that are young-ish... mid 30's and down, let's say) have a level of contempt for those skills that is surprising and not trivial to coach them on. They seem to suffer from "smartest person in the room" syndrome and mistakenly believe those smarts apply to everything they deal with rather than the just the technical areas that they excel in.

Re: 10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

#160

Post by faster »

card_zero wrote: post #155
DannyBee wrote: post #146

"I often write "too much" and struggle to really condense my thoughts into a sharpened essay. Most of my posts are 2000+ words...nowadays I'm trying to restrict myself to 1000 words. The limit forces me to really think about the core idea I want to share." I clerked for a judge who helped us become really good writers. I know this is shocking to some, but some judges actually really do care and don't try to write tho…

> It's better to answer questions people have later than try to guess what they will ask you and answer it in the piece. Kind of. Sometimes you can see quibbles coming a mile away and want to head them off at the pass. Without guessing questions in advance, you create a duty for yourself to interact and answer them later, and maybe you don't wanna. Besides, the whole piece is providing answers to questions guessed in…

The best business writing advice I ever got was "always answer more questions than you raise". It's usually clear when something is going to raise questions. I'm with you wrt guessing what questions readers will have, but reading critically can identify where you have unsupported claims, incomplete explanations, and confusing or conflicting statements.
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