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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

#61

Post by GMoromisato »

[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 reach one person and make them laugh, or teach someone something new, or give someone hope when they really needed it, then your writing will be worth it.

Re: 10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

#62

Post by hekkle »

pastel8739 wrote: post #48
hekkle wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realise there are AI checkers online. https://www.zerogpt.com/ assesses this content as: 27.49% ChatGPT While this writer obviously had a lot of input into the model, they even state (or more accurately according to zerogpt, ChatGPT wrote this whole paragraph) "The writing process should be highly iterative", so they have added their own flavour into the writing, but it is still , (probably not for much longer…

You do realize (god I hate that phrase) it’s impossible to definitively classify something as AI- or human-produced?

[flagged]

Re: 10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

#63

Post by wj »

pastel8739 wrote: post #47
riazrizvi wrote: post #36

Writing a blog is like talking in the town square. Except because it’s digital, we seem to forget how communication works. If you just start talking in the town square, you’re standing alone talking. Sure a person who passes by might pause, but the odds you’re saying something really relevant to them are low, so they’ll move on. The whole question of how you get in front of the right people and tweak your message bas…

What if having an audience isn’t the goal?

I saw this Carl Jung quote shared on Substack recently.

"Loneliness does not come from having no people around you, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to you"."

I'm using writing as an outlet for an active mind these days. Thoughts that seem important to me and need to come out even if there is nobody there to read them.

Re: 10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

#64

Post by paulorlando »

If you want happiness through writing, write only for yourself. Never check site visitor analytics, comments, shares. Only care if you're enjoying the writing. To make it easier you can also write under a pseudonym.

Some of my worst habits formed seeing early posts go viral and then getting addicted to that endorphin hit. The amount of time I wasted checking analytics and new subs would probably equal the time it would take me to write 10 more posts or read a couple books.

But congrats at sticking to it for 10 years!

Re: 10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

#65

Post by Cogito »

jph00 wrote: post #59
Cogito wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be due to AI proliferation, or the culturural bias I have, but I increasingly find em-dashes jarring . As you point out, authors use them for the "natural and chaotic shifts of thought we all have" and when there are lots of these shifts it feels like I have to keep track of multiple conversations at once. For example, in the article we have: If your goal is to have other people read—and hopefully enjoy—your w…

IMO the em-dash version is way easier to read in this example, FWIW.

I think I took out an extra comma too, which hurts readability.

Personally I write with too many asides, normally done with commas and parentheses. It's a comforting habit to fall into, and makes getting your thoughts out so much easier, at the expense of interrupting the reader's train of thought.

I don't normally notice when I'm writing with asides so the jarring em-dashes were a good reminder to try and edit them out where I can.

Re: 10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

#66

Post by hekkle »

layer8 wrote: post #54
hekkle wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Have all the people parroting "dash means it was written by ChatGPT" never used a word processor? Probably not, this is "HACKER" News, if I type two n-dashes on a website, I EXPECT two n-dashes, otherwise things like HTML comments would break the page.

As a hacker, you should have heard of the Compose key, or maybe of Ctrl+K in Vim.

The compose key and Ctrl+K in Vim both assume the use of Linux, or janky 3rd party software. Compose is the same argument I have already covered with Windows, you need to enter a cryptic key-combination into the keyboard, which is not intuitive.

As for the Vim argument, I'm struggling to work out how to use Vim to type on here? Perhaps you could shed some light? I suppose you could yank-put it, but I fail to see how that is less effort than copy-paste, the other argument I already covered.

Re: 10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

#67

Post by falkensmaize »

a_bonobo wrote: post #57
riazrizvi wrote: post #36

Writing a blog is like talking in the town square. Except because it’s digital, we seem to forget how communication works. If you just start talking in the town square, you’re standing alone talking. Sure a person who passes by might pause, but the odds you’re saying something really relevant to them are low, so they’ll move on. The whole question of how you get in front of the right people and tweak your message bas…

Related, I think people have stopped.... reacting on the internet? I've been part of the X/Twitter to Bluesky migration and people often mention how 'quiet' Bluesky is. I think that's not due to algorithmic intervention of product design etc., I think people are just tired. The novelty of shouting at strangers on the internet has worn off - how many internet fights have we gotten into that did nothing in the end exce…

Spot on. Ten or fifteen years ago, participating in the internet was something I got excited about, now I just get excited about getting away from it.

Re: 10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

#68

Post by cindyllm »

falkensmaize wrote: post #67
a_bonobo wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Related, I think people have stopped.... reacting on the internet? I've been part of the X/Twitter to Bluesky migration and people often mention how 'quiet' Bluesky is. I think that's not due to algorithmic intervention of product design etc., I think people are just tired. The novelty of shouting at strangers on the internet has worn off - how many internet fights have we gotten into that did nothing in the end exce…

Spot on. Ten or fifteen years ago, participating in the internet was something I got excited about, now I just get excited about getting away from it.

[dead]

Re: 10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

#69

Post by rpunkfu »

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…

Looking forward to post about writing a book nobody reads ;)

Re: 10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

#70

Post by EdwardDiego »

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 am now intrigued in your blog, if it's still online?
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