The writing interest paradox
naughtycomputer.uk
naughtycomputer.uk
You can quite literally see the evolution in Jon's answers - as time went by his recent answers started becoming better. Today, most of his answers a) have almost zero ambiguity and b) round off the knowledge you gained by adding a few related points, preventing future ambiguity too.
Obviously I am a big fan of his writing, but I think he puts a lot of effort into his answers and even reflecting on those answers. For example, I saw an interview where he mentions the tradeoff between precision and concision in writing, and then making it readable on top of that! Very, very few people can succeed on all three fronts in technical writing.
> Very, very few people can succeed on all three fronts in technical writing.
Indeed! A successful writer needn't be a brilliant writer. It's more important that they know which combinations of precision, concision and readability they can achieve, and they select the combination that is best suited to the task at hand.
More talented writers can achieve better trade offs, but even Vladimir Nabokov would get downvoted if he answered a hello world question with exhaustive documentation of compiler flags.
I would add a third explanation: Too technical for laymen, not technical enough for cutting edge experts. I sure do know a lot about my field, but the things I would write about are too complicated for beginners, and have been done before by experts. But I can definitely toss out a hypothetical and write 500 words about it once a week..
Sandi Metz had a great answer. Something like "What have you learned in the last year? Do your talk on that. No matter where you are now, there's somebody out there now who is where you were a year ago. They still have those things to learn."
I think this is a really healthy way of looking at blog posts as well. You may say what you want to write about is too complicated for beginners but been done before by experts, but that also means there are plenty of people out there that just don't know it yet, even though they are ready. It doesn't matter if you've been in your technical field 2 years or 10, there are other people out there just behind you waiting to learn the same things you have.
If you wrote about everything that came to mind in this manner I am sure you'd have some writing that goes over some basic stuff, but also writing that is extremely relevant to some readers and will help them immensely.
It's a win-win situation. Preparation mostly reduces to deciding on the order of topics. Maybe researching some details I don't feel confident about. Maybe drawing some diagrams and/or looking for nice pictures. That's it.
The only "trick" is to have an audience to which my topic is all news.
The person on YouTube that makes tons of videos about the minute technical details of Super Mario 64 and talks about half button presses and parallel universes is obviously highly interested in the game and its mechanics and also has a lot of experience with it.
There are people whose main passion remains the same for 20+ years and who never get bored of learning more and more about the same subject till they retire or die.
And no, I don't think objectivity must be passionless or bore the reader. It's possible to present 'just the facts' in a way that's enjoyable to read and doesn't try and pass off any viewpoints as objective. A good nature documentary could still be interesting to watch after all.
I wish I could be more entertaining, but the truth is not that exciting. That's probably another writing paradox. Most of our entertainment is fiction.
(Personally, I write to think and to document. There is also no way of knowing what people think of your thoughts if you don't share them.)
But I like discussions on HN. There is just enough variety and interesting mix of topics. Also the style is more conversational, while a blog is more narrative (fire-side chat vs a presentation in front of an audience).
There should be an "HN-post-history-to-blog-format" library or service. Maybe something that picks the most interesting discussions in last X years.
[0] https://github.com/HackerNews/API
Also, there's nothing really wrong with having a blog with no recent updates. I know there's this idea that a blog needs to be regularly updated. But a blog with just 2 valuable posts made 2 years ago, is a valuable thing!
If you just want to write some stuff and put it online, without the feeling of some ongoing obligation -- here are a few options:
https://medium.com/@jason.sackey/apps-for-super-fast-web-pub...
I hope you will be encouraged to post some stuff.
> That's basically why I don't have a blog.
I am not complaining! It was important to see what works and what doesn't. I now think it is far better to jointly contribute on a big project/website rather than piecemeal individually. Of course there will always be examples of people for whom it works, this is a "statistical" statement. Part of the reason I in particular got nowhere was the kind of content. Too many people trying to provide learning content, you can see it on Youtube, a lot of channels with sometimes great lectures started big for a few years but now have not been updated in years because the authors noticed the big gap between effort and reward (a few hundred viewers and a few comments).
My conclusion was that I would instead go to sites like reddit (technical and science subreddits mostly) and HN, and if I really think it's worth writing up something larger there are plenty of sites to choose from.
An important part of this is a conscious decision to give up creating my own brand. Instead, it was important for me personally to be perfectly okay, even to actually desire it, to disappear in the anonymity of the masses.
It's also very hard to achieve, which is why you find people going around calling themselves "objective" when they're just refusing to acknowledge their prejudices and privileges.
Different strokes for different folks.
Having interest in a topic may compromise one's objectivity. But we can become aware of this, and correct for it. Other people's viewpoints can be helpful here.
And having experience in a topic doesn't necessarily mean you're bored of it. I've been web-developing for ~5 years and there's a whole bunch of stuff here I want to explore and write about.
Regarding writing for the sake of money, Schopenhauer had some commentary:
https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/schopenhauer/arthur/essays/...
On the other hand I have my own blog where I have the freedom to write about what I want and when I want. I'm having a lot more fun when writing for the latter.
I also get a lot more reactions regarding articles that I write for my own so I assume that fun or interest also shows in the quality of my writings.
Posts that are intended as a launching point for critical discussion.
Posts that journal a learning process such as an original project.
Anyone else got the feel?
Almost every article I read on the Web benefit from using this function, and I'd recommend you start using it too, and save yourself from looking at the next horribly layed out article.