I started writing, publicly but to myself, primarily so I could remember how to do technical processes that I didn't repeat very often.
If you've ever considered blogging but haven't started what's stopping you?
I enjoy blogging but it is like a journal. It helps me think. A private journal might work but I tend to ramble on in private journal.
A blog makes me want to write a bit more concise. But I am afraid my friends will find it and may make fun of me.
I still write but not as openly as I want to.
Plus, as others have said - any opinion I have is probably also held by someone who already has a consistent readership and is a lot more eloquent and engaging than I could ever dream of being.
Additionally, I rarely have unique opinions, and I am loathe to relitigate some topics. Think things like the debate over legal abortion: literally every argument has already been made for and against, I cannot possibly write anything of value on the subject.
Finally, I'm wrong often enough that I'm concerned some of the technical content I write could lead people down the wrong path, wasting hours or days of their time.
1) Power. An example in the tech community are the "public intellectuals." Examples include Tim O'Reilly, Reid Hoffman, etc. They are already commercially successful. But are effectively cultivating influence and power by advocating for their ideas and world view.
2) Sales. Basically anyone who uses Twitter or LinkedIn well is selling themselves, their products, company, etc.
You might've noticed that many successful operators and investors who have gone mostly silent and have mostly stopped writing about their thoughts in public, but are hyping their investments, products, company/culture, etc.
The downsides are far too great, and so PR firms are engaged to obfuscate and filter.
It's a real shame. I found many friends and colleagues through public forums and shared ideas. Most all of them have retreated to private channels like: Signal, iMessage, Discord, etc.
/s
There are some interesting stories, bug fixes, tech stacks etc but exposing them always risks the company's reputation and it's not worth the hassle to self censor.
For others, I realized that market has moved on. There was market for self-publishing for masses, then came micro self-publishing, and now quick videos, edits and nano publishing with using advanced technology in visual media, which wasn't possible earlier.
And if those do not create future value, they might faze out too.
The catalyst for me was deciding that I was going to publish writings exclusively about my interest in literature. Philosophy, books reviews, interesting ideas, etc. This helped me to focus. Before, I was vague about what I would blog about.
It's an exercise in thinking out loud about an interest of mine and organizing my thoughts. I know most people don't read blogs. It's for me.
I've wanted to blog for years but never did. There were a few reasons. I was unreasonably concerned with originality. You have to accept that you're probably not going to write something that's never been said before. That's fine. It's about exercising your cognitive muscles and expressing yourself.
I also thought that everything I published had to be philosophically profound. I set the bar way too high. Now, if I think something is cool or interesting, regardless of how niche it is, that's reason enough to blog about it. Who cares!
You have to free yourself from that sort of stuff. It does nothing but hinder your natural impulse to do something creative.
* My personal website is truly personal. I'm no longer using it as an online resume. There's no branding, no curation. I share recipes, car repair tips, and the occasional essay.
* I don't care about traffic. I don't even measure it anymore. It's no longer about clicks and likes. I'm pleasantly surprised when someone mentions the content on my website.
* I keep my writing short and sweet. It forces me to have clearer ideas, and to stay focused. It also means that I can finish a post before caffeine wears off.
* I treat my personal website as a garden. It's meant to be imperfect, a constant work in progress.
The thing that stopped me from blogging consistently was the notion that blogs are showcase of your expertise.
When i realized everyone is unique and have unique perspective, all the procrastination was gone and my mind was filled with things i could write about.
False notion of " showcasing expertise" changed to " sharing unique perspectives"
I have multiple first drafts that i am working on now.
Also this helped: https://guzey.com/personal/why-have-a-blog/
My blog: www.mnsh.me/blog
I think that the primary idea in my head is to find a way to convert my experiences, lessons from life into a blog. For that, I have to dig through old journals, and it makes me feel dreaded to start it. I also think on writing about what's happening in my life, but then I feel who is going to care about it. So I do not start.
Also I read lot of books. Of lately, I started taking notes, and have been thinking to start writing book reviews - at least. My most of notes are in handwritten form, and I used to convert my analog stuff manually typing to digital form. The thought of making a visual summary of books along with traditional text format (digital) deviates me to search yet another tool, or excuse of not putting time to create book summaries.
Basically, what to write about (with a bit of "how"), is the question stopping me from starting.
I found this quite helpful though: https://perell.com/essay/the-ultimate-guide-to-writing-onlin...
But as for why I don't run a personal blog... well there a few reasons really:
1. I'm not sure how to brand it. I have no interest in becoming an 'influencer' under my real name, and it's hard to choose a domain name or brand if you don't have a memorable name or pseudonym.
2. I'm an utter perfectionist, so every time I consider creating a personal blog I think about how it should be designed, coded, etc rather than the content to post there.
3. I dislike letting other people host my work on their services, so no Substack or Medium anymore. My opinion is that if someone takes offence with something I say (or has another legal issue), there should be no third party that can 'solve' those problems behind my back. But that also means effort when I want to use anything that can be self hosted, since it means setting up a domain/subdomain, hosting directory, email, etc.
4. Other things take priority.
I have note taking for that. That way I don't have to spend energy on polishing my writing and I don't have to worry about accidentally leaking something that's sensitive.
With this last point, it's not that I don't have anything to write, it's picking what to write about. Boundaries and persona were always clear lines in the sand for me when I did it before, and at the moment I'm not sure where I want to draw them. It's a bit like deciding to write an ongoing book: on what topic? What part of my mind would I be putting to page?
Basically indecision paralysis.
For a brief period of time, I self-hosted Ghost[1], which was great from a writing perspective, but I was really dismayed with how crappy the average request latencies were for visitors.
[1]: https://ghost.org
2. Do not want to maintain a website. That is too much work for which RoI is very low for me.
3. I am a perfectionist and in this regard, I often never start for this reason.
4. The fear of looking stupid and making a fool of myself.
5. Writing well is a very very hard and time consuming work. I work hard and have little to no time for this extra work.
6. Fear that no one is going to read it. What's the reason to write publicly if I don't get significant audience feedback?
But perhaps this is the wrong perspective. Maybe I should write as I donate old clothing. It was once dear, but no longer suits my needs; passed along freely hoping that another might find it useful.
That and, you know, actually having to deliver real work.
That said, I still force myself to do it once or twice a month in the hopes I'll get used to it.
First, cheap blogging is something I do not like, and producing quality content takes time. An example of cheap blogging is “I npm installed foobaz, passed it a low-effort options object copied from SO answer and voila”. Sometimes I struggle even with HN comments, heh. “Half” of them never get posted.
Second, my views on programming (my primary interest in life) are not mainstream and a little bitter, sometimes not a little. I know this from trying to expess them here on HN from time to time. I’m afraid that publishing that would bring nothing but a sense of worse isolation at my own expense. I’m a pretty negative critic, and I don’t get where people like n-gate take energy to continue their public work (I’m not a HN hater, just a random example out of top of my head).
I put something on gitbook.com but pretty much stopped posting because the latest software became closed source.
I would want something with built-in network effects, but... I don't like Medium or Twitter logs. Is Instagram good for posting text?
Maybe I could try posting markdown directly in Github without a static site generator, and instead only generate the recent or tag-post lists.
I'd also want a place to post random, non-technical, unprofessional content.
I actually asked something related here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32152652
discord.multiprocess.io
I find discussing on HN (a la Socratic Method) more useful.