Realizations that helped me write regularly | Hacker News Reader

Realizations that helped me write regularly

joel.is

44 pointssunils3410 comments

What is it about the 'entrepreneur' (can we really still call it that?) that makes him so susceptible to this kind of endless, self-perpetuating chaff? What cultural force or common characteristic has led so many website founders to believe that they should bloggers, to believe that by becoming bloggers that they are writers—and perhaps most dazzlingly, to constantly consume and recirculate self-obsessed, content-free articles like this one, which say nothing of any substance and only recycle the same increasingly thin air first breathed by Guy Kawasaki 20 years ago? What is it about this class of businessperson that its members could hang out in a place called Hacker News, spend a non-trivial amount of their time solving subtle, difficult puzzles of design and development, and somehow also dive face-first into these lowest-common-denominator, sub-Tony Robbins schlockfests with such gusto and frequency?

damn son

Quite simple - everyone relearns this stuff. It's not something you can read and know, you have to arrive at it yourself.

As such it's something you feel is interesting to read about.

Also as such, it's easier reading somebody else's viewpoints on arriving at these realizations than coming at them yourself.

It also happens to be remotely interesting to read the ever so subtle differences in the lessons people learn.

Then one day you learn this stuff.

And the cycle repeats.

  1. Nobody fact checks
  2. Procrastination kills
  3. Shipping something awful is still a numinstance of "shipped"
  4. Writing is easy when I write about what I like and know
  5. Making a plan and sticking to it is now a .hack

Sorry for the pedantic response, but when an article trolls us, I want to return the favor.

Research or strong points are not necessary

This gives me a sad.

writing serves two purposes: telling the reader something and helping the writer think. i think joel is mostly talking about optimizing for the latter purpose, which is very useful to the writer.

that said, i can relate to the sentiment. most pieces that help authors think just add noise when they become published. it can be hard to tell, though, and since information is cheap nowadays you might as well publish everything and leave it as a problem for the reader to filter.

Indeed. I actually try my best to find good research, and by my nature of reading many other blogs of founders much more successful than me, I often have great insights in my mind to include in my articles.

My intention with this point was to take away the pressure. I think a personal blog often can be more about the individual's thoughts than about solid studies with large sample sizes. Even just a thought that comes into your mind and you write down and publish within a couple of hours can be very interesting to others.

Completely understand how this point could come across, but it's much more about making it easier for a writer and showing that an article can be thoughts rather than solid "evidence".

This is an excellent quote, which I have used to shape my thoughts and feelings on my writing:

"Good writers have two things in common: they prefer to be understood rather than admired; and they do not write for knowing and over-acute readers." -- Friedrich Nietzsche

EDIT: Let me elaborate a little about why I think this applies.

The GGP says that the idea that "research or strong points are not necessary" makes him sad. Joel is saying that one of his realizations is that writing does not need to be about compelling and unassailable logic, but can also be about communicating his personal experiences and emotions.

In other words, he prefers to be understood rather than satisfying the pedantic readers in his audience. I think this is the correct choice: being understood means that his emotions and experiences are related in such a way that the reader can emphasize with him; being correct means simply passing a mechanical examination of his logical structure.

At the end of the day, most people side with you because they empathize with you or because you stir their own emotions, not because you satisfy a system of equations.

There is surely a continuum between "unassailable logic" and "no research," no?

I've just read waaay too many blog posts (and tweets, and statuses, et al) making assertions that even the briefest, most cursory amount of research by the author would have proven incorrect, or at least more complicated than they seem at first glance. Like, a single Google search, you know? When I find a piece of writing where the author went to the trouble to put in that effort, it automatically goes up in my estimation a few notches.

I take Nietzsche's words about "knowing and over-acute readers" not as a call to not research your subject, but rather to write about it in a way that's accessible to the broad public rather than to experts on the topic. Good writers take complicated subjects and make them seem simple.

This is hilarious.

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