Bloggers on Blogging
I have spent a sometime convincing myself to start a blog and in doing that I have stumbled upon good advice on blogging. So I decided to publish a post each week to get my engines started. I am starting off by compiling a list of links from people I follow/read their blogs on why you should blog.
Jeff Atwood: “How To Achieve Ultimate Blog Success In One Easy Step”#
Jeff writes at https://blog.codinghorror.com which is one of my favourite blogs.
When people ask me for advice on blogging, I always respond with yet another form of the same advice pick a schedule you can live with, and stick to it. Until you do that, none of the other advice I could give you will matter. I don’t care if you suck at writing. I don’t care if nobody reads your blog. I don’t care if you have nothing interesting to say. If you can demonstrate a willingness to write, and a desire to keep continually improving your writing, you will eventually be successful.
Ben Kuhn: Writing#
Ben Kuhn goes more in-depth on how and why you should blog.
It’s easy to think that you have to put out really “interesting” writing in order for other people to like it.3 I think that’s true for going viral, but not true for having a blog that your friends enjoy reading, makes acquaintances feel more positively towards you, etc. …. As mentioned above, an important first step here is to lower your bar for what’s worth writing about.
Alex Guezy: Why You Should Start A Blog Right Now#
This fact is very frequently lost when discussing writing: writing not only helps you to understand what’s going on and to crystallize your thoughts, it actually makes you think of new ideas and come up with solutions to your problems.
Steve Yegge: You should write blogs#
I’ve talked with a lot of people who are reluctant to write blogs. Everyone offers pretty much the same reasons: they’re too busy, or they’re afraid to put something on “permanent public record”, or they think nobody will read their blog, or they think blogging is narcissistic. Or they’re worried that they either don’t have anything good to say, or they won’t say it very well.
I’m here to tell you that none of these reasons should stop you from writing in your blog.
Julia Evans: Write aboout what you’ve struggled with#
This is more about getting a sense of what to blog about, especially for programmers. Notice the crease, parts that don’t make sense, delve deeper into them and write about them.
The process I use for a lot of my blog posts is:
- Struggle with something (usually computer-related)
- Eventually (days or months or years later), figure out how to solve some of the problems I had
- Write a blog post about what helped me
David Perrell: Why you should write:#
Perrell’s not really into tech but has some good writing tips. He also runs an online writing school Write of Passage:
Words are the atomic unit of the internet. With the stroke of a pen, you can build your network, improve your thinking, and create opportunities for yourself.
Seth Godin: Write something#
Seth keeping it short and sweet, as always.
There’s no such thing as writer’s block. There’s simply a fear of bad writing. Do enough bad writing and some good writing is bound to show up.
I am mostly writing this for myself, in case I occasionally need a reminder. The core of the advice on these links is just to get started! More specifically, start writing(and publishing) at a particular cadence online.
You know a lot of cool stuff, you should share them :).