[HN Gopher] Just Write
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Just Write
Author : marksully
Score : 98 points
Date : 2025-02-22 10:10 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.chasingbrains.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.chasingbrains.co)
| tolerance wrote:
| In order for me to take this sentiment serious I have to assume
| that the author is referring to a select group of people who
| happen to agree with his worldview and not the masses, otherwise
| I would have to think that his take is ignorant.
|
| Most people have been "just writing" on the web for over a
| decade. Look at where it's gotten us.
| dsmurrell wrote:
| I haven't. I registered on ghost two years ago before turning
| 40 and have been paying them for two years now while I write
| nothing. It's hard to get started. I'm hoping to overcome this.
| This post helps.
| monkeywork wrote:
| I believe OP is talking about people "just writing" in short
| form on social media like twitter / FB / etc - getting a few
| words up without much "thought" behind it and hitting
| publish.
| AndrewStephens wrote:
| A social media post is a kind of writing but I took the
| original post to mean a longer, more publicly available
| work. They suggest 100 words, which would make for a long
| Facebook post.
| agentultra wrote:
| Try writing in a private journal first in order to develop
| the habit of writing.
|
| I'm a bit eccentric in this respect as I journal more than
| most people. I have subject matter journals that I use. When
| I'm working on graphics, I write in my graphics programming
| journal. When I'm working through abstract algebra, I write
| in my maths journal(s).
|
| I do some times come across ideas for longer-form essays. But
| it's usually from the accumulation of small ideas, thoughts,
| feelings, and the like that I find them.
|
| Eventually, blog posts.
|
| However if it's the anxiety of performing for others that
| overwhelms you, try developing the habit of writing in
| private. You can conquer those anxieties later when you're
| more confident in your underlying skills.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Here's what I wish someone had told me a lot earlier:
|
| It's OK to blog about silly things. Rant about something that
| annoyed you. Talk about how you made something. _It doesn't
| have to be perfect._ No one cares if you make mistakes. Going
| from zero to something is the important part, not going from
| something to perfection.
|
| And the more you do all the, the sooner you'll find your own
| voice, and the easier it all gets.
| ostensible wrote:
| I completely agree. Only write if you have something to say.
| World does not need more pointless drivel, like the linked
| post.
| bgun wrote:
| Lecturing comments about what the world needs from someone
| who uses words like "pointless drivel" just serves to prove
| the poster's point. We need more writers and fewer critics.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it 's
| done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to
| do it themselves.
|
| -Brendan Behan._
|
| I write stuff, and don't especially care who reads it:
| https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany
| velcrovan wrote:
| I think "writing" in this context is a considered, thoughtful
| and somewhat more rigorous activity than what happens on social
| media. If you exclude social media posts, I would not agree
| that most people have been "just writing" on the web.
| bgun wrote:
| > Most people have been "just writing" on the web for over a
| decade
|
| This sentiment is also hard to take seriously. Who are "most
| people"? How would you know who is "writing on the web" and if
| it somehow represents a majority of humans, or even a majority
| of humans with home Internet access, which I highly doubt?
|
| I would argue that a very loud, very small minority of people
| write on the web, which may be the cause of our dysfunction.
| Encouraging a more diverse crowd to think deeply and overcome
| presentation anxiety via public long-form writing seems like a
| good thing.
| dkarl wrote:
| > Most people have been "just writing" on the web for over a
| decade. Look at where it's gotten us.
|
| Writing on blogs creates some valuable content I benefit from
| reading, and a lot of content that costs me nothing because I'm
| never aware of it.
|
| Social media is where people would benefit from writing less.
| Over and over, I discover someone who produces great high-
| effort, high-quality content in some medium (blog posts, books,
| conference presentations), follow them on Bluesky, and then
| unfollow them because I don't want to read their reactions to
| random events or their conversations with other people. Even if
| their daily chatter is much more insightful and informative
| than the average person's, it's the wrong place for me to
| invest the energy and attention it takes to process. I feel so
| much better, and perform so much better personally and
| professionally, if I save that part of my energy budget for
| personal interactions with friends, family, and coworkers.
|
| On blogs, people should write to their heart's content. They
| should write as much for themselves as for other people.
| sitkack wrote:
| Writing is thinking, typing a snarky response to clickbait
| isn't writing, it is creating content for someone else's ad
| mill.
| timdellinger wrote:
| an eternal truth, but like all eternal truths, there are many
| people seeing it for the first time
|
| I would perhaps perhaps articulate it as:
|
| you find your tribe by hoisting a flag and seeing who rallies
| around.
|
| choose action over perfection - you'll be happier in the long
| run.
|
| so: write on the internet.
| roflmaostc wrote:
| The internet is overflowing with low quality content and
| information.
|
| I feel like, rather push the extra mile for a nice blog entry and
| more people will appreciate it.
| AndrewStephens wrote:
| I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment expressed in this post.
| A few weeks ago I was inspired by this quote from Why the Lucky
| Stiff:
|
| > When you don't create things, you become defined by your tastes
| rather than your ability. Your tastes only narrow & exclude
| people. So create.
|
| I won't bore you with the blog post I wrote in response, but the
| gist is that writing (and equally importantly, publishing) is a
| way of getting outside of your own head to think of a audience.
| We do it all the time as children but somehow as adults we seem
| to think we need permission to create something for the public.
| This has never been true and is doubly not true on the internet.
|
| So write something and don't worry if nobody reads it. That is
| not the point. That act of writing will have sharpened a little
| piece of your brain.
| blackhaj7 wrote:
| Share the post! Would love to read it
| AndrewStephens wrote:
| Well, if you insist:
| https://sheep.horse/2025/1/the_act_of_creation.html
|
| I think it is a good example of what the parent link is
| advocating - a short(ish) post on a single topic. We all
| enjoy long and informative articles but there is a place for
| things longer than a tweet but shorter than a essay.
| blackhaj7 wrote:
| Great post and very motivating! Thanks
| feoren wrote:
| > So write something and don't worry if nobody reads it.
|
| It's demotivating to have created a huge body of work that you
| know nobody will ever read/hear/experience. It saps the desire
| to create any more. I've been creating things for decades and
| approximately 0 people (other than myself) have benefitted from
| any of it. Everything is always just under the line of "good
| enough" to publish/publicize, and publishing/publicizing are
| completely different skills than creating in the first place,
| and just feel awful to do.
|
| > That act of writing will have sharpened a little piece of
| your brain.
|
| I'm tired of sharpening my own brain. Oh yay, after several
| decades of challenging myself and creating lots of cool things
| just for myself, I have a super-sharp brain (let's be
| charitable for sake of argument). So what? I'm doing literally
| nothing useful with all my sharp intellect.
|
| Creation has begun to feel pointless without sharing those
| creations, and the amount of effort and skill it takes to go
| from Tier 2 (not quite worth sharing) to Tier 1 (worth sharing)
| is _enormous_. We belong to a race of 8.2 billion people, most
| of whom are directly connected all the time. Human attention is
| limited, and everyone can choose to pay attention to the best
| 0.001% of any form of content or media -- and why wouldn 't
| they? -- which already gives them way more content to
| read/watch/listen to than they could possibly experience in a
| lifetime.
|
| That means you have to be absolutely _world-class_ to create
| anything of value that anyone else would ever even bother to
| look at. You get to pick _one_ thing that you 're world-class
| at, if you're _very_ lucky. And to do that, you can 't do
| anything else. You want to share your paintings with anyone?
| You better fucking _only_ paint, and do _nothing_ else with
| your life, to have even a _chance_ of anyone ever giving a shit
| about anything you paint. Good luck paying for your mortgage
| and your kids ' educations.
|
| Besides, in many endeavors AI will soon be (if not already is)
| churning out content that makes even world-class human efforts
| look like garbage. Very expensive garbage. Why would anyone
| bother to look at your worthless human shit when they can look
| at pristine AI-generated content instead?
|
| So you can't create anything worth anyone's time, so you can't
| share anything, so you're stuck only ever sequestering your
| creations inside a dark basement forever where nobody will ever
| experience them. Eventually you just run out of desire to do
| that.
| iamwil wrote:
| If your goal is to write, the worst thing you can do as an
| engineer is to try and write your own blog engine, or fiddle
| around with some custom settings.
|
| Fight that urge. The thing to tackle is to figure out the habit
| of writing first. And you can only do that by writing
| consistently. If you have nothing insightful to write, write
| about something you took a couple hours to figure out in a TIL.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Preach it. I had a pretty comfortable Markdown-to-Hugo-to-rsync
| pipeline set up. Know what's even easier? Paying for a
| micro.blog account to glue all that stuff together for me, and
| using their perfectly fine app to publish and edit on the go.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| I stopped blogging because of this. I migrated my blog to my
| own stack in my mid-20s and every time I wanted to write, I
| would have to fix something or implement some feature. I ended
| up not writing.
|
| I wish I just used Wordpress or something that let me click and
| drag images into it and move on.
| brap wrote:
| Why?
|
| No, really. Why write? He's not saying anything, so what's the
| point?
| bt1a wrote:
| In a selfish sense, the act of writing can be beneficial to
| one's inner thinking, regardless of the quality of output.
| dlivingston wrote:
| To overcome internal roadblocks & generate that initial
| momentum.
|
| When I take a long break from working out, it's hard to get
| back into it. What I'll do for the first few days is just show
| up & walk on the treadmill for half an hour. Easy, low-effort.
| Gets me comfortable in the gym environment & routine again.
| Then after a few days and that initial "ughhhhh, I don't
| waaaaanna go to the gym" brain barrier is gone, I'll adopt a
| real workout plan and stick to it.
|
| With that said, sort of ironic that the author of this blog
| post has _only_ posted this. Didn 't seem to have helped much.
| :)
| parasti wrote:
| It's exercise. Use it or lose it. So when you actually need to
| write to express something, you're not stumbling over the
| process of writing.
| 8200_unit wrote:
| Doesn't seem the author is taking their own advice. Posted a
| single blog post on January 8th and hasn't posted since
| bobbiechen wrote:
| I'm sympathetic - knowing something is different from putting
| it into practice, and sometimes other life things happen too.
|
| I've been writing online for a few years now and for me, it
| comes in bursts. I recently started a new blog and publish it
| every two weeks - something that helped me was to write a lot
| when I was in the write mood, which gave me material to edit
| during off-weeks.
| danielspace23 wrote:
| "Quality over quantity" is a thing, especially for individuals
| as opposed to large publishing groups. Personally, I find that
| the people who post less on their blog, BlueSky account or
| YouTube produce the best content over their peers. I enjoy a
| Folding Ideas video infinitely more times more than the garbage
| Linus Tech Tips pumps out every day.
| Over3Chars wrote:
| He switched to anonymous drunk posting I guess?
| sirodoht wrote:
| Reminds me of mataroa's (personal project) philosophy:
| https://mataroa.blog/#philosophy
|
| And of Jorge Luis Borges:
|
| "What I'm really concerned about is reaching one person. And that
| person may be myself for all I know."
| adityaathalye wrote:
| Writing != Publishing. It's wise to not conflate these two acts.
|
| Let Writing be personal; reflective. Occasionally one might feel
| like sharing with another self. Then, publish with kindness to
| self. Publishing is an open set of choices, including writing a
| rambling email to a friend or two. If writing publicly is
| stressful, email someone.
| rodolphoarruda wrote:
| I totally agree with the post. Now, regarding: "Don't over-
| engineer your site", I'd say sometimes it's good to add some
| engineering to it. To put an effort. If you had zero effort to
| put your website (or public notepad) online, it won't cause much
| regret to shut it down. So a decent effort would at least cause a
| second thinking before shutting it down, as you would remember
| the time you had dedicated to it for the infrastructure and
| content itself.
| deivid wrote:
| I struggle a lot with this, I keep a blog and every time I start
| a new post, I get the feeling that it should be "good" (for some
| definition of good), which makes the writing of most entries to
| drag for a week or so.
|
| On top of that, I reject a substantial amount of the ideas that I
| get, because they are not good/deep enough.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Hre's and example of not doing anything but jsut writing
| something and smaking the OK GO button. Yes I know its terrible.
| I'm oding it on purpose to show how bad the idea this is.
|
| --------------------
|
| At the _very least_ , take some time to compile your main thought
| or argument and hold yourself to a minimum standard; If you're
| shooting straight from your keyboard and into the public domain,
| it won't take long before you regret all of your publishing.
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