Ask HN: Experience Starting a Blog

One of the best framings I have learned is to teach yourself by writing. Think of it as a conversation with your friends and you are learning together.

Take the negative comments as a motivation to improve.

Go for it.

You can take your blog in whatever direction you want; you can write technical, professional posts, or write about anything else that interests you! No matter what you write about, there is probably someone out there who will be interested in what you have to say. If you share your blog I'll take a look. Now you already have a prospective reader :)

I am unsure the extent to which my personal blog was weighed when I applied for my current job, but generally having a technical blog is a plus. Being able to point to blog posts where you have at least one post on a project you worked on, a bug you fixed, things you have learned, how you solved a problem, etc. is incredibly valuable.

I haven’t been active in promoting my blog, so I have not received much feedback at all (:

I imagine getting people to read one’s articles might involve quite much work and promotion. Could still be worth it.

You most likely will get some negative feedback, but just ignore it. If you want to start one then do it

I found that by taking time to collect my thoughts and write them down made them clearer and more persuasive. An unexpected side effects it that I started to have greater influence beyond my immediate team, with random colleagues emailing me about posts. Though it hasn't directly found me a job it has resulted in people asking me to apply to positions.

Later I added more technical content and tutorials about the problems I was immediately working on, partly just as a way of documenting things I'd found out and helping myself to understand them.

Overall I think it's been extremely valuable in terms of self development and my career (but this is heavily influenced by the fact I enjoy doing it)

I would say don't think too much about your audience to begin with and just write about things you're personally interested in. I've literally never had negative feedback/trolling (probably because there's no comment section). I have virtually met a number of people interested in similar topics who've contacted me after reading the blog.

Fwiw, by blog is https://www.robinlinacre.com/

Then don't. Don't add a comment section. Unless you have built an extensive community around your site, having open comments just invites drive-by criticism or generally people demanding, rather than stopping by to say nice things.

What I am thinking to add on my personal website, though, is a "send a reply" box at the end, where one can directly write to me, and I can respond via email. There is no promise of being published, which discourages spammers and drive-by snark, requires a valid email and promotes 1-on-1 communication which is much healthier and personal than the average Web 2.0 public comment widget.

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But, in general, do not write for an audience. Write for yourself. Write to get better at writing. Write because someone might find it useful, without having any engagement target. In that frame of mind, who cares if one doesn't like your content? The worst that'll happen is one will scroll by. They'll click the link, skim, and move onto the next shiny thing. We mindlessly and compulsively scroll down our social media apps until something piques our interest. This is the default mode of navigating the internet for most of us. If one stops by, spends time to comment on your post, it means they cared enough to.

I would avoid AI tools like Grammarly. They have a very prescriptive style that they think is the single correct way to write. You end up sounding like everyone else writing like that.

You will always have at least one reader of your work - yourself.

Yes, I got negative feedback, and still do, and I pushed through. However, that is because my blog was not just a tech blog. Keep it tech only, and the problem will be minimized, even if it doesn't go away completely. And as for the rest, just realize that those who are negative are louder than those who like your stuff.

Should you do it? Absolutely. It will make you stand out against others.

I've gotten a little negative feedback, but that's by far in the minority. Most people on the internet are very nice and I've gotten lots of friendly emails from people I've never met. Definitely give it a try - I would suggest doing a github.io page to get started, but you can of course go the self-hosted route if you're into that sort of thing.

Slightly related to the point of negative feedback: https://social.jvns.ca/@b0rk/111687674935331566

that way you would write to yourself.

if people like your stuff - they will email you.

people who don’t like your stuff wouldn’t email you - too much effort and harder to write nasty things over email.

Write, Write, and then Write some more.

What you will find is that when writing with your heart and not trying to write what others want to read, then you will grow into a better you.

But don't ever write for fame or status. It will swallow you whole and leave you with nothing else than hollow texts that you have no attachments to.

And read more too. But don't read things that you work with. Read masterpieces. Read and use what you to your advantage ti write more.

But write. Please just write.

Putting the first few articles online was nerve-wracking though. I would recommend getting them out of the way as quickly as possible.

Also, finding the right post length can be challenging.

My blog/articles about Go dev: https://www.willem.dev

Yes, that can be a bit scary. It can be difficult to take criticism, depending on how you handle it. I know that if I submitted a post to HN and everyone was hating on it, I'd feel awful, but only because I have a lot of respect for this community's opinions. If it was a random person? Who cares.

But it's so good being able to get your thoughts out. And I don't mean just how it benefits your career, but also in personal terms. You'll meet great people who share your interests, and when someone meets you, they'll see a ton of interesting stuff about you.

That's how I feel when I look at someone's blog.

I'll also echo sph's warning not to add a comments section. But don't be afraid to publish.

> Did starting a blog lead to a new job?

Even better, I met my co-founder and got VC investment because of one of my blog posts (which got picked up and mentioned by a16z).

- You're probably overthinking starting it. Just sign up for a blogging service, don't try to set up your own thing unless you're going to use that experience and write about it. I have had a blog in plain html/css, a PHP-backed one, a self-hosted Ghost, a self-hosted Wordpress, and ultimately, I settled on not self-hosting a Ghost instance and it has been the best way to write because paying $9/mo is a lot easier for me than to update deps or manage bugs when I'm trying to write about something on my mind.

- Don't worry about the negative feedback. If or when someone leaves negative feedback, this is your blog, delete it. It's the easiest way to get rid of it. Some people just have negative attitudes, don't let them bring you down too.

- And another comment on feedback, most people will take time to leave feedback that's positive or encouraging because they want you to keep writing.

- Write for yourself, like get someone off your chest, think through things in your head, don't let the wider internet audience be the judge of what you should be thinking about or writing about. It will help you grow as a writer and hopefully as a person too.

If you see this, I hope you go out there and start writing.

My tips would be:

- Use Markdown. It makes writing so much more faster and takes away the focus from markup.

- Do not focus too much in the technical details. Content is still the king.

- That said, make yourself familiar and follow great typography patterns in your blog. Use legible fonts faces and sizes, clear separation, hierarchy, etc has the best impact.

- Have your email address visible. I find it be more effective than contact forms. You will get all sorts of feedback, but you can still decide if you want to respond to them. In my experience, people who take the time to compose an email tend to provide constructive and generally positive feedback.

- Decide a "tone" that you want to follow. For example, I have my technical content separate from personal, and travel content separate from the rest. It's sometimes refreshing to be able to speak in different tones.

- Be open about what you expect from the blog as well. If you hope to land in a better job, saying it openly won't hurt.

I've had a blog since May 2021, although I haven't posted much: https://www.awanderingmind.blog/. Sometimes people send me nice emails. It hasn't helped in the slightest with getting a new job, but that's not why I write.

My motivation came from my younger days where everyone (including myself) had their own little corner of the Internet, made with things like AngelFire and GeoCities. I missed that.

Nowadays, I prefer to make short posts, e.g. [1, 2, 3]. Of course, before I started, I had to write my own static-site generator... It's been years since I've ran my Patreon and I don't post on YouTube like I used to, so there's little to no engagement - which is OK with me.

[1] https://shahinrostami.com/articles/different-adjustments-for...

[2] https://shahinrostami.com/articles/my-pen-plotter-setup/

[3] https://shahinrostami.com/articles/colours-and-patterns-whil...

I made one in 2014 (Blogger) then got bored and stopped. I tried again a few years later (Bloger, Medium, Wordpress), then got bored and stopped. I recently got interested in another attempt (BearBlog) which I'm looking into now. The issue for me was not a lack of topics but the opposite - I'd start writing about one thing and get side tracked and start writing about something else. A blog is a great way to explore your interests but it is important to stay focused on what you want to write about. I put too much emphasis on having a consistent output schedule and high standards on what I should write about, which eventually ended up with nothing.

> I am afraid of sharing though and getting negative feedback. Was that something that you pushed through when starting?

I used to be worried about this too and usually consulted my friends or some writing assistants at my undergrad. I think this goes away the more you write.

> Did starting a blog lead to a new job?

No but some people saw my posts and remembered them when they saw me in real life later.