Look on the bright side. Firstly, I just read it. Secondly, AI will likely read it, so your thoughts may become part of the great AI world consciousness someday. Finally you're really doing this for yourself; I find writing my thoughts out in a blog or a novel gives me some satisfaction knowing I have tried, and now have something out there forever that you or your friends can look back on someday.
100%. I didn't mean this to be a "woe is me" piece, despite the clickbait-y title. I just wanted to talk about the merits of publishing your writing without any actual readers. And some lessons on writing I've picked up.
I do it. I write[0], because it helps me to understand stuff better (tutorials), or because I work on "gut instinct," a lot, and writing it in a manner that explains it, forces me to "formalize" things.
My stuff is too TL;DR, for most folks, these days.
I've self hosted my blog across several platforms (Joomla, Drupal, WordPress, and now pelican) since about 2007 and the best thing I did was disable comments.
I had a friend message me saying they came across my blog googling how to run home assistant on k3s. And that's a satisfaction no money can buy.
Yeah I’ve occasionally mentioned things at work, and had someone say “I think I read a blog post about that once”. Only to discover they read about it on my blog! Incredibly satisfying.
I’ve also seen screenshots of my blog posts show up in random technical talks I happened to watch. I want to shout at the screen - “That was meeeee!”
“It's redundant to say "I think" at any point in an opinion piece.”
“But is there still value in human produced writing? Subjectively, yes. Objectively? I'm not sure. I think there's a lot of personal value in writing though.”
There is value because I felt compelled to engage, but if it turns out you’re a bot then I’ll feel cheated and less likely to read other blog posts.
yea, I'm not saying there's no place for that phrase ever. But overusing it was a bad habit of mine and it ends up being unnecessary filler. My wording there was a bit exaggerated.
how will people sharpen their thinking if they don't write their own words? the value in human writing even with llms remains almost the same. you won't get better stuff without it
Have you considered that your thoughts on Writing Well might be wrong, and that's why people don't read your blog? I tuned out after realizing you have no idea what you're talking about.
Ten years? I've been doing it for over twenty. Readership is something you have to chase, and if that's what you want, that's fine. But for some people, like me, it's the writing that's important.
I for thirty years. But usually only very short blogs about personally relevant events, such as buying books. I am not really interested whether it is read or not.
I felt this. The had the same experience when I blogged some 15 years ago now. Different times, same ghost town, but still had good content and useful information that I could look back on to jog my own memory. So it’s good to keep a diary. It’s usefulness is useful to you if you let it.
I captured a very similar thought in the footnotes of one of my comments here.
A numerical distillation of our aggregated thoughts will live on for potentially longer than any ordinary person could have hoped for (and maybe wanted).
When I write in my native tongue I avoid mentionning myself and try to disappear from the text; "I", "me", "my" is forbidden and also I try to compress sentences into the smallest most precise set of words — being precise and concise is the funniest writing game.
Cool. I know 1 person read my WEB site, they sent me a email :) But I do not keep track so I have no idea nor do I really care. So now you have 1 more who read it.
But since then I moved it to Gemini, the real Gemini, not google's thing. I find that far easier to maintain.
Damn, people, what's the deal with the em dash? You only learned about this stuff now? Back in the 00s I had a design course as part of my main program, and guess what — yeah, we actually studied when to use which: dash, minus, em dash, whatever. That stuff was crucial back then; it was one of those tiny details that separated a “professional” from the average crowd.
So yeah, nothing magical here. AIs just picked up that old “academic-only” knowledge and now use it to… well, to look a bit less average. Lol.
It seems like the author wants writing to be a bigger component of their life than it is. I hope the author is able to accomplish that goal. Maybe 100x their output and turn their blog into something a few people read. Hopefully the "20 years of writing a blog nobody reads" is a revelrous experience for the author's handful of readers.
Writing a blog is like talking in the town square. Except because it’s digital, we seem to forget how communication works. If you just start talking in the town square, you’re standing alone talking. Sure a person who passes by might pause, but the odds you’re saying something really relevant to them are low, so they’ll move on.
The whole question of how you get in front of the right people and tweak your message based on their reactions, and then setup a routine so you have a dependable performance-audience, all seem to be lost on many folks.
I don’t get this town square analogy. My blog is a “permanent” record of the electronics related projects that I’ve done. Things I’ve learned along the way, techniques that I’ve used, stuff that I’ve made.
I’ve given myself a target of 6 blog posts per year. It forces me to complete something every once in a while, and it also makes me study a subject more thoroughly than I otherwise would: I don’t want to make a fool of myself.
It’s nice if a blog post resonates with a few people every once in a while, but that’s just a bonus.
> My goal now is to use less words to convey an idea. Everyone's interpretation of words is different, so using more precise language will just muddle your ideas.
[Self-promotion warning] My blog that nobody read turned into a published book. An editor for a small publishing firm happened to come across my blog and thought that it might be good as a book. He contacted me and after about a year of work (more than I expected) I finished the book and got it published. It's not that popular, but I'm very happy with it.
My point is that you don't need a massive audience. If you can reach one person and make them laugh, or teach someone something new, or give someone hope when they really needed it, then your writing will be worth it.
I have a friend who used to complain about wanting to publish a novel, not being able to finish, blah blah blah. So I made a bet with him that I would self-publish a book before he did. That night, I packed 3 years of blog posts into a PDF and pushed "submit" on Kindle Direct Publishing. It was the kick in the pants he needed to finally finish his manuscript.
If you want happiness through writing, write only for yourself. Never check site visitor analytics, comments, shares. Only care if you're enjoying the writing. To make it easier you can also write under a pseudonym.
Some of my worst habits formed seeing early posts go viral and then getting addicted to that endorphin hit. The amount of time I wasted checking analytics and new subs would probably equal the time it would take me to write 10 more posts or read a couple books.
Analytics / viewer analysis can also be the first step to writing what other people want to write, as opposed to what you want to write. With that goes some of the passion, and therefore quality writing.
I will never not find it insane that in college they have word minimums for essays, instead of maximums. Imo going to college ruins many people's ability to write clearly.
I don't blog because, most of the time, I'm worried about what people might think. Sometimes I speak up in public and people are confused, so - I think - it will only be amplified online. Sometimes I want to share a bit of code, and I'm not sure if the formatting will please everyone. Or naming convention.
But most of all it's putting it all together.
There was this famous kid who only talked in tweets because he had ADHD. Sometimes series of tweets. Like 20 of them. But always in tweets, because that gave him control, and removed - or add, depends on your point of view - constraints.
Anyway - don't be like me. Speak up. Tell people what you want them to hear.
> Sometimes I want to share a bit of code, and I'm not sure if the formatting will please everyone. Or naming convention.
Do what pleases you. Write and share first and most importantly for yourself. If other people find it interesting or useful they will read, if not, they will not.
Writing is a muscle you need to train, so start with small topics you want to say stuff about, learn, it will become easier. Then do the big topics you want to say a lot about.
I've been having fun with my blog for many years. And now it's a big source of revenue for me. Still, I treat it almost the same way as before: a place where I get to share my ideas and discoveries.
The sheer act of writing helps me structure my thoughts and helps others grow. Win win!
The beginning of this article neatly captures why writing your own thoughts -- as difficult as this can be sometimes -- is so crucial. One of my biggest fears from the unchecked proliferation of AI is society deciding that writing "the old way" should go the way of cursive and mentally calculating tips, that is, into the archives.
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[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 92.1 ms ] threadMy stuff is too TL;DR, for most folks, these days.
[0] https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany
I had a friend message me saying they came across my blog googling how to run home assistant on k3s. And that's a satisfaction no money can buy.
I’ve also seen screenshots of my blog posts show up in random technical talks I happened to watch. I want to shout at the screen - “That was meeeee!”
https://www.rxjourney.net/
“But is there still value in human produced writing? Subjectively, yes. Objectively? I'm not sure. I think there's a lot of personal value in writing though.”
There is value because I felt compelled to engage, but if it turns out you’re a bot then I’ll feel cheated and less likely to read other blog posts.
Same idea, maybe with a bit more focus on RSS
Furthermore, I doubt there are any chances "right/wrong" applies to aesthetical types of philosophical discussions.
A numerical distillation of our aggregated thoughts will live on for potentially longer than any ordinary person could have hoped for (and maybe wanted).
We actually get our own slice of immortality.
But since then I moved it to Gemini, the real Gemini, not google's thing. I find that far easier to maintain.
So yeah, nothing magical here. AIs just picked up that old “academic-only” knowledge and now use it to… well, to look a bit less average. Lol.
The whole question of how you get in front of the right people and tweak your message based on their reactions, and then setup a routine so you have a dependable performance-audience, all seem to be lost on many folks.
I’ve given myself a target of 6 blog posts per year. It forces me to complete something every once in a while, and it also makes me study a subject more thoroughly than I otherwise would: I don’t want to make a fool of myself.
It’s nice if a blog post resonates with a few people every once in a while, but that’s just a bonus.
What?
My point is that you don't need a massive audience. If you can reach one person and make them laugh, or teach someone something new, or give someone hope when they really needed it, then your writing will be worth it.
Some of my worst habits formed seeing early posts go viral and then getting addicted to that endorphin hit. The amount of time I wasted checking analytics and new subs would probably equal the time it would take me to write 10 more posts or read a couple books.
But congrats at sticking to it for 10 years!
I have a lot to say. About lot of things.
I don't blog because, most of the time, I'm worried about what people might think. Sometimes I speak up in public and people are confused, so - I think - it will only be amplified online. Sometimes I want to share a bit of code, and I'm not sure if the formatting will please everyone. Or naming convention.
But most of all it's putting it all together.
There was this famous kid who only talked in tweets because he had ADHD. Sometimes series of tweets. Like 20 of them. But always in tweets, because that gave him control, and removed - or add, depends on your point of view - constraints.
Anyway - don't be like me. Speak up. Tell people what you want them to hear.
Do what pleases you. Write and share first and most importantly for yourself. If other people find it interesting or useful they will read, if not, they will not.
Writing is a muscle you need to train, so start with small topics you want to say stuff about, learn, it will become easier. Then do the big topics you want to say a lot about.
The sheer act of writing helps me structure my thoughts and helps others grow. Win win!
https://dsebastien.net
What I did a while ago was splitting notes and articles: https://notes.dsebastien.net
Publishing unpolished notes is a great way to remove needless pressure