Realizations that helped me write regularly

http://joel.is/post/32338258448/5-realisations-that-helped-me-write-regularly

by sunils34 • 14 years ago

44 10 14 years ago

  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.

smacktoward2• 14 years ago

Research or strong points are not necessary

This gives me a sad.

rguzman• 14 years ago

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.

joelg87• 14 years ago

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".

crux• 14 years ago

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?

finkin1• 14 years ago

damn son

Swizec• 14 years ago

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.

fghh45sdfhr3• 14 years ago

This is hilarious.

Realizations that helped me write regularly

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