This post originally appeared on Ascent.
Starting a software blog can feel out of reach to most. Without readers our time will be wasted, right?
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Absolutely, Ben. Blogging has allowed me to really form some thoughts and develop a much deeper understanding of a few topics. Learn by teaching, as it were.
If imposter syndrome is a thing in software development, it is every bit as big a deal when people try to get started writing about their craft. If you have a thought, it's probably valuable, and you should free it into the world!
🙌
A great post! I absolutely agree with everything that you say here. For over a decade, I have tried keeping various blogs under different domains and for different reasons. There were many times when I was obsessed with reader numbers and got depressed when those numbers failed to match my expectations. Gradually, I learned the important lesson that you state in your post. Before reaching out to a large audience and worry about ad revenues, we should first and foremost write for our most fervent critics, and most voracious critics - ourselves. Ass soon as I realized that, blogging turned away from being a failed attempt at attracting other people's attention. Rather, it became a personal archive of my thoughts and ideas - a time capsule of my life. Often, I come back to my older posts, and realize how much I have achieved in some aspects, and what I could potentially learn from my past.
Once I freed myself from the burden of blogging for the sake of satisfying a certain audience, I started writing more often, and my posts became more sincere. Interestingly enough, my honest, and sometimes rough drafts get a larger and more diverse readership than back in the days when I wrote for the sake of targeting a specific froup of people. The difference is that I write primarily for myself, and feel totally happy about it.
Great post! I've learned a lot since starting my blog six months ago, and it's definitely improved my presentation skills.
I'm very impressed with Jekyll + Github Pages as a quick, simple, and free blogging platform.
Great advice! I think it's important that you write for yourself as well as for your readers. You mentioned in the first point writing forces you to flesh out your opinions. Part of having a blog is to chronicle your journey. I've found it invaluable (and slightly embarrassing) re-reading old posts and seeing where I've changed.
Also, shoutout to Medium as another blogging platform. It's a really easy way to get started with writing. It also looks beautiful. Downsides are no markdown and it's not self hosted.