My blog is an exercise in thinking in public (writing = thinking).
I restarted late 2021, after over a decade off-web. Back then (in hindsight) it was me trying to look clever. I used to dislike my writing.
These days I'm fairly happy with my posts.
I try to be correct, but not clever. In fact I'm happy to be corrected --- that's the whole point! I try to write in my own voice, but I don't aim for literary finesse. I don't write for any particular audience, but I do share links in communities of kindred gentlenerds out of common interest.
Several wonderful conversations have happened so far.
The most unexpected was a brief conversation with the grandmaster Douglas McIlroy himself. I'd cold-emailed him a thank you and linked to my post featuring his famous shell pipeline. I received generous critique and advice. That week, I was walking on clouds :)
I've also had a couple of unexpected (and nice!) "front page of HN" experiences.
Recently, one of my blog posts on my Org Mode workflow hit the front page. If my analytics is to be believed, it has taken on a second life bouncing off various parts of the Internet. That front-paging was warm on the heels of another recent Show HN I did of my site maker (written in Bash), which generated some lively discussion :)
I restarted late 2021, after over a decade off-web. Back then (in hindsight) it was me trying to look clever. I used to dislike my writing.
These days I'm fairly happy with my posts.
I try to be correct, but not clever. In fact I'm happy to be corrected --- that's the whole point! I try to write in my own voice, but I don't aim for literary finesse. I don't write for any particular audience, but I do share links in communities of kindred gentlenerds out of common interest.
Several wonderful conversations have happened so far.
The most unexpected was a brief conversation with the grandmaster Douglas McIlroy himself. I'd cold-emailed him a thank you and linked to my post featuring his famous shell pipeline. I received generous critique and advice. That week, I was walking on clouds :)
I've also had a couple of unexpected (and nice!) "front page of HN" experiences.
Recently, one of my blog posts on my Org Mode workflow hit the front page. If my analytics is to be believed, it has taken on a second life bouncing off various parts of the Internet. That front-paging was warm on the heels of another recent Show HN I did of my site maker (written in Bash), which generated some lively discussion :)
Overall, I'm quite pleased with how it's going!