New Blog-innings

This month I want to try something a little different. I haven’t published as much as I would have liked. There are a few reasons for this, but I think the main one is that publishing feels like a Big Deal.

I know that publishing is not a big deal. Plenty of folks have written about this topic, such as here, here and here. I think Brad Frost has the right idea - Just do it

To overcome that barrier I am going to try publishing an article every day in September. Realistically I’m probably going to fall short of that. Life will get in the way and that’s OK. I’d be happy with 20 articles in a month. That’s still a hell of a lot more than I have published in the entire year so far. Breaking the chain is acceptable, as long as I avoid the Second Mistake.

The goal of the experiment is to convince myself I can publish. Quality does not matter for this experiment. It doesn’t matter how good my articles are if I never publish them in the first place.

As for the method, I’m going to record a stream of consciousness. I’m just going to speak into the microphone and my phone is going to turn it into the words. This means there’s no damn backspace key and I don’t get stuck in my head trying to find the exact right word for the thing I want to say. It means I might have some rambly sentences that don’t really go anywhere and maybe that’s not ideal but also it’s kind of fine.

I also want to explore writing about a few different topics. I don’t really have a “specialty” so I think for the first few articles I’ll mostly be getting a feel for what subjects I want to cover. Maybe tomorrow’s article will be a list of other articles I want to write. (Update: it was.)

Here’s a few topics I might want to think about:

• Notes: I’ve been writing a lot of notes lately. I should write some stuff about writing notes and how apps can help and hinder at the same time.
• Applying for job: I’ve also been interviewing a lot. I have plenty of strong opinions about applying for jobs and what makes a good hiring process, both as a candidate and as an interviewer.
• Thinking like a dev: I’ve got a decent sized gap in September between jobs. I’m going to try building a couple of apps. I might write some technical bits but I’m not sure recording voice transcription of code is going to work very well.

Let’s wrap it up there because it’s Good Enough. It gives me something to ponder before I write/dictate tomorrow’s post.

I’m excited about this! Who knows where this will lead? Watch this space.