At the start of this year, 2023, I set out the goal to write 100 blog posts by the end of the year. I knew this was an ambitious goal but it seemed vaguely achievable. One hundred seems a large enough number but twice per week shouldn’t take up too much of my time. It allows enough slack that some weeks can be less while others the volume increases to meet the goal.
However things have not gone according to plan to say the least. It’s now the end of January and I’ve completed a grand total of 3 posts. If I’m keeping up with my goal I should have about 8 completed by now so I’ve fallen well short. This piece is my January retro to try dig into why I’ve fallen short and what I can try do going forward to attempt to salvage the original and increasingly ambitious goal.
Initially I wanted this blog to be something where I could write out my thoughts on programming and learn along the way. It was going to be a place where as I came across cool new tech or concepts I could write about them. They say to truly show you understand something you should teach it to someone so that’s what this was going to be about. I was focusing on software engineering because that’s where I spend most of my time anyway at my day job. Writing about this would allow me to think out loud on topics that I may only touch on so I’d be able to teach myself before I’d need to use them.
However that was all well said but the devil is in the details. I’ve never appreciated how others manage to write so consistently for their blogs. There’s a few major problems I ran into as I tried to keep up. The first was generating ideas of the pieces I wanted to write. There’s lots of things I want to write about but coming up with good ideas seemed very difficult. I kept a list of what I wanted to write about but few jumped off the page when I sat down to write.
Even worse when I started a piece on something, more often than not I wouldn’t have enough knowledge on it to write about. I find it difficult to sit down and write, much more so on a topic that I don’t really know much about so I’d end up spending all of my time researching and reading. It’s difficult to structure a proper essay based on a fleeting google search or article I’ve read, I never seemed to have enough detail or knowledge on it. All my time was spent reading without writing a single word down.
All of this was not helped when I found it difficult to write in the first place. I never had a habit of writing which held me back from getting settled in a regular cadence. I’ve never spent much time writing blogs or anything really so even with the information in front of me it was a struggle to put the piece together. I didn’t have a “process” of writing other than sitting down in front of a blank page and hoping the words come to me. More often than not however I’d end up researching again and lose interest in the original goal.
All this leads to how I’m going to approach fixing it. I’m an engineer so surely I can fix it right? If there’s one thing I’ve learned from being a software engineer is when there’s a large problem ahead it is best to break it down. So what I’m going to do is build the habit first, then come up with good content and ideas. I’m going to just start writing about a more diverse range of topics as I come across them day to day, but I will be writing. Like a lot of people I consume content from a wide range of sources across the day. I can be working on kubernetes in work but read about construction on my lunch break. After work I might watch a video about the new formula 1 season later read a chapter of a book about software engineering. Once I’ve nailed down a habit I’ll start focusing on what I’m writing about. I’ll start honing the writing to a niche with a focus on software engineering. I’ve no idea how long this journey may take but I’m willing to try it out and see where it goes.