AboutFrom an interview by Cynthia Dunlop of Simon Willison, co-creator of Django, and prolific blogger and technical writer:
Any lessons learned that you want to share with the community?
My number one tip for blogging is to lower your standards! Aim to hit publish while you are still actively unhappy with what you have written, because the only alternative is a huge folder full of drafts and never publishing anything at all.
Nobody will ever know how perfect the thing you intended to write would have been. The flaws you see in your writing are invisible to everyone else.
Oh, how perfect is this advice, and how much I feel this is pointing exactly towards me!
I’ve been blogging, off-and-on, since 2007, and I have the drafts and half-formed ideas to show for it. You’ll find, if you go through the history and pace of my writing and posting, how much and how little I have actually published over various periods of time. Over the recent years, it’s not that I have had fewer things to say, write, or comment about. Instead, the crunch is in the time I have available to put together pieces, whether small or substantial, that I think are good enough to publish.
For someone like me, Willison’s advice couldn’t have been framed any better. But. Hitting publish while unhappy is all fine and dandy, if I’m at least satisfied I’ve made the point or the contribution I thought I could make. There’s unhappiness, and there are standards, no? I like how John Gruber put it commenting on the same piece — as playing live music rather than recording an album — keeping it professional and high quality but not sweating the occasional wrong note.
I do need to hit publish more often, though. So, here goes — publishing while I’m still actively unhappy with this piece.