ilye.ss
My Writing Struggle
## Where Are the Posts?
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When I first set up this blog I had big plans for it. I wanted to share my tinkering with technology and online privacy. The main goal was to educate and inform others. The first target was 10 articles in year one. I published 3. I missed the same goalpost the next year, and every year after. Why? Why can’t I write as much as I want?
## My High Bar
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I’m not short of ideas. I have a stack of drafts sitting on the back burner — posts that didn’t make the cut. Wait, what cut?
After some introspection I realized that I set the bar way too high for what makes a post worth publishing here. I have these arbitrary criteria that need to be cleared before I consider putting an article out there. Some are:
* The subject must be instructive, or at least useful. It has to be valuable to at least some readers. Technical walkthroughs and tutorial-style writing fit perfectly here — except I don’t always have a tutorial to publish, and that kind of writing takes a lot of time and effort, which keeps the bar high.
* The article must be at least 1200 words long. I’ve treated short posts as shallow and not valuable. But sometimes I just want to rant or note something in the news without going deep.
* The article must follow a good structure: a clear introduction setting the tone and piquing the reader’s interest, a body that walks through the subject without dragging — using footnotes and callouts liberally for color — and a conclusion that sums up and invites feedback
and discussion. Except some ideas don’t break into neat segments or end with a closing question.
* The subject must be about online privacy or technology. This one I’m not ready to drop just yet. I might consider branching out into other areas later or spinning off another blog for them, but that can wait.
The funny part is that I pulled these standards out of nowhere. There’s no science behind those numbers. I just made it all up in hopes of producing writing that others would consider worth reading.
## Scribbles Count Too
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When I look at what other, more experienced, bloggers are doing, I don’t see those constraints. Most of them just write about whatever is on their mind. Some keep their blogs scoped to specific topics, but there’s a mixture of article length, style, and motivation. Some bloggers are naturally great writers, and that radiates through their words. Others don’t write as well but I never found that to be offensive. On the contrary, as a reader, I enjoy high-quality prose in personal blogs as much as free-form, back-of-the-napkin scribbles.
## Lowering the Bar
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From here on I’ll focus on writing and nothing else. I’ll drop the arbitrary rules that have been crippling me and see what happens. No more length requirements. No more topic restrictions. No more style and structure obligations. I’ll dust off some pieces from the draft drawer and push them out. To start, this article is the first of the new, relaxed, self-permitted mode of publishing. Let’s go!
