| I think there's four things I suggest you consider. 1. Writing is thinking [1][2][3] There are a number of articles that explain this concept better than I can here, but assuming you understand the idea, I'll continue. The next time you're thinking about some problem, try to write your thoughts and reasoning down as notes. Your writing should be an extension of reasoning, and help formulate and refine your ideas. Whether your notes are on paper or by pixel shouldn't matter, but just get your ideas down. Next, order these ideas by logical progression: maybe one concept leads you to the next, so order them in that progression. Finally, make sure the links between each idea are not leaps in thought but rather fluid and clear progressions. Fill in the gaps as necessary. Now you should have an outline for your article. At this point, I've found it's more or less a matter of expanding on and explaining each idea more thoroughly. Of course, the hook and conclusion are less well-defined. For me, if it's really something I care about writing a post about, I've found I've already done the note-taking part at least. After that, the post seems to write itself. If you don't already take notes or use writing to help you think, I recommend taking this as a first step to helping you write your blog posts. I personally prefer pen and paper, since I can still keep the mistakes around! 2. Write for yourself Assume no one is going to read your article, at first. Write the article that you would enjoy reading, had you found it on the internet. If you chase external gratifications like writing for others' approval or maybe view counts, your consistency and follow-through will suffer. If you write for your own satisfaction, regardless of whether or not anyone will ever read it, you probably have a better chance of finishing the piece. Because it's what you really want to do! Try not to think about how many hits your article will or won't get, or whether or not people will like it. That stuff comes later. When you write something for yourself, the care and attention you give it will definitely show. I'm sure you've heard of the idea that internal motivation is generally stronger than external kinds. Once you've come up with something you're reasonably satisfied with, send it to your friends and family to read over and edit. Maybe ask people you respect (and trust) in the community to help you edit your posts before publication (if correctness about your ideas is something you're really worried about). Just because you wrote something for yourself does not mean it's perfect and exempt from criticism. 3. Write the poetry later If you struggle as I do with making each sentence "perfect" before moving onto the next, know that you're not alone. But sometimes it's just best to write the ideas down, get the meat of the content written out and explained, and then come back later to frame it as a story. Maybe this is a matter of 'do as I say, and not as I do' ;) 4. Consistency is a consequence of planning If you don't set aside time in your day to write or do your thinking, kiss your chances goodbye. Treat it like a side-project, or better yet your job, to write this blog post. Set reasonable goals for yourself, just like you would with a software project. Start small, by writing your thoughts down and ordering them like I mentioned above. Always keep in mind why you're writing the post in the first place! I hope that helped in some way. [1] [https://medium.learningbyshipping.com/writing-is-thinking-an... [2] [https://boz.com/articles/writing-thinking](https://boz.com/a... [3] [https://blog.stephsmith.io/learning-to-write-with-confidence... |
I especially like "1. Writing is thinking", I've always thought of blog posts to be like story-telling, but for many technical blog-posts story-telling doesn't work. I guess just explaining the idea logically is a much better approach... (I can't believe how obvious this sounds)