For a while I've wanted to start writing long form blog posts, but haven't really put the time towards it. I am constantly running thought experiments in my head, and conversing with friends, family, co-workers, and strangers about the most random topics. Sometimes these conversations lead to ideas and opinions that I want to have a way of recording for myself, but also being able to share with others to see if any of it resonates with them. Previously, I've done this in a podcast format (Datz Fried is a podcast I started with my best friend during the pandemic. Even though we haven't been nearly as regular with it since the early days, it was amazing to have a regularly scheduled checkin especially when getting any social interaction was scarce), which I feel like does better suit the communication method I'm better at, but there is something energizing about writing out my thoughts versus saying them. Whenever I've wanted to start, I've hesitated for one reason or the other. Thoughts like, "Will my writing be good enough?", or "Is what I have to say really that important?", often prevent me from taking the first step.

Recently at Maven we launched Lightning Lessons; expert-led, 30 minute, free lessons, on a specific skill (a product that I actually led the development on, which I plan on speaking on in a future post). One of the Lightning Lessons that I came across, was Simone Stolzoff's lesson on 21 tips to make you a better writer.

I decided to sign-up, hoping I would learn something very specific that would allow me to get out of my own way. And...it delivered. Even though there were 21 tips, there were 3 concepts that stuck out to me:

1. Writing short declarative sentences, and this idea that writing one sentence should make the reader want to read the next one
2. Shitty first drafts.
3. Knowing who your audience is and what they care about.

Sentences

Everything is a series of sentences. Whether it is a conversation, a story, or this post. Ensuring that the sentences that make up what I'm talking about are clear and concise is important to getting my point across. I realized that this is something I learned to do in conversation over time. Earlier in life I would often have many different thoughts strung together, but as I gained more professional experience, I realized that the best way to get my point across was to be very intentional and specific with every sentence I spoke. When I notice the person I'm talking to starting to get confused, I reset and break down what I'm trying to convey in very specific sentences, almost as if I'm explaining it to myself for the first time. This is something that I want to be intentional about applying to my writing.

Shitty first drafts

The idea here is that it's better to get your work out, even if it's in a shitty form, versus aiming for perfection on the first go, and not getting it out at all. This is actually something that I'm very familiar with at Maven, since it's something that we talk about and practice all of the time. Whether it be for our technical design docs, or building out a quick prototype to assess technical feasibility, making shitty first drafts is something I do at work regularly. However, when it comes to writing or sharing something more publicly I've always leaned towards making sure it's as polished as possible. This means that I often try writing it to be the best it could be the first time around, which then takes long, and eventually I stop working on it. Time to embrace shitty first drafts, and accept it as being a step in my writing process.

Knowing your audience

One of the conversational skills I've picked up over time, is the ability to adjust how I'm saying something based on who I am talking to. I think this is something I developed when trying to explain technical concepts to non-technical co-workers over the years. If you don't adjust how you explain these concepts, you're often met with more confusion than clarity, which leads to poorer outcomes. Instead, you have to know your audience, and make adjustments. When trying to figure out how to apply this to my writing here, it's still unclear to me who all my audience is. This will definitely vary based on the topic I am writing about, whether it's professional anecdotes & learnings, or thoughts on relationships and human psychology, I will have to know who I am trying to write for in order for the post to resonate with them. As an example, this post, is written with me as the audience, and by writing this for myself there may be someone else like me that some of these learnings resonates with.

I know this is just the beginning. I know that I will keep putting in the reps, and make more posts that I want to write for myself and others. Here's to having a little tiny corner of the internet, that I get to call my own, and filling it with thoughts and ideas that hopefully others will draw their own inspiration from.