7 blogs in 7 days
Update: I wrote up how I did and my reflections.
I’m setting myself a challenge: write 7 blog articles that I’m proud of in 7 days.
And no, this one doesn’t count.
Why?
There are three main reasons:
- to get better at writing quickly, while maintaining quality
- to clear a backlog of ideas for articles, which has now grown to 40 articles I’d like to write!
- because I’ve taken a week off work, so have more time available than normal
There are other qualities that I’d like to have in my writing, but that I don't see as critical: humour in particular. If people have advice on this, I’d love to hear it.
- honesty: saying things that I fully believe in, and being explicit when I’m not sure about something. This includes not omitting material points, or writing anything intentionally misleading.
- verifiability: readers shouldn’t just have to trust that I’m honest all the time. It should be easy for them to check my claims, should I be relying on some evidence that can be corroborated.
- clarity: making it easy to read my articles even if you’re not an expert in some area. This involves using simple language, consistent terms, and linking to relevant further reading.
- importance: write things I think could matter to someone, and ideally for decisions that are important. It’s fine if that someone is future me, or some audience who I don’t know yet but reasonably expect to exist. This usually means there needs to be something novel about each article.2
The idea or topic itself doesn’t need to be novel: the presentation might be novel instead. For example, great textbooks rarely present new ideas, but do present ideas in a new way that’s easier to digest.
There’s no point just regurgitating content already out there, or easily generated by today’s AI systems.
Provided I get the articles written, at the end of the week I’ll review them for quality along these axes.
See you in a week!
Update: I wrote up how I did and my reflections.
Footnotes
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There are other qualities that I’d like to have in my writing, but that I don't see as critical: humour in particular. If people have advice on this, I’d love to hear it. ↩
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The idea or topic itself doesn’t need to be novel: the presentation might be novel instead. For example, great textbooks rarely present new ideas, but do present ideas in a new way that’s easier to digest. ↩