Unsolicited blogging advice

Earlier this morning while poking around the blogs I have saved in my RSS reader I stumbled upon this post by Matthias (a post I’ve read before). The message of the post regarding publishing is something I agree with:

Here is a thought. Maybe, we are overthinking it. Maybe, the one thing we should care most about is just putting stuff out there. At least, this is the primary reason we have a personal website, right? We have it to document and share random thoughts, things we learned, and nuggets we found. If we don’t put stuff out there, why have a website in the first place?

What's more interesting to me personally, is why people are struggling with blogging in the first place. Matthias lists a few examples at the beginning:

• we feel like every post has to be perfect
• we don’t find the time to write more often between everything else that is going on in our lives
• finding something to write about in the first place is hard

And although those are all reasonable examples, I still find it baffling that people are having such a hard time putting content out in the wild. Especially if we consider that there seems to be no shortage of content posted on social media in the first place.

So here's my advice for you, if you want to start a blog. Firstly, be yourself. You are, by default, interesting. We all live different lives, we all have different interests, we all have different life stories. So be yourself, share what you find interesting to you. And secondly—and this is gonna sound a bit harsh—the vast majority of the people out there won't give a shit about you and your content. And that's OK. It's even comforting. Don't waste time figuring out the perfect way to say something or the perfect topic for your blog. Don't go insane curating your online persona. Be yourself. Be authentic. Talk about what you're passionate about. But also, don't be boring. "But I am boring" you're probably thinking. No, you're not. You‘re only boring if you only talk about one single goddamn thing all day, every day. I have read way too many blogs, by developers, where they only talk about web development. Which is fine, I guess. But like in real life, if you only talk about the same thing over and over and over again, you'll end up alienating the people around you. So mix it up. Post a picture every now and then, talk about a book you read or a movie you watched or a place you visited. Talk about an interesting conversation. And don't be afraid to put things out there and to interact with other people. If you don't know where to start, hit me up via email and I'll be happy to help you out.