Why is writing blog posts so hard?

7 min

Part 1 of the Blog Rant series

Part 2 from louisescherLouis Escher - Why writing blogs isn’t hard

Part 3 from trueberrylessFelix Schneider - Some aspects of creating a blog are really easy, and some are extremely difficult!

Why is writing blog posts so hard?

Chapter 0 - Oh damn, here we go again

Oh I wish I had a huge successful blog!

Said every dev ever.

Oh I wish I could spend my life chained to Markdown files writing blog posts!

Said no dev ever.

Chapter 1 - I WANT IT NOW

A blog is such a simple idea, but with many hurdles to jump over before becoming successful.

First you need to build the thing, then host the thing, then track analytics, come up with ideas for content, fix all the bugs you had because you were absolutely “doing it the right way this time!”

It’s easy to see the end goal - a successful blog, your name in glittering lights, getting invited on podcasts with Jason Lengstorf! Ahh I see it now!

But as always, the devil is in what you don’t know! And often times things only look nice because you don’t understand all the work it takes to get there.

So why is it that we want a goal, but sometimes actively avoid the steps to get there? Get ready for some musings from a dumbass:

  1. “Once it’s going, then it’ll be easy!”

The idea that for some reason “once your project” is big, you can then just coast.

This is very, very rarely the case. Bigger projects bring more work, more maintenance and more features needed to reach “the next stage”.

You start with a blog, but then maybe add authentication for comments, then an image pipeline for better SEO, then ads - sweet, sweet ads. And before you know it your “simple blog” is bloody massive! And it’s in the building and creation of all that stuff that is tough.

Even if your first hurdle is getting the perfect theme or Astro Content Collections architecture. Building and maintaining code is hrad.

  1. Effort vs Reward

This is also known to middle management as “motivation” - usually by way of pizza or £5 Amazon vouchers.

You need to feel like you’re learning, growing, improving or just having fun when doing any project. Especially a self-motivated project like a blog.

This is why projects are easy and fun at first, because you can put in 10% effort and get 90% reward! Taste that sweet dopamine!

But then when you start to get into the weeds and start worrying about fixing bugs and refactoring that the scales tip dramatically. Suddenly you’re doing far more work for far less reward. And that sucks.

So how do you keep motivated, or how can you keep the scales tipped in your favour?

  1. Everything is a skill and everything can be learnt

Writing for a blog is a skill. Creating a blog is a skill. Programming is a skill.

Focussed working is a skill. Motivating yourself to sit down and forcing yourself to work is a skill. Being able to work to a timeline is a skill. Being able to say “nah it’s good enough, ship it!” is a skill.

All these skills which you need in order to complete any personal project, can be learnt. But only, only when you have to force yourself to do it.

The best skill you can learn is the skill of finishing projects. And how to do that?

Start smaller projects and actually finish them. Not to mention the overwhelming dopamine hit and smug look on your face. You’ll have had to practice several of the above mentioned skills in order to do it.

It’s always easy to start with small projects, and force yourself to finish it before moving on. Each time it will get easier, and you’ll get better at it.

  1. Ah it’ll be reight - it doesn’t have to be perfect

“Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good” Miley Cyrus

“50% of something is better than 100% of nothing” That guy from Tokyo Drift

“Don’t let your dreams be dreams” That guy

Things don’t have to be perfect. Look at this blog post for example:

I started off doing chapters because I thought it’d be fun. But then almost immediately forgot until I was completely off that track. Am I going to go back and rewrite? Absolutely fucking not.

And y’know what. It doesn’t fucking matter. Nobody cares. All that matters is I sat down, wrote the damn post and shipped it!

In the words of our immortal overlord, seer and planetary guide - Shia LeBeouf

“JUST DO IT”

Chapter 3 - Yeah I remembered about the chapters

You can always fix things later. Ship something bad, then fix it up!

This probably could’ve been point 4… But pfft we’re back on chapters now!

I like to imagine any project, any initial release or MVP as creating the bricks for a house.

The MVP is the bare bones. You’ve leveled the land, and layed the bricks. But it’s still just an empty shell. Yeah technically it’s a house, I guess maybe. But it’s not really livable.

But then over time you add your walls, floors, the roof, plumbing, windows maybe idk, and eventually after all that work you have a home.

Don’t burn yourself out choosing wallpaper before you’ve layed the bricks.

Chapter 4 - External influences

People often get demotivated keep chucking content out into the void and it being completely ignored.

“But ChatGPT spent ten minutes writing this blog post! Why is nobody reading it?!”

Jokes about AI aside. The real truth is that if you want to actively grow your blog you need to be doing two things:

  1. Writing more posts and creating more content.

I know, pretty crazy right. If you commit to one article a week, about a range of subjects. In six months time you’ll have dozens of posts and even if you still don’t have a regular following, you’ll be in such a strong position for getting one - so don’t give up yet. Remember the bricks analogy, you’ve laid the bricks. (See I even spelt laid the right way this time but am I going to CTRL+F? HAH no)

  1. Marketing 👻

Marketing doesn’t necessarily have to mean printing out fliers or buying ads (though that may help 👀).

It can simply mean thinking about your intended audience, and whether your content matches that audience. If it does - great! If not, then change one or the other or both, fuck it, I’m not your mum.

It also means tracking your posts, seeing what does well, seeing what doesn’t. You may get a ton of traffic from some satire post about React, then try it again and get nothing. But you need the stats to make an informed decision.

And try and think of different avenues to attract readers. It can be posting on social media. Creating content about questions people are asking then linking to them. Then guest… Fuck it just go Google how to market a blog. What am I, a blog scientist?!

Chatper 5 - I’ve completely forgotten what I’m doing, I’ve lost the plot, what day is it

So what have we learnt? That I really should never be given power to write things.

But also, that even a very simple premise of a personal blog can have many challenges.

And that to succeed at any project you need to build the mindset of:

  • I know something eventually will suck, but it’ll be worth it in the end
  • If I just keep going I can’t fail
  • Even if I stop working on this project, I need to be able to have learnt something. Which usually means doing something I’ve never done before.
  • Make bad thing, then make thing better. Don’t make good thing - waste of time + effort.
  • Find a thing where you enjoy the process of doing it. If you want a successful blog, you gotta love writing blog posts. If you want to open a Cat Cafe, you gotta love cats. This ain’t rocket science.
  • Don’t always see a problem as a problem. Usually the problem is completely unrelated to the goal. If you want to achieve a goal, you have to solve a series of problems. Each one getting bigger and bigger. Learn to embrace the problems.

Epilogue

So I know what everyone’s thinking, will this be my first, final, last, and only blog post?

Was this just an elaborate joke? Will I ever run a successful blog?

Find out next time, if there is one, of Jacob Jenkins Codes! 🦸‍♀️