Thanks, Henrik, for this wonderful list of ideas. Recently I thought a lot about what I should write about and this post was an invitation to discard thoughts about which ideas have an inherent audience and to just focus on writing about the things I actually think about all day. If there is no audience for that - fine. But it's pointless to talk with a censored voice.
Great post! Love this: “Just try to amuse yourself.” Sometimes the draft just doesn’t work and the telltale sign is when I’m not having any fun and just pushing myself to finish it.
From my experience, abandoning the draft and starting over sometimes works as a solution, but more often than not, I need to abandon the whole theme and write about something entirely different to get back into the fun zone.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but my impression is that at the core of your philosophy lies that you don’t optimize for an audience, but if you follow your quirks, your audience will find you.
There's some criticism that the internet is flattening people, but following your philosophy amplifies the outlier personalities and creates audiences for things that might never find an audience in their local area. As Kevin Kelly says in his 1000 True Fans article: "Every thing made, or thought of, can interest at least one person in a million — it’s a low bar. Yet if even only one out of million people were interested, that’s potentially 7,000 people on the planet. That means that any 1-in-a-million appeal can find 1,000 true fans. The trick is to practically find those fans, or more accurately, to have them find you."
Editing should be done once you have a GOOD draft. Not ANY draft.
I'm guilty myself - I've internalized too many lessons about the power of editing and took it as a call to edit and persevere with whatever I just wrote.
Whereas much sensible is just to start from the scratch.
Hi Henrik, I found your post from Arne Bahlo's blog.
I really like tip number four about chat messages for helping you with tone. I have to say this is very timely and helpful. I've recently started a weekly urbanism newsletter that's a roundup of content meant to inspire people. We're still trying to figure out the balance between a professional tone and something fun for people. Right now the idea is to keep it simple with AP style and light commentary when relevant. But we'll see how it evolves. You can see it here https://urbanismnow.com
Saw another version of this on Substack Notes from 2 weeks ago and saved it because it was so great. Looks like you updated it - looking forward to rereading!
[I guess item #20 would be "Don't leave your best race on the Substack Notes practice field"] :
Exactly, sometimes I write good stuff off the cuff when typing in notes and then I can improve on that. I added some thoughts and restructured. There is something lovely about having a space where I can write really fast and not think about spelling, and then have the blog be the place where I save the better things, properly edited.
I've certainly appreciated your other "shit blog." Not only as a bridge making the official stuff possible, but because it's often quite good and worth seeing in its own right. Maybe Substack Notes is like little bite-size snapshots of shit blog in process.
I feel like I've shifted ~half of what I did on the shit blog onto notes now that I've gotten comfortable writing that sloppily. So, stuff that is more "most ppl will understand and like this" go on notes and the more high context stuff on waste book
Seems like you always make a delightful addition after the edits. Last time it was the blinking dot in ChatGPT metaphor, this time: “When you write from your head, your style sinks back under the waves.” Love how it contrasts with the lovely surge.
yeah, don't remember what I had there first, but i didn't like that it was a mixed metaphor (withered, i think) and when i fixed it it ended up sound a bit odd which i liked
Thoughtful piece—thank you for writing it. How do you recommend new bloggers spread the word? Are there any particular websites or strategies you’d suggest? Also, curious—what do you think contributed the most to your blog's reach when you were starting out?
When I started out I wrote on LessWrong and the slatestarcodex subreddit, and I think I found like 50 subscribers from there. Quite early I got a small number of readers who really resonated with what I did and they began telling their friends, and it snowballed from there. I had some help from other bloggers early on two: José Rincon and Erik Hoel both shared my blog when I had ~100 subcribers, after I talked with them (but didn't ask them to share) and that made a difference. But yeah, just talking to ppl who are into similar things (like LessWrong isn't really all that similar to what I am doing now, but it was close enough that I could move along the spokes of the social graph from there to the people I resonatade with) and then word of mouth. Early on I was also very lonely and shameless in contacting every interesting-seeming person who read my blog and I made some great friends like that, some real internet nerds, who showed me around.
Thanks for explaining this. Would appreciate a more detailed post on this if you get the time because it would help a lot of people. I'm currently telling people I know about the blog, but intentionally cultivating an interested audience through forums like LessWrong seems like a much better idea.
I saved your post when I first came across it and finally got to read it in full! Thank you for writing such a great piece and giving me that push to just start writing, even if the first ones end up horrible :’)
I spent a long time trying to figure out how I could write like other people and about experiences I never had and not recognizing that the unique experiences of my life are what people may find interesting. It doesn’t make writing easier necessarily, but it’s opened up a sense of ease and joy because I’m not trying to be anyone else, I’m just writing what I know! Loved this whole piece - thank you!
Thanks, Henrik, for this wonderful list of ideas. Recently I thought a lot about what I should write about and this post was an invitation to discard thoughts about which ideas have an inherent audience and to just focus on writing about the things I actually think about all day. If there is no audience for that - fine. But it's pointless to talk with a censored voice.
Great post! Love this: “Just try to amuse yourself.” Sometimes the draft just doesn’t work and the telltale sign is when I’m not having any fun and just pushing myself to finish it.
From my experience, abandoning the draft and starting over sometimes works as a solution, but more often than not, I need to abandon the whole theme and write about something entirely different to get back into the fun zone.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but my impression is that at the core of your philosophy lies that you don’t optimize for an audience, but if you follow your quirks, your audience will find you.
that sounds like a good way to live
Absolutely!
There's some criticism that the internet is flattening people, but following your philosophy amplifies the outlier personalities and creates audiences for things that might never find an audience in their local area. As Kevin Kelly says in his 1000 True Fans article: "Every thing made, or thought of, can interest at least one person in a million — it’s a low bar. Yet if even only one out of million people were interested, that’s potentially 7,000 people on the planet. That means that any 1-in-a-million appeal can find 1,000 true fans. The trick is to practically find those fans, or more accurately, to have them find you."
Insight for me: too much editing sucks soul.
Editing should be done once you have a GOOD draft. Not ANY draft.
I'm guilty myself - I've internalized too many lessons about the power of editing and took it as a call to edit and persevere with whatever I just wrote.
Whereas much sensible is just to start from the scratch.
Love this. There’s a Balkan saying about this: “You can’t make a pie out of shit”.
I think it was Stephen King who said something similar, that "you can't turn t*rds into gold."
Hi Henrik, I found your post from Arne Bahlo's blog.
I really like tip number four about chat messages for helping you with tone. I have to say this is very timely and helpful. I've recently started a weekly urbanism newsletter that's a roundup of content meant to inspire people. We're still trying to figure out the balance between a professional tone and something fun for people. Right now the idea is to keep it simple with AP style and light commentary when relevant. But we'll see how it evolves. You can see it here https://urbanismnow.com
Thank you for putting it so concisely! I intend to try every point in here!
Saw another version of this on Substack Notes from 2 weeks ago and saved it because it was so great. Looks like you updated it - looking forward to rereading!
[I guess item #20 would be "Don't leave your best race on the Substack Notes practice field"] :
Exactly, sometimes I write good stuff off the cuff when typing in notes and then I can improve on that. I added some thoughts and restructured. There is something lovely about having a space where I can write really fast and not think about spelling, and then have the blog be the place where I save the better things, properly edited.
I've certainly appreciated your other "shit blog." Not only as a bridge making the official stuff possible, but because it's often quite good and worth seeing in its own right. Maybe Substack Notes is like little bite-size snapshots of shit blog in process.
I feel like I've shifted ~half of what I did on the shit blog onto notes now that I've gotten comfortable writing that sloppily. So, stuff that is more "most ppl will understand and like this" go on notes and the more high context stuff on waste book
The advice to type rapidly in a chatbox with a friend and then transfer it is gold.
Seems like you always make a delightful addition after the edits. Last time it was the blinking dot in ChatGPT metaphor, this time: “When you write from your head, your style sinks back under the waves.” Love how it contrasts with the lovely surge.
yeah, don't remember what I had there first, but i didn't like that it was a mixed metaphor (withered, i think) and when i fixed it it ended up sound a bit odd which i liked
You're a good friend :)
Thoughtful piece—thank you for writing it. How do you recommend new bloggers spread the word? Are there any particular websites or strategies you’d suggest? Also, curious—what do you think contributed the most to your blog's reach when you were starting out?
When I started out I wrote on LessWrong and the slatestarcodex subreddit, and I think I found like 50 subscribers from there. Quite early I got a small number of readers who really resonated with what I did and they began telling their friends, and it snowballed from there. I had some help from other bloggers early on two: José Rincon and Erik Hoel both shared my blog when I had ~100 subcribers, after I talked with them (but didn't ask them to share) and that made a difference. But yeah, just talking to ppl who are into similar things (like LessWrong isn't really all that similar to what I am doing now, but it was close enough that I could move along the spokes of the social graph from there to the people I resonatade with) and then word of mouth. Early on I was also very lonely and shameless in contacting every interesting-seeming person who read my blog and I made some great friends like that, some real internet nerds, who showed me around.
Thank you so much for the reply. Grateful.
Thanks for explaining this. Would appreciate a more detailed post on this if you get the time because it would help a lot of people. I'm currently telling people I know about the blog, but intentionally cultivating an interested audience through forums like LessWrong seems like a much better idea.
Thanks for asking this question! I was wondering the same thing.
I saved your post when I first came across it and finally got to read it in full! Thank you for writing such a great piece and giving me that push to just start writing, even if the first ones end up horrible :’)
Beautiful ❤️
This was delightful and wise.
there is a tremendous, TREMENDOUS amount of gold and inspiring advice in here! Thank you!
I spent a long time trying to figure out how I could write like other people and about experiences I never had and not recognizing that the unique experiences of my life are what people may find interesting. It doesn’t make writing easier necessarily, but it’s opened up a sense of ease and joy because I’m not trying to be anyone else, I’m just writing what I know! Loved this whole piece - thank you!
Thanks Henrik, I keep coming back to this essay. I love the ideas I get from it every time.
Encouragement appreciated. 🙏