Blogging Evening – April 27th @ GoCardless – Top Tips - Ben Nadel

Top Tips - Ben Nadel

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Keep a backlog of ideas that you want to explore

Questions and ideas will pop into your head at the most random times. At your desk; walking down the street; in an elevator; at the gym. Make sure to always write those ideas down the moment you have them. I do this using GMail. I have a GMail filter setup that automatically tags and archives emails with a particular Subject line. So, when I have one of those random ideas, I immediately open the closest GMail client (desktop or mobile) and shoot myself an email. Then, the next time I sit down to do some R&D, I have a catalog of ideas from which to choose.

Blog for yourself

Blogging is hard work. It takes time and dedication. Keeping with it will be much easier if you're doing it for yourself. Meaning, don't chase the next "hot topic" unless it really interests you. If you can do that, you end up creating a anthology of content that you, yourself, want to consume. When that happens, I guarantee that you'll find yourself referring back to your own writing as a sort of personalized documentation. Plus, when you're really excited about a topic, writing one post is more likely to lead to new ideas and new avenues of exploration as you find yourself falling down the rabbit hole of desire.

Your point of view is always unique

Sometimes, it's hard to get over the fear that you might be covering a topic that someone else has already covered. Who cares! What does that have to do with anything?! You're blogging for yourself. And besides, no one but you has your voice and your perspective. When you write about a topic, it will be unique even if the general topic is common.

Try never to make assertions that you haven't tested

I can't tell you how many times I've been about to publish a post when I go to double-check something and then discover that half of what I've written is wrong. Sure, this is frustrating; but, it makes me a little wiser every time. Now, rather than attempting to draw theoretical conclusions, I try my best to test every assertion that I've made. And, if I can't test it - or I don't have time to test it - I'll replace the assertion with a written caveat as to where I believe I have gaps in my understand. I'm certainly a fan of the statement, "As such, please take the following paragraph with a grain of salt."

No topic is too small or insignificant

I write about everything. Every little hurdle. Every little mistake. Every little error that was hard to debug. If it tripped me up, confused me, or wasted my time, I think it's worth documenting. This does a service to anyone that might try to Google for the same thing. And, sometimes embarrassingly, I am that person - Googling for the solution to a problem that I already solved 8 months ago. Talk about paying it forward to your future self! Small topics also have the benefit of keeping the mental machinery working. A body in motion tends to stay in motion. So, if a bunch of small posts can keep up your momentum, I find that to be better than long periods of not writing.

Top Tips - Melinda Seckington

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What story are you trying to tell?

Before writing anything, I try to sit down and think through all the different aspects of my blog post. For starters, who am I writing this post for? Are they other developers? Users of my product? Fans of a TV show? What’s their background, what do they know? Knowing who you’re writing for frames the entire article - for me, it makes it easier to understand and define the scope of what you’re attempting to write. Once you know who you’re writing this for, think about what story you’re telling them. What is it that you want them to take away from this post? What’s the key message? Are you trying to convince them of something? Are you sharing something that you did? Have an idea of what effect you want to have on your audience.

Start with an outline

My process of writing typically begins with post-it notes. I’ll start with all the key points I want to make, including some of the answers I came up with to the questions in the previous section. Once I’ve got all those post-its I start grouping them and moving them around to create different sections. What I like about this method is that it allows me to be a bit more flexible in how I tell the story - it’s easier to move post-its around and come up with the structure that works best without being bogged down in paragraphs and paragraphs of text.

Refactor and rewrite

It’s rare I’ll write something that I’m completely happy with in one go. Typically I’ll have an initial draft and go through it completely again - cutting parts, moving paragraphs around and turning it into a better story. Just like with refactoring code, you need to keep in mind that it’s all about making the end product better. Sometimes I’ll have written a sentence or paragraph that I completely love, but I know I need to cut, cause it just doesn’t work.

It never will be perfect

The main thing I’ve had to accept is that whatever I do none of my posts will ever be ‘perfect’. It’s sometimes super tricky to hit that publish button on something that you feel could be better, yet at the same you can’t keep every single post in a drafted state forever.