About Writing
Writing is actually very simple: a pen, a piece of paper, or even a computer is all it takes.
I have actually written many summary and sharing articles on the company intranet, producing over 100,000 words every year. Although I occasionally write some guide articles on GitHub, why haven’t I ever gotten started and persisted with writing? I think the reasons are as follows:
- Obsessed with reinventing the wheel
The blog’s backend and frontend must be written line by line by myself, without using existing frameworks. To satisfy my own desire for inefficient code creation, the main goal of “writing” was diluted. This is somewhat similar to reinventing the wheel in a company just for the sake of reinventing the wheel, rather than working hard to break through technical limits for key goals. - Procrastination (perfectionism / fake diligence named laziness)
Blog isn’t cool enough? Not okay! Blog has no login system? Not okay! Blog has no admin backend? Not okay! Blog has no comment system? Still not okay! Even with a comment system, if it doesn’t integrate a spam filter, still not okay! In the end, the passion and inspiration for writing burned out without writing a single word. - Worrying that my output might be too shallow
Well… having procrastinated for several years, I should have grown quite a bit. - Circular dependency
“I’ll develop XXX after creating the blog, so I can document it during development. But let’s develop XXX first before creating the blog. But then I feel like I have nowhere to record what I’ve done, so let’s create the blog first…”
Looking back at May 2018, with the same project256 domain name and the same server, I built a blog myself using Golang + Vue + MuseUI + MongoDB. After the blog went live, it indeed felt good, but it stayed at just feeling good. After publishing a HelloWorld blog post and a WeChat Moments post, I never wrote anything again. As a result, when I was preparing to restart the blog early this year, I was agonizing over which framework to use again. In the end, I used a Hexo indigo template with no special effects, used GitHub Actions scripts to automatically deploy to the server and compile into articles—just write the articles in Markdown and push the code.
By reducing writing costs through workflows and tools, the probability of sticking with it is higher, and the same goes for other things.
I try to write something every day as much as possible. Although I don’t know how long I can stick with it this time, it is far better than giving up after endless agonizing.
Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.
Book Recommendations
A super thick book (483 pages). The first 40 pages introduce the book’s core ideas, writing style, and workflow, while the rest of the content consists of categorized writing examples and notes.
The core ideas of this book are as follows:
- Define your goal
- Know your audience
- Brainstorm to lock down what you want to express
- Organize the article
- Write the first draft
- Revise
- Repeat the above process
Boldly pick up your pen (or start typing on the keyboard) and express your thoughts with appropriate words!
If you want to write a novel, I recommend reading The Snowflake Method. Using a fairy tale as its carrier, this book takes readers by the hand to teach and demonstrate step by step how to write a structurally complete and engaging novel. It is perfect for writers who want to tell a story but just can’t write it out no matter what.
