💾 Archived View for midnight.pub › replies › 7186 captured on 2024-05-26 at 15:58:03. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content

View Raw

More Information

⬅️ Previous capture (2023-12-28)

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

< Starting a blog...

~cardboard

i love it. i use lynx sometimes when i browse in my free time, so it's perfect for that.

my site has also been simple & html-only since i discovered gemini/smallweb, and it's my favorite iteration of my personal site yet. i'm sure it's crafted poorly, but i don't care because i made it quickly and i can maintain it simply :-)

as far as writing tips, your writing looks great to me. it gets the point across, flows well, & isn't fluffy. i love 'bland.'

but if you want to hone your style to better appease your internal critics, what works for me (i'd like to think!) is just writing, reading, & trying to be an interesting person.

i don't believe in the 10,000 hour rule at all, but i do believe that writing is a great way to get better at writing. writing intentionally and not just to hit word counts. writing is a way to play around with ideas. to figure out & refine my style. to experiment with different techniques for making external a portion of my internal thoughts. mainly this 'playing' helps me realize which of my existing habits/tendencies annoy me the most by repeatedly bringing them to the surface and forcing confrontation.

reading is another way, of course. when i read writing that i like, i'll try to find a way to incorporate bits & pieces of its essence into my own writing. or i'll at least mess around with it for a bit.

doing other non-writing things might be the best way to write better (imo). writing is best when the writer is unique, interesting, & interested in what they're writing. 10,000 hours of practice can't make somebody interesting, just capable of transmitting their ideas in an effective way (which is nice, but secondary to the content of the writing, to me). i would rather read "bad" writing from a niche/inspired perspective than technically- or stylistically-competent writing from somebody with few/basic/irrelevant interests. people can be good at writing, have good 'taste,' or both.

i guess a final suggestion/idea might be to write privately from time to time. it personally helps me sometimes if i know from the start that something i'm writing won't be read by others. it enables more fluidity & freedom, for one, but it also means i can scrap a piece of writing the moment i lose interest in it or realize it's too far gone. but that freedom can be good or bad, i guess.

Write a reply