How to write regularly for your programming blog?

Hey there,

When I published my programming blog at dbader.org for the first time in 2012 it felt great.

I was happy with the "programmer art" I had created for the website layout, and I was stoked about the two posts I launched with.

A week or two later that dreaded feeling of "Now what?" set in.

In order to build a readership and provide value for them I'd need to publish more posts. Ideally on a continuing basis.

And while that strategy seemed pretty clear even back then, it took me several years to figure out a way to post new content regularly.

In my previous email I replied to Khchine's question on how to pick topics to write about on his programming blog.

Khchine, who is a freelance Python developer, also had another question about how to make sure one keeps writing and publishing new blog content after the launch:

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… how can I make sure to force myself to keep writing?

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Yeah... that's a tough one :) 

But maybe I can give some advice here.

One of my biggest struggles is getting over perfectionism. It's so easy for perfectionism to get in the way when I don't have much time to spend on a project. And from conversations with other developers I know it's a common problem.

A good way to deal with overt perfectionism is to train yourself to use another "definition of success"—

If I try to write the "perfect" blog post I'm going crazy. 

But, if my goal is to just write and publish some blog post a week then chances are I'll write something helpful once a month...

I'm a strong believer now that "quantity trumps quality" in the long run—by being prolific you'll increase the chances of striking gold every once in a while.

Here's a great article by Jeff Atwood (founder of StackOverflow) on that topic.

And the best way I found to execute on this idea is to build a writing habit. 

I write 500 words in a morning journal every day after I get up. Just random thoughts, how my day went, things that irritated me, or made me happy. I dump it all out. 

And it helps get my brain into writing mode. 

I'd recommend you try the same but with blog posts. If you can write just 100-300 words every day on a random topic that comes to mind, I'm sure you'll have enough material to publish a new post every week or so. 

It's all about the editing process. 

I throw out maybe 60-70% of my writing (and I'm not saying the rest is great either) but this strategy really works. 

Once you've got enough words in a text file somewhere there's always a way to edit it down to something worth sharing.

Looking forward to reading your blog posts.

Good luck and...Happy Pythoning!

– Dan Bader