I’m not famous or successful, so why should you care what I think? Well, I have some observations about the dynamics of writing on the internet that I think my (even more non-famous and non-successful) self would have benefited from when I started.
This post makes me more optimistic that I can positively contribute to the comments sections of blogs/substacks/etc. (That's the closest I come to writing on the internet, haha.) Sometimes I'll start to write something that a post made me think of, or elaborate on a minor point in the post, and then think, "Oh, this isn't relevant enough, even though it's within my area of expertise/a particular interest of mine/relevant to my hobbies/etc." And then I'll delete it. But maybe that sort of comment is worthwhile, and perhaps I should try lowering my threshold for whether a comment is insightful/relevant enough.
Writing was something that I pondered for decades, then I actually started about a decade ago. It's definitely not led to fame and fortune...and now I wonder why it's something that I want to do at all. It's an eternal torment sprinkled with occasional joy. I don't know what I'm doing or precisely why. It's my weird dance in the corner. Sometimes I scream.
Anyway, you captured a lot of my feels on the subject. Thanks.
Fuck best, yeah. Read Pirsig's LILA to have that over with.
Quality is a here and now thing - you versus the night sky, the taste of the sludge you shovel into your mouth, the sound of the car door as it closes, the firmness of lips etc.
No, I do not want what I want. I want what I don't want. If I want it - apart from things keeping me physically alive - I already have it. In my mind. I want something else. Something outside of my expectation, something that makes me work for it, something that I can never have again and therefore cannot use to set a future standard. Ideally. I know I am not alone in this, and also that many will disagree. But I don't care. Stepping away from expectation is like oxygen into a crowded room.
Thanks, this changed my mind on some things. When you described getting non sequitur responses from people who didn't read the article and wrote that you regarded it as your failure, I thought "nooo, this will drive you insane, don't write for the most insane/comprehension-impaired/uncharitable people on the internet". But if a gentler tone fixes it, well, then I was mistaken, and that's great.
I've been averse to the awfulness of internet comments, which has led me to mostly avoid writing in public. But I like your reframe, where if there's a negative reaction, then I can consider it might be pointing out a problem, even if it's not well-articulated. That seems productive.
I recently arranged user testing for some software I worked on. It was very useful and I was looking forward to doing more of it, so I'm delighted by this realization that you can do user testing for writing. (What other kinds of user testing have I not thought of? User testing for music? for events? for talks? for interior design?)
It's very helpful to try to see things that way. It's a shame that I think a lot of people don't want to do any writing in public because they don't want the negativity. I think this is a tragedy!
Regarding user-testing for writing, I think there's a bit of a challenge there vs. software because you have basically zero information on what the user experienced unless they tell you. This makes it a challenge relative to software where there's much more externally visible behavior. Even so, I REALLY wonder if there isn't some kind of profitable business to be started in giving user testing for pieces of writing. My guess is that most writing is full of really basic things that can be fixed to make it better. (I know that AI writing assistants are supposed to do that in principle, but I think they're not quite there yet.)
The kind of user testing I've done for software was the high-effort, high-setup kind where you have a user sitting at your computer, narrating their thoughts as they try to accomplish specific tasks your software is supposed to do. It's a non-trivial amount of work but was very worthwhile, and I can imagine similar approaches being useful for things like writing (the user reads each paragraph, then comments on any confusion, disagreement or thought that comes to mind), interior decorating (they walk into a room and narrate their impressions), and other things.
This post makes me more optimistic that I can positively contribute to the comments sections of blogs/substacks/etc. (That's the closest I come to writing on the internet, haha.) Sometimes I'll start to write something that a post made me think of, or elaborate on a minor point in the post, and then think, "Oh, this isn't relevant enough, even though it's within my area of expertise/a particular interest of mine/relevant to my hobbies/etc." And then I'll delete it. But maybe that sort of comment is worthwhile, and perhaps I should try lowering my threshold for whether a comment is insightful/relevant enough.
Writing was something that I pondered for decades, then I actually started about a decade ago. It's definitely not led to fame and fortune...and now I wonder why it's something that I want to do at all. It's an eternal torment sprinkled with occasional joy. I don't know what I'm doing or precisely why. It's my weird dance in the corner. Sometimes I scream.
Anyway, you captured a lot of my feels on the subject. Thanks.
Fuck best, yeah. Read Pirsig's LILA to have that over with.
Quality is a here and now thing - you versus the night sky, the taste of the sludge you shovel into your mouth, the sound of the car door as it closes, the firmness of lips etc.
No, I do not want what I want. I want what I don't want. If I want it - apart from things keeping me physically alive - I already have it. In my mind. I want something else. Something outside of my expectation, something that makes me work for it, something that I can never have again and therefore cannot use to set a future standard. Ideally. I know I am not alone in this, and also that many will disagree. But I don't care. Stepping away from expectation is like oxygen into a crowded room.
Thanks, this changed my mind on some things. When you described getting non sequitur responses from people who didn't read the article and wrote that you regarded it as your failure, I thought "nooo, this will drive you insane, don't write for the most insane/comprehension-impaired/uncharitable people on the internet". But if a gentler tone fixes it, well, then I was mistaken, and that's great.
I've been averse to the awfulness of internet comments, which has led me to mostly avoid writing in public. But I like your reframe, where if there's a negative reaction, then I can consider it might be pointing out a problem, even if it's not well-articulated. That seems productive.
I recently arranged user testing for some software I worked on. It was very useful and I was looking forward to doing more of it, so I'm delighted by this realization that you can do user testing for writing. (What other kinds of user testing have I not thought of? User testing for music? for events? for talks? for interior design?)
It's very helpful to try to see things that way. It's a shame that I think a lot of people don't want to do any writing in public because they don't want the negativity. I think this is a tragedy!
Regarding user-testing for writing, I think there's a bit of a challenge there vs. software because you have basically zero information on what the user experienced unless they tell you. This makes it a challenge relative to software where there's much more externally visible behavior. Even so, I REALLY wonder if there isn't some kind of profitable business to be started in giving user testing for pieces of writing. My guess is that most writing is full of really basic things that can be fixed to make it better. (I know that AI writing assistants are supposed to do that in principle, but I think they're not quite there yet.)
The kind of user testing I've done for software was the high-effort, high-setup kind where you have a user sitting at your computer, narrating their thoughts as they try to accomplish specific tasks your software is supposed to do. It's a non-trivial amount of work but was very worthwhile, and I can imagine similar approaches being useful for things like writing (the user reads each paragraph, then comments on any confusion, disagreement or thought that comes to mind), interior decorating (they walk into a room and narrate their impressions), and other things.
i am very here for all of this <3
This was amazing, you’re the best!