Imperfect

shoot more shots

Inspired by Alban's My tiny Bear Blog hit #2 on Hacker News.

Writing, even as simple as brain-dumping what's on your mind or listing likes, can help you discover what you want to write. Does prevalent online pessimism show how underrated sharing stories like those you enjoy is? Could tastemaking slay doomsaying?

Speaking of simplicity, quicker cadences taught me the value of shipping full works at any scale. Feedback can come from a few sentences or a thousand words. However, I find excess constrictive with how thousands of words overwhelm me. I don't often read writing of that length, so that clicks. Would people be best served most commonly writing at the scale of their reading, whether it's tweets or entire novels?

You can minimize writing time in many ways. Push yourself to go faster as in James' Speed matters: Why working quickly is more important than it seems. Lower your standards a la Oliver's 70% rule, found from Sal's Seventy percent, which I'll shorten to "Ship what you're about 70% happy with". Sal continues:

Once something's good enough for the intended purpose, just do the dang thing and move on.

You can deliver sufficient content without spilling over into your busy life. Worst case, writing online can be as simple as typing into a text box and clicking a button to publish it. You can always add or edit in more complexity later.

On process: Alban's stacking, whittling down, and rewriting of talking points parallels my own. Inspirational content becomes scaffolding in the form of separate free writing, summative bullet outlines, or block quotes to "reply" under. Fitting bookmarks and other newfangled inspirations soon get mixed in. Once offline fulfillment arrives, I then save my work online as a draft. Works get re-read once or multiple times, by sight or out loud. Fixes are inevitable: typos, grammar, phrasing, incorrect links, etc. Once online fulfillment arrives, posts get scheduled for publishing. Like Alban, titles are often last-minute decisions. Iterating through AI-generated lists of short yet summative titles sometimes results in bangers. Other times, I find the answer myself.

I can see how A blog post is a very long and complex search query to find fascinating people and make them route interesting stuff to your inbox. However, I expect said process to compound after routing intrigue to other writers. My inbox activity has exceeded my wildest expectations for how lowkey this blog's presence has been. Even so, many of my email conversations seem curtailed from what they could be. Other writers that emailed me or that I know of hint at long-winded conversations. How distant am I to their communicative rapport? Are empty inboxes of quantity (or even quality) the norm even for the most socialized writers?

Even if you wish to, you don't have to go through this journey alone. Value more readers for how they can beget more regulars and even outliers. Cherish and nurture those keystone roles within your virtual ecosystem. Find how you can return their favor or pay it forward to other people you value. Share fun toys for them to play with like your thoughts, projects, or otherwise. Should you somehow go viral, people will have that much more reason to stick around in your virtual space or even befriend you.

In my eyes, Alban's post shows how to practice internet optimism after summiting. He showcases his inspirations front and center. His trajectory is upward and outward. His takeaways scream "shoot more shots". Like us, you too can write and publish posts in a few hours or less.

More importantly, you can email your favorite people in much less time. Sure, everyday life can make direct conversation a big hurdle. But with how few communicate consistent quality interest in other people, reaching out remains a very low risk activity with very high rewards.

Don't wait for others to react to you. React to them first. Build rapport such that thousands of reads convert to a fuller inbox than you can imagine. Downgrade from hard mode by accruing quantity with underlying connections instead of quantity alone.

Want to reach out? Connect with me however you prefer: