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According to my shiny new Stats page - I’ve now published 1,000 blog posts on my blog.

In the spirit of regular celebration / reflection I figured it was worth sitting down and marking the occasion.

Writing stats

• Blog posts: 1,000
• Notes: 10
• Total words: 862,866
• Average words per post: 854
• Years writing: 13

13 years of writing

We got here via 13 years of writing but that only really counts the number of articles I currently have on my site. I actually started writing sometime in 2009-2010 on one of my tech / video game / gadgets blogs but those are lost to the interwebs (and probably not worth salvaging). And this doesn’t account for the dozens and dozens of journals I’ve had over the years with essays / reflections that will never see the light of day.

If I recall correctly, I started writing because:

• I had a lot of thoughts in my head
• I was bored of school and thought it could ladder up into something fun / useful / make money
• I enjoyed the process
• I had this thought that it would impact the world in some small way - the same way the blogs I’ve read in my life have impacted me

I think I’ve kept writing for similar reasons but several external motivators joined them:

• Helps my career w jobs (at least I think it does)
• Makes some money (though not near enough to make a minimum wage)
• Helps me learn / internalize new things
• Allows me to share projects I’ve been building

How I keep writing

I often get asked how I write so much - though I think some of that question implies why do I write so much.

The answer is I do it habitually. If there’s a big enough idea I’ve had floating around in my head and I think others might find it useful / interesting then I usually think it’s worth logging it somewhere. If I don’t, I’ll likely just keep thinking about it so might as well get it out of my head and on the internet where people can find it.

My typical buckets are (stolen from Simon Willison):

• Things I learned
• Things I found
• Things I built

If I did one of those, found it interesting, and think someone else would find it interesting - then it becomes a seed of a post.

My process is:

• Log idea
• Write quick outline - think atomic essay
• Write post
• Review
• Publish

Over 13 years and 1k+ posts this process has gotten pretty streamlined and I can usually crank out a post in <1h. Probably not the best post you’ve ever read (based on my low readership numbers) but it gets the idea out there which is the goal.

I also think it’s helped that I’ve kept the bar pretty low - I just want to get a basic idea out there roughly once a week. I schedule my posts weeks in advance so it’s okay if I don’t write anything for weeks on end. This removes a lot of the pressure that might occur to stay on schedule and/or perfect something.

Over the past 5 years, I’ve averaged ~100 posts a year (or ~2 a week). (I’ve recently realized this is equivalent to ~1-2 books a year).

Is it worth it?

I don’t regret writing so much but I do think it comes with its highs and lows.

Highs:

• Can go back and reference thoughts from years (and decades!) ago - which is a cool time-traveling experience
• Has led to discussions with many people I never thought I’d get to talk to - like Dan Abramov (creator of React) and Don Syme (creator of F#) to name a few
• Has helped make enough money to discount a lot of my project costs
• Provides an outlet to think through ideas more thoroughly, discuss them w others, and improve my memory (see: Why I write online as a Software Engineer)
• In some small way it feels like it improves the collective knowledge of humanity - perhaps a bit idealistic but the internet is ab as close to a planetary hivemind as we’ve gotten and AI will likely move us closer
• I get way more readership than I thought possible when I started - now averaging ab 35k a month across my properties (though this is relatively small and doesn’t monetize well)
• I get to tinker with my personal site regularly which I think is a fun way to contribute to the open (and sometimes weird) web
• Provided a platform from which to start my YouTube channel which really helped me get over some of my stage fright - at least for presenting stuff I’m familiar with

Lows:

• Most posts get very little readership
• I make way less than minimum wage on these things
• Some people on the internet are mean (though most criticism I get is thoughtful and kind)

What I’d do differently

If I started my writing career over today, a few things I’d probably do differently:

• Start with an SSR blog - I like to own my own data and did way too much with Blogger, Wordpress, Medium, React, SvelteKit, various SSG frameworks. Keep it simple and write a simple web backend while owning my own data. AI makes this a lot easier I think.
• Write atomic essays from the outset - I actually had very concise posts the first few years but then got really wordy. I’d honestly like to get back to more concise posts going forward.
• Be social media native - Writing more for the specific socials. If a post is published to the internet and no one’s around to read it, was it published? Socials are the feed of the internet so meet the people where they are.
• Start my YouTube early - This is where a lot of my posts started getting more traction and it personally helped me a lot with my writing and delivery.
• Start hosting my media in blob storage early - I’ve lost a lot of media over the years that was tied up in whatever convoluted image hosting I was using at the time. Now I just put it in blob storage so I always have it accessible.

What does the future hold?

Idk but I’ll probably keep writing. I’m sure my output will fluctuate - some years more and some less - but I think I’ll keep doing at least 1 post a week. My problem is usually too many ideas / thoughts to get on paper not too little.

At the end of last year, I decided to start a digital garden. If nothing else, I think that will live long-term as some public wiki pages I can share out to people.

I’m sure AI will have an impact on my work as well. I’m already using it to help review drafts and research topics. I could see a world where it starts writing outlines / drafts though I do feel too much of that removes the humanity from writing and that’s one of the things I really like about reading people’s blogs.

I’d love to monetize the blog further such that I could devote more time / energy to it. But tbh I’d probably keep writing on it even if my revenue and readership dropped to ~zero. It’s kind of a habit at this point and one I tend to enjoy.

Next

Thanks for reading and here’s to the next 1,000.

If you liked this post you might also like:

• Notes on writing
• Why I write online as a Software Engineer - Unlocking understanding, memory, and progress
• My Digital Garden