Why I Write

I just read an interesting article by Craig Partridge titled “Things I Wish I’d Been Told”. A ways down the page, he has a paragraph titled “Learn to Write”. I thought he did a great job putting into words things I’ve been thinking over of late so I thought I would quote it below along with my thoughts.

Writing is important

Writing is a vital skill. If you can spell out your thoughts (and their implications) in a way that ordinary humans can understand, you’re more likely to get your project funded, have marketing promote it, and have sales get customers for it.

On top of this, learning to spell out your thoughts gives you a better understanding of things. I’ve always believed that teaching and writing force me to have a level of understanding much higher than simple doing.

Writing can get your name out

Writing ability also earmarks you as someone worth watching, as a technical star.

This is one of the main reasons that I write. When people know you, things are easier. There are two ways that I’m aware of to get known as a developer. The first is to build something so cool that everyone has heard of it and the second is to write about things. I’m beginning to become known in the Rails community, but I am far from the best Rails programmer. There is a huge mountain of developers better than me, but most of them never take the time to teach online.

Writing will always help and never hurt

You are likely to become known outside your company as a talented person, which is important for career building.

This is huge. The more your are known outside of your company, the more opportunities you will have, opportunities that can be pounced on or simply used as a bargaining point in your current company. Either way, it will never hurt you and always help.

Conclusion

I write in hopes that occasionally I’ll write something that inserts my name in the community. I write because when I write I have to think about things from a different perspective, which increases my understanding. I write because I am a statwhore and I love to watch my pageviews go up when I post good content. Whatever your reason is, be aware of it and tailor your efforts to that.

If you write to make a name for yourself, either continually post great beginner guides or come up with awesome experiments that would inspire the middle to high class of the community. If you write to learn, make sure every post is in depth and covers both sides of the topic. If you write for traffic, pick one of the two reasons I just mentioned and keep it up for a while. The traffic will come. :)