It’s now been about two years since I started seriously blogging. Most of my posts are on Lesswrong, and the most of the rest are scattered about on my substack and the Effective Altruist Forum, or on Facebook. I like writing, but I have an impediment which I feel impedes me greatly.
In short: I often post garbage.
Sometimes when I post garbage, it isn’t until way later that I learn that it was garbage. And when that happens, it’s not that bad, because at least I grew as a person since then.
But the usual case is that I realize that it’s garbage right after I’m done posting it, and then I keep thinking, “oh no, what have I done!” as the replies roll in, explaining to me that it’s garbage.
Most times when this happens, I just delete the post. I feel bad when this happens because I generally spend a lot of time writing and reviewing the posts. Some of the time, I don’t delete the post because I still stand by the main thesis, although the delivery or logical chain of reasoning was not very good and so I still feel bad about it.
I’m curious how other writers deal with this problem. I’m aware of “just stop caring” and “review your posts more.” But, I’m sometimes in awe of some people who seem to consistently never post garbage, and so maybe they’re doing something right that can be learned.
I have a hope that with more practice, this gets better.
Not just practice, but also noticing what other people do differently. For example, I often write long texts, which some people say is already a mistake. But even a long text can be made more legible if it contains section headers and pictures. Both of them break the visual monotonicity of the text wall. This is why section headers are useful even if they are literally: “1”, “2″, “3”. In some sense, pictures are even better, because too many headers create another layer of monotonicity, which a few unique pictures do not. Which again suggests that having 1 photo, 1 graph, and 1 diagram is better than having 3 photos. I would say, write the text first, then think about which parts can be made clearer by adding a picture.
There is some advice on writing, by Stephen King, or by Scott Alexander.
If you post a garbage, let it be. Write more articles, and perhaps at the end of a year (or a decade) make a list “my best posts” which will not include the garbage.
BTW, whatever you do, you will get some negative response. Your posts on LW are upvoted, so I assume they are not too bad.
Also, writing can be imbalanced. Even for people who only write great texts, some of them are more great and some of them are less great than the others. But if they deleted the worst one, guess what, now some other articles is the worst one… and if you continue this way, you will stop with one or zero articles.
Sometimes I send a draft to a couple people before posting it publicly.
Sometimes I sit on an idea for a while, then find an excuse to post it in a comment or bring it up in a conversation, get some feedback that way, and then post it properly.
I have several old posts I stopped endorsing, but I didn’t delete them; I put either an update comment at the top or a bunch of update comments throughout saying what I think now. (Last week I spent almost a whole day just putting corrections and retractions into my catalog of old posts.) I for one would have a very positive impression of a writer whose past writings were full of parenthetical comments that they were wrong about this or that. Even if the posts wind up unreadable as a consequence.
It’s now been about two years since I started seriously blogging. Most of my posts are on Lesswrong, and the most of the rest are scattered about on my substack and the Effective Altruist Forum, or on Facebook. I like writing, but I have an impediment which I feel impedes me greatly.
In short: I often post garbage.
Sometimes when I post garbage, it isn’t until way later that I learn that it was garbage. And when that happens, it’s not that bad, because at least I grew as a person since then.
But the usual case is that I realize that it’s garbage right after I’m done posting it, and then I keep thinking, “oh no, what have I done!” as the replies roll in, explaining to me that it’s garbage.
Most times when this happens, I just delete the post. I feel bad when this happens because I generally spend a lot of time writing and reviewing the posts. Some of the time, I don’t delete the post because I still stand by the main thesis, although the delivery or logical chain of reasoning was not very good and so I still feel bad about it.
I’m curious how other writers deal with this problem. I’m aware of “just stop caring” and “review your posts more.” But, I’m sometimes in awe of some people who seem to consistently never post garbage, and so maybe they’re doing something right that can be learned.
I have a hope that with more practice, this gets better.
Not just practice, but also noticing what other people do differently. For example, I often write long texts, which some people say is already a mistake. But even a long text can be made more legible if it contains section headers and pictures. Both of them break the visual monotonicity of the text wall. This is why section headers are useful even if they are literally: “1”, “2″, “3”. In some sense, pictures are even better, because too many headers create another layer of monotonicity, which a few unique pictures do not. Which again suggests that having 1 photo, 1 graph, and 1 diagram is better than having 3 photos. I would say, write the text first, then think about which parts can be made clearer by adding a picture.
There is some advice on writing, by Stephen King, or by Scott Alexander.
If you post a garbage, let it be. Write more articles, and perhaps at the end of a year (or a decade) make a list “my best posts” which will not include the garbage.
BTW, whatever you do, you will get some negative response. Your posts on LW are upvoted, so I assume they are not too bad.
Also, writing can be imbalanced. Even for people who only write great texts, some of them are more great and some of them are less great than the others. But if they deleted the worst one, guess what, now some other articles is the worst one… and if you continue this way, you will stop with one or zero articles.
Sometimes I send a draft to a couple people before posting it publicly.
Sometimes I sit on an idea for a while, then find an excuse to post it in a comment or bring it up in a conversation, get some feedback that way, and then post it properly.
I have several old posts I stopped endorsing, but I didn’t delete them; I put either an update comment at the top or a bunch of update comments throughout saying what I think now. (Last week I spent almost a whole day just putting corrections and retractions into my catalog of old posts.) I for one would have a very positive impression of a writer whose past writings were full of parenthetical comments that they were wrong about this or that. Even if the posts wind up unreadable as a consequence.