Learning to write again

Somewhere around the time I got good at my job, I stopped writing anything longer than a commit message. Not on purpose. Writing just quietly fell off the list of things I did, and nothing announced its absence.

I noticed when I tried to explain a design decision to a new teammate and could not. I knew the answer, but the knowing was a shape in my head, not a sentence. That is what years of not writing does: the thoughts are still there, they have just lost their edges.

The bar was too high

My first attempt was to “start a blog.” I set up a site, wrote a draft titled “What I learned in ten years of engineering,” and abandoned it at 400 words. The title was the problem. It demanded a kind of essay I was not in shape to write.

So I lowered the bar. Then I lowered it again.

What worked

1. A notes category. Half of this site is short, unpolished notes. Giving them a home with a low-status name made them feel allowed.
2. One paragraph counts. If a post is a single paragraph and a link, it ships.
3. Write the thing I just explained. Whenever I finish explaining something in a message, I paste it into a draft. The first version is already done.
4. No drafts folder older than a month. If I have not finished it, I did not want to write it.

What I got back

The edges. When I write a thing down, I find out where I actually disagree with myself. It is uncomfortable and it is the entire value.

I am not a better writer than I was a year ago. I am a more frequent one, which turns out to be the thing that matters.