Not too long I ago, I read a post by Scott Abel, The Great Documentation Brain Drain: What Happens When Our Experts All Retire? And he had a quote that’s stayed with me since: “So, if you’re an industry veteran, here’s my plea: write it all down before you retire”.
Technically, I’m about 6 years from retirement. Realistically, I’m going to keep working till I’m sick of it, because a) money is good, and b) I love my job.
And since I love my job, I love the idea of sharing what I’ve learned, what’s worked, what hasn’t worked (sometimes spectacularly), as well as just random musings.
However, I’ve lost count on the number of times I’ve started a blog. So many ideas, so many domain names purchased. I think I got as far as writing 10 posts for one blog before I gave up.
Why do I think this one will be different?
- I’m looking at this as a brain-dump, not a monetization effort.
- Thanks to #1, there’s no pressure on me to perform. Which means…
- I get to focus on writing about what I love or am passionate about, not what will get me views.
- I’m not forcing myself to be on a publishing schedule, other than publishing enough so that if people hit my site, they see that I’m an active blogger.
- I don’t have a comments option, and and I’m not marketing via social media, so if you hate what I write, you’ll have to really work at it to let me know about it.
Who knows, maybe this time, I’ll get past 10 posts (which is pretty much guaranteed as I’m not publishing this blog till I have 10 posts written).
If you find something here you enjoy, or makes you think, that’s great. If you don’t, that’s okay too, because I’m not here to appeal to everyone. I’m here because I love technical writing, and this gives me more opportunities to talk about it.