November 26, 2022 Why You Should Write Anyway

We are down to the final days of #nowrimo and I have managed to procrastinate like a professional.

For weeks I have put it off, thinking “Yeah, I’ve got time.”.

Now this weekend I finally sat down to write, so of course I had to redesign my blog first before I could write anything.

And set up a Mastadon account: @davidalpert@hachyderm.io.

And learn how to verify myself on Mastadon.

And redesigning my blog template led me to review the Categories on this blog.

That led me to review and re-catogorize all the content.

Which led me to discover, revive, and publish a handful of old drafts.

This got me to thinking about why we don’t write, why we stop ourselves, and why we should write anyway.

All Writers Procrastinate

I started a series of blog posts about git fundamentals last #nowrimo and only wrote one post before December came. Then I let myself get distracted all year. Before last November you can find a 6 year gap where I didn’t write any posts at all.

Procrastinating does not mean that you cannot write; for many of us it is part of the process.

The reasons I have heard (and told myself) not to write can be numerous. While some are common, others are deeply personal.

It is not our job to judge, however; our job is to create.

Write anyway.

5 Reasons to Write (Despite All the Reasons Not To)

1. No one else will create the content that you will create or express things in the same way you will.
2. You never know who may need to hear exactly the words that you will find.
3. Demonstrate (for yourself and others) that it is safe to not know things, and safe to learn in public.
4. Make a record of what you learn (in case you forget it).
   • It is great fun to search for an answer to a problem and find a link to your own post explaining the solution.
5. Accumulate a resume of your experience.
   • If I hadn’t written this post I would never have realized that I have been teaching git for 10 years.

Write anyway.