HN frontpage for a day!
by Steph SmithYesterday, I wrote an article about my writing process. In the article, I was really transparent about not actually being a "natural" writer and how I've designed a process enabling me to get past that. I think that sentiment resonated with many others, since many people also don't consider themselves writers.
I submitted the piece to Hacker News and just before I went to bed, it hit the front page! It hovered in the teens last night and interestingly enough, it actually moved higher as I slept through the traffic wave. It's been in the top 5 for most of today and 18 hours later, it's still sitting at 9.
There has also been a really lovely conversation in the comments section, where people are sharing their own writing tips, practices, and techniques. There's a few that I want to try, like attending writing meetups which I hadn't heard of before.
Post is here for those asking!
HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21172686
Link to article: https://blog.stephsmith.io/learning-to-write-with-confidence/
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Attending meetups or writer's workshops (and then later making casual cafe-chilling writer meetup groups with those people) is a great way to improve and build camaraderie
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Awesome! Out of curiosity, where do you find these groups? I asked the commenter who suggested it on Hacker News, but I haven't heard back!
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Awesome Steph! Amazing article really.
The Hacker News community is really choosy but when they shower love they are very generous. Apart from getting feedback and having conversations, did you have other motive too
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Thanks Suvansh!
I love posting on HN for that very reason. I've actually been lucky enough to have four of my articles hit the frontpage now. Each time, I get super valuable feedback. People poke holes in my reasoning. Others provide new points of view. Some offer additional data points that support the article's line of thinking.
I find the feedback often (although not always) more thoughtful than other platforms which are sometimes overly positive. So, I suppose to answer your question, my main goal when posting there is to validate or invalidate parts of my thinking. Of course, it's nice to get a traffic spike, but I find the feedback more useful in the long-term.
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And sometimes the content sparks awesome conversations!
I revisited your post today and was surprised that the community showed the side of HackerNews you were referring to by sharing some constructive feedback with "soneca".
Such incidents make suffering the vile worth it.
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Yes, Hacker News has been surprisingly good to me and especially on this particular post!
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Totally agree stephsmith. We made frontpage 2 times in one month. The feedback we got was great. We probably made about 5 big site changes based on that feedback (i.e. our chat box was at the time too aggressive, our font color was too light, we lacked detail in one piece of content we created and a few other points as well).
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Exactly! When you "launch" in other places, the feedback is often so rosy, you get no clear picture of whether you're doing things right or wrong. HN will tell it like it is, so it's much more gratifying to make it there, but also get the useful feedback to improve even more.
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I read this yesterday and thought it was really good! Great work.
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Steph you're REALLY good... I am glad you posted here. Watching you ;)
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Great, congrats!
I think your article hits where it hurts for HN audience, coders who also try to write, and that's probably why it's so popular.
What will you write about next?-
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That's a great point! I didn't draw that parallel.
I have sooo many future ideas. Literally 50+ in progress. A couple of upcoming articles:
- Digital detoxing
- WTF is remote work
- Unstoppable people
- Living with mental clarity
Thanks for asking!
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Steph: happy to trade hours with you to provide feedback on remote work, unstoppable people, or mental clarity blogs in exchange for your review and feedback on some drafts I have in progress. You can see my blog at https://www.skmurphy.com/blog I have 1900 posts up since 2006 and another couple of hundred in the hopper in various stages of completion. You can reach me directly at [email protected]
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This comment was deleted 2 years ago.
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Oops, I forgot to link originally - just added!
Here they are:
HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21172686
Link to article: https://blog.stephsmith.io/learning-to-write-with-confidence/
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