How I Started My Blogging Journey
Homework 1 from the Hashnode Technical Writing Bootcamp
December 20, 2020, was the exact day when I began my journey into technical writing and blogging. I signed up, put together a few words, edited it with Grammarly, and posted on my socials, not knowing that more than a half year later I would be joining the team on my favorite blogging platform, Hashnode.
When I started, I didn't have a goal in mind other than to improve my writing. I knew my writing was abysmal from the early days in high school when I asked my friends to edit my papers. I would receive a Google doc back with enough comments and suggested edits; I was almost better off writing the entire document over.
In college, my writing wasn't much better. At this point, I convinced myself that I only needed to take a year of writing classes, and that was it; I wouldn't ever have to write again. I would only be coding at my day job, and some other poor soul would handle the emails and documentation.
Life had other plans.
I wrote essays for financial aid forms, reward recipient application essays, responded to 4-5 professional emails a day, and even non-writing classes required a mesh of words periodically. There wasn't a soul this time around to do my work.
In today's world, writing is becoming an essential skill. We write to document technical processes, teach new ideas, and communicate with each other in our fast-paced digital world. Writing is an inevitable encounter. Taking the opportunity to learn how to write could have a tremendous impact on your career.
That's when I started taking writing a little bit more seriously.
If programming taught me anything in life, the only way to get better is by doing it. Immersing yourself in the code and solving problems is the only way to improve as a programmer.
This same logic applies to writing. I would only improve my writing when I sit down and write. And that's exactly what I did.
Now, I learned two major life lessons back in December when I hit publish:
- I am capable of improving my writing as long as I practice and apply myself
- Learning to write is an essential skill, but good writing is a door opener.
Improving my emails and the way I communicate allowed me to maintain a professional network. Through my blog posts, I establish my credibility as a developer and a blogger. I write blogs as part of my job as a Developer Advocate at Decentology. Through my feedback and persistence, I also became an advocate at Hashnode, working with them to improve the platform I love.
Would I have had these opportunities if I didn't decide to put my writing out there? I would assume not. And don't get me wrong, it was initially daunting, but now I am glad I took that first step.
When reflecting on that day, my goals changed tremendously from when I started. Initially, my goal was to improve my writing. Today, my goal is to write blog posts and tutorials for my audience that will allow them to understand concepts in Web3. Tomorrow, my goal may be something else but will most likely be in conjunction with another career goal I have.
What motivates me to keep going is the one person who may benefit from something I write.
This mindset is how I encourage others to explore writing: aim to reach that one person who will benefit from your post. Sometimes that person will be you, and that is still wonderful.
This blog post was part of my homework from day one of Hashnode's The Art & Business of Technical Writing Bootcamp.
Thank you to Sam Sycamore and Edidiong Asikpo for putting up an insightful introduction on the first day themed Getting Started with Technical Writing. It allowed me to reflect on my past, present, and future of technical writing.