Writers love to write about why they write. It almost feels like a tradition or right of passage for someone who writes to write about writing. The reason this topic comes to mind is because I recently finished my 30 day writing challenge (and by recently I mean about a month ago, but hey writing writes itself at its own pace!). I gave this challenge a try because I was so inspired by the examples others had set through their daily challenges and their work to share content online. From @adacito’s 100 Words for 100 Days, to swyx’s learning in public mantra, and from other articles like these, I realized I had to give it a shot. There’s so much value in writing more and sharing more so I decided to tap into that. That’s why I combined the idea of learning in public with a writing challenge, to ensure that I would really do it. I wrote daily, with one exception, from January 13th to February 11th. The whole point of this challenge way to try to stretch myself and I clearly saw where my limits were. I learned a lot throughout this attempt, from the act of writing and from what I wrote about!

Publishing and the Writing Process

One of my big personal challenges with writing is simply the act of publishing. Publishing is hard. Sharing what you write feels like letting go of a piece of yourself, at least for me it does. Even when I was just writing things that were just facts, I was still giving away my knowledge and showcasing where I might lack. Writing is an act of exposing a piece of yourself, no matter what that writing is. It seems so easy. Just click that button (or in the case of my Jekyll blog, push that commit) and your message is released out into the world. But right before I click, is when I start to overthink things, to want to revise things over and over and over again. Don’t get me wrong, the editing process is super important, but at some point you just need to let your writing go. One of the great thing about posting online, and especially on your own site, is that for the most part, you can go back and edit things. Have a small typo? No problem, just jump back in and make the fix. Want to reexplain an idea? You can do it. Even if I never touch those notes again, there’s a certain ease of mind I get knowing I can go back and fix any mistakes in a jiffy. Knowing this really helped me accept the fact that my editing time would be short and let my writing go. If it was important, I could always go back. The undo and redo button would always be there waiting for me, whenever I needed it.

This challenge forced me to confront myself on the daily and publish. Before, I liked to think about writing, and how nice it would be to write more, but thanks to the challenge I actually did it. Posting became a habit and something that I didn’t have time to overthink. With every post I completed, a deadline always appeared the next night and I had to do things quickly. Normally I spent days or weeks on a writing piece or explanation, really honing it down to be as perfect as it can be. Yet that’s the thing, your writing will never be perfect. I really internalized that as I was completing my daily postings. Now I feel like I do write more, and I do it with a bit more comfort. Practice is everything when it comes to these skills.

Learning in Public

I love the idea of learning in public. I’m a big believer in self-learning, so much so that sometimes it feels like there’s so much to learn online, it’s almost overwhelming because I want to know more. No matter how you’re learning something, the fact is, if you can’t explain it to someone else, you haven’t fully understood it yourself yet. This process of reprocessing and reiterating knowledge is so important when learning anything new and this challenge helped me a lot with that. When I would write down the note for the day, I’d typically try my best to write from memory. Sometimes though, I’d need to go back and refer to the material I was drawing from. This helped me pinpoint places where my knowledge lacked which reinforced the lessons that I’d learned. A big benefit of recording what you’re learning too is that it allows you to see how you grow. I loved seeing how concepts that I started to understand at the start of the challenge, would grow and expand by the end.

Yet learning in public is more than just writing down what you’ve learned, the public part is an essential component of that. Like I explained at the beginning, it’s only thanks to the inspiration of others that I even thought of undertaking this challenge. There are so many amazing people writing online about so many incredible topics. From blogs to tutorials to stories, there’s something for everyone. I wanted to do my part to contribute back in a way. Without all the work others have put to create accessible tutorials and posts, I wouldn’t have this site or anything that I’ve written here. I’m so grateful for how others have helped build the web, so I felt a responsibility to do my part. If even one person could read something I wrote and learn something or feel something or do something because of it, to me that would be a huge success. Even if no one else does, I’ve still gained so much from this experience and I’m glad I did it.

In the end, I learned a ton and this challenge has been a lot of fun! If any of this spoke to you at all, give it a whirl, even if it’s just for a week. You never know, it might stick!

You can check out what I wrote here.

Until next time!