Leveling Up My Writing

I have a goal to write 8 blog posts in the next month or two. Rapid fire style, little editing, and no regrets. My reason is the same as my reason for starting this blog in the first place – getting better at writing.

Writing and me have a complex relationship. I used to not care about it, then I was scared of it, and now I find myself striving to become good at it.

Writing in high school

As someone who excelled in math and science in high school, it was too easy to think I didn’t need to be good at writing. I did my assignments, but I never enjoyed them. I claimed to be bad at writing. That mindset was self fulfilling. 

Writing at college

Most of my college classes were computer related and had little to no writing involved. During this time, writing morphed from my bad subject into something that gave me a lot of anxiety. When I finally had to take a writing intensive class, I ended up failing that class twice. I had convinced myself I couldn’t do it. I finally passed by taking advantage of my college’s writing center and asking for help.

Writing at my job

As a programmer, I have an obligation to hone my writing skills. Knowing how to program doesn’t mean much if I can’t communicate which features are worth working on. This is because I’m almost never working alone. I’m constantly writing bug reports and technical plans for my peers. My chance to make a difference here relies on explaining my thought process clearly. And it’s not easy – explaining bugs is really hard. When I’m pressed for time, I still fall back on old habits and end up prioritizing coding over writing.

Writing this blog

When I started this blog in 2017, my goal was to write 1 post per week. Wow, that was ambitious! My rate is much lower than that. I’ve had this blog for 4 years now, and I have 20 posts. Which is perfectly fine! Still, I’m curious to see if I can get my blog post average a little higher for 2021.