+++
title = "Writing"
date = 2022-05-20
updated = 2022-05-20
slug = "blg"
description = ""
[taxonomies]
  categories =  ["Writing"]
+++

I often receive resumes from people looking for a job and asking me for help. To all of them I always ask: "Do you have a website ?", "Do you write ?". And most of the time, the answer is negative. 

Writing skills are important because they allow the reader to get their first impression of who is the writer. For example: writing skills displayed in resume, cover letter email communications, website. 

This article is an attempt to answer, why I think everybody should have a website. Or at least, why everybody should write. This article is also *kind of* a recap of a talk I gave for the [Dakar Institute of Tecnology](https://dit.sn).

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# <u>Some reasons for you to start writing: </u>



## *1. Improve your knowledge on a topic*

You'll often have to write about subjects that you are not familiar with, so finding quality sources quickly is a skill you'll develop. Before you write a single word, you need to do your research about the topic you're writing on. The more you do research, the more you find quality sources, the more you improve your knowledge.

## *2. Organize your thoughts*

You can write down more than you can easily remember, so that your capacity to consider a number of ideas at the same time is broadened. Once those ideas are written down, you can move them around, change them. You can also reject those that are finally not good enough. You will stay with good, original clearly defined ideas. And you will be able to organize and communicate them easily. 

## *3. Share your expertise, meet fellow specialist and grow your knowledge*

Knowledge is the only thing that grows when shared. Sharing your knowledge helps you grow your knowledge by doing research, synthesizing multiple and different viewpoints. Sharing your expertise means inviting people to read you, inviting people to a new conversation. A conversation is always an occasion to meet new people and to grow as a human.

## *4. Make money*

Even professions that don't focus on writing require written communication skills. The tech industry for example, is more and more looking for people who are able to write. Those writings include things like instruction manuals, user manuals, journal articles, product descriptions, memos, wikis, documentations, etc...

You can have a look [here](https://www.indeed.com/q-Technical-Writer-jobs.html?vjk=1e9cd66778e25548), [then here](https://www.upwork.com/freelance-jobs/technical-writing/), [here again](https://www.glassdoor.com/Job/technical-writer-jobs-SRCH_KO0,16.htm), [also here](https://careers.google.com/jobs/results/93728821645058758-technical-writer-google-cloud/?distance=50&q=technical%20writer)


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# <u>What are the topic to write about: </u>

Coming up with writing inspiration is tough. My advice would be, **in all the cases, always write about something you really like, or something you really enjoy.** As a technical writer, you can write different kinds of articles:

## *1. Story*
   
## *2. Opinion*
   
## *3. Howtos*

## *4. How something work*

## *5. Reviews*

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# <u>Identifying the target audience: </u>


Identifying your intended audience will help you write effective content that achieves your goals. What are you writing ? Who are you writing for ? Knowing your audience will help you adapt your content accordingly. And if you don't know who to write for, then the following is a serie of questions you can ask yourself:

- Who am I writing for ?
- What subject am I writing about ?
- What does my audience already know about the subject?
- What does my audience want to know about the subject?
- What are the questions will my audience have?

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# <u>Finding the audience: </u>

For example, **as a Python specialist**, the audience can be found in different places. Pycoder weekly news want to hear from you about projects you are working on, conferences you are running, and articles you want to share.[share](https://pycoders.com/submissions). Awesome Python is another newsletter who you to [contribute](https://python.libhunt.com/contribute) links to blog posts, tutorials, libraries, events, videos, books. You can share your posts also on [Lobsters](https://lobste.rs/), on [Tilde News](https://tilde.news/), on [dev.to](https://dev.to/), on [towardsdatascience](https://towardsdatascience.com/about).

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# <u>Improving your writing: </u>

The following is what I recommend. In all the cases, you should find what is best for you.

## *1. Practice*

The most effective writers write every day, *at least a bit*.  The more you write, the more your brain form connections between neurons. Those connections get stronger the more often you write. After some time and regular practice, you no longer have to think about it. This is when writing becomes a habit.

## *2. Make time*

Prepare to spend between 90 minutes and 3 hours writing. But hey, 15 minutes can be useful if you do it every day. Don't fool yourself, thinking you'll wait for a big chunk of free time to start. That will never happen. 

## *3. When*

You are much smarter and more resilient after you have slept properly and ate. Again, find what suits you best. According to some studies, creativity peaks in the morning. My experience tells me that's true.

## *4. Frequency*

Write only when you feel it.

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# <u>Tools for writing... SSG:</u>

You should provide yourself with the right technology. Here again, I can tell you what I do, but there are plenty of differents tools, you [should](https://app.hackernoon.com/signup) [always](https://pages.github.com/) [find](https://jekyllrb.com/) [what](https://substack.com/for-bloggers) [suits](https://write.as/start) [you](https://www.blogger.com/about/?bpli=1) [best](https://medium.com/creators). 

I've choosen to build my website using a Static Site Generator (SSG). An ssg is a tool that generates a full static HTML website based on raw data (text files) and a set of templates (html, css, js files). :

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<p style="text-align:center"> <a href="https://devopedia.org/static-site-generators">Image source</a> </p>

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# <u>Why SSG:</u>

- No need for internet for writing, no need to login somewhere before writing.
- no need for a particular environment, just a text editor, and a browser.
- No vendor lock in, no dependency on any product for writing or migrating your content.
- No need for a program to dynamically generate webpages. Web pages load faster.
- No dependencies running on the server, just a web server. Increased security


# I'm convinced, can you show me an example please:

The [article](https://nskm.xyz/posts/blg/) you're reading right now, was generated from a [markdown file]() using an SSG named [Zola]().

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To finish this article, I would like to quote [Leslie Lamport](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Lamport)

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> "If you’re thinking without writing, you only think you’re thinking."

> — Leslie Lamport

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# Links:

To learn more on this topic, I strongly recommend the following links:

- [Think and write, with Leslie Lamport](https://yewtu.be/watch?v=RnY5iJea5ww&t=77s)
- [Jordan Peterson on the importance of reading and writing](https://yewtu.be/watch?v=HOXwDWCoqQg)
- [How writing online made me a millionaire](https://yewtu.be/watch?v=vyVpRiqOvt4)
- [How to improve your clarity of thought ("writing is thinking")](https://yewtu.be/watch?v=tod1sraj8we)
- [Programmers that don't blog should start right now](https://yewtu.be/watch?v=fxLFjOa-9UY)
- [Benefits of writing](https://yewtu.be/watch?v=p8dve3MqQW4)
- [Technical blogging for Python programmers](https://yewtu.be/watch?v=mmU25Xd0BGs)
- [Look deeper -- write -- the wonders of writing](https://yewtu.be/watch?v=aTgPJQ9Dy7Q)
- [What nobody tells you about documentation](https://yewtu.be/watch?v=t4vKPhjcMZg)
- [Spoken words fly away, written words remain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verba_volant,_scripta_manent)
- [Circadian rythm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm)

# Links again:

- [Static Site Generators](https://jamstack.org/generators/)
- [How to choose the right static site generator](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2022/04/18/comparing-static-site-generators/)

# Even more links:

Things that were discussed during the talk:

- [Knuth on Literate Programming](https://yewtu.be/watch?v=Mr3WTR0a5SM)
- [Literate programming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literate_programming)
- [Babel: active code in Org-mode](https://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/babel/)
- [Pandoc, a universal document converter](https://pandoc.org/)
- [Quarto, open-source scientific and technical publishing system built on Pandoc](https://quarto.org/)
- [Logarion, a suite of tools, for discovering, collecting & exchanging texts](https://git.disroot.org/orbifx/logarion)
- [Hugo, the world’s fastest framework for building websites](https://gohugo.io/)
- [Zola, your one-stop static site engine](https://www.getzola.org/)
- [Publii, Static Site Generator with GUI](https://getpublii.com/)

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