Prior to now couple of years, I’ve printed over 150,000 phrases of content material on web3. Not everybody agreed with what I wrote, however I imagine it is vital to externalise the concepts and views you have got, both by way of dialog or writing. The nice concepts you possibly can refine additional, whereas you progress on from the unhealthy understanding they aren’t worthy of additional rationalization.
My writing started with The Blockchain Innovator’s Handbook and continued with these weekly posts which commenced in January 2022.
Till I wrote my e-book, I had by no means been a eager author. I loved being a shopper of books, however going by way of the method of writing, after which publishing a e-book helped me to understand the craft of writing.
It’s invigorating to seize your concepts and ideas of their rawest kind by way of writing — writing is the only and purest type of expression.
Writing my first e-book
It was in 2021 that I made a decision to jot down the Blockchain Innovator’s Handbook. By this level, I’d already spent quite a lot of years engaged on blockchain expertise and wished to externalise the information that was sitting idle in my thoughts.
Neil Gaiman refers to this because the seed on your story. As soon as planted it must be tended to, cultivated and to develop into one thing magnificent over time.
I had my seed, and created a construction for the e-book. The subsequent stage was writing.
I set myself a aim of writing 1000 phrases per day, 5 days per week. This enabled me to commit the primary draft down in a comparatively quick house of time. I really discovered this course of liberating, the place I blocked out 2-3 hours per day to get my phrases performed.
I didn’t edit on the fly, I simply stored writing till I hit my phrase quota. The vital factor was to get right into a state of circulation every day, the place I used to be committing phrases to the web page as shortly as they had been coming to me.
Remarkably I managed to hit my goal of 30,000 phrases, however now the true work commenced. Many months had been spent refining this draft, working with reviewers and editors to supply one thing value publishing.
It was liberating once I acquired the primary copies of the e-book for evaluate. The tact then shifted towards selling its launch.
One of many actually enjoyable occasions alongside the way in which was a having a e-book launch. I had no thought the way to do one, however due to some nice assist from the Web3 Labs group, we held an official launch on the finish of 2021.
Along with making a gift of signed copies of the e-book, there was even a book-shaped cake for everybody to get pleasure from!
Along with making a gift of signed copies of the e-book, there was even a book-shaped cake for everybody to get pleasure from!
The tastiest model of The Blockchain Innovator’s Handbook
Writing as an outlet
Within the months that adopted the e-book’s launch, I discovered myself lacking the method. I used to be craving for that inventive outlet and the sensation of accomplishment that got here with producing written content material.
This notion of manufacturing a inventive piece of labor gave me one thing that was lacking from operating Web3 Labs. As a enterprise proprietor, you are consistently being thrown balls from totally different instructions and also you attempt to maintain as a lot of them within the air directly as you possibly can.
Because of this, from one week to the subsequent your focus is continually shifting between placing out fires, working with clients, your groups and strategic considering.
This could at occasions go away you feeling such as you’re not being as productive as you need. That is the place writing could be therapeutic, and provide the feeling of accomplishment, even whenever you’ve been leaping from one factor to a different along with your work.
Publishing this weekly e-newsletter stuffed that void and allowed me to share my ideas every week on web3 and the place I imagine it to be heading.
Within the 7-plus years of focussing on this area, it has advanced in methods I’d by no means have imagined, however offering a balanced opinion is vital.
Writing versus programming
As somebody who spent 15 years as a developer, there are fascinating parallels between the method of writing and the method of making software program. Of the 2, I discover writing tougher than programming. Non-programmers could discover this difficult to understand, however programming languages are easier than pure languages.
Programming languages every have their very own syntax which defines the mix of symbols that can be utilized to outline laptop packages.
If you write code you have got a compiler that validates what you’ve got written is sensible. It then turns it into machine code that a pc runs for you. The code compiles efficiently and runs or it fails alongside the way in which.
It is black and white in these respects. You might have guidelines to comply with which produce an output that both works or does not so far as the creator is worried.
Writing is much extra nuanced. Not like programming the place you might be offering directions to a machine, whenever you write you might be speaking to others.
You not solely want to jot down in a cohesive method that is sensible but in addition faucet into human psychology to make sure that your viewers is compelled to learn what you have got written.
This has turn into more and more difficult given the huge variety of data sources that individuals are uncovered to every day. As soon as it was solely adverts, however now you have got tiny nuggets on a number of social media platforms all vying for folks’s consideration.
This has additional shifted the kind of content material that folks write, however in some respects made it easier for content material creators on social media platforms. The extra sensational the content material, the better it’s to attract folks in.
No matter the kind of content material being written, with the ability to resonate along with your viewers is vital. In software program improvement, your target market is the end-users of the software program.
Each require you to speculate critical hours in your craft and are extremely satisfying whenever you get feedback out of your viewers that issues are working or resonating for them.
The general public consuming your work is not going to make you conscious they’ve learn or used it. This makes suggestions or feedback all of the extra beneficial.
Having spent a lot time coding, it has positively influenced my writing workflow. Like with writing a program I sketch out elements of an article earlier than I write it, offering some free construction.
Writing in Markdown is probably the most paired-back format I’ve discovered. It is simply you and your textual content, with no formatting menus, every part is achievable by way of the keyboard. I take into account it the closest there’s to utilizing a typewriter, however with magical formatting choices that make it easy to format textual content as you want.
The affect of AI on writing
Even with the abundance of content material throughout the totally different social media platforms, we’ve got now entered a brand new section of content material creation pushed by AI.
Previous to the emergence of ChatGPT, the one method for long-form content material to be generated was by way of copywriters of transcription companies. We’re now coming into a brand new section within the evolution of content material the place essays could be generated with ease.
This does imply that we’re drowning in ever extra content material, making it tougher than ever to floor the nuggets of data amongst all of it.
From my very own private perspective, I don’t write my content material with AI. However, I’ve embraced AI instruments to sharpen what I write. I see AI assistants reminiscent of ChatGPT as akin to junior employees members. They’ll present extra views and repair features of what you’ve got written, however they should be watched intently, and positively not trusted blindly.
The way in which I see it’s that we have to have people proceed to jot down high quality content material that can be used to additional prepare the AI.
We could also be at a disruptive level within the evolution of content material creation, however at its coronary heart, machines at finest can solely simulate people and our writing. As such, I do not see a have to cease writing any time quickly.
In writing as with code, nothing is ever excellent, it could actually constantly be improved upon. Therefore there’ll all the time be a necessity for people to make machines higher. And this coupled with the psychological readability that comes with writing is motivation sufficient to maintain going.
That being stated, within the coming months I’m going to take a break from publishing the weekly essays. There’s nonetheless loads to jot down about in web3, however there’s additionally rather a lot I have to share on Web3 Labs services and products which proceed to develop. I’ll be persevering with to place out content material by way of web3labs.com, however these essays can be extra sporadic.
