Writing a very first blog post

Okay, that one is the first one. A blogging beginner usually tries to write a few posts about his predilection topic, which would sound like a wise choice at first sight, but assuming one is not a prolific author yet, he could also choose to go the easy way and do what ninety percent of bloggers on earth do : blog on blogging! We can consider quite a number of advantages for your very first blog post to be meta-blogging.

He said Let there be fluff, and there was fluff

Actually, this post is even worse than meta-blogging. Meta-blogging is blogging on blogging. But this post is blogging on one’s own blogging. How would you call that? Meta²-blogging? Meta-own-blogging? Licking oneselve’s toes?
Anyway, let’s take an example here of why it is not so wrong to go that way. When a presenter in a conference starts talking, he, if given any sense of social habits and conformism, never immediately starts by talking about the actual topic he wants to dive into. That would sound really strange. Remember any time you were at school, having a talk to do in front of your class? By the time the teacher calls your name, thus indicating that your moment of fame is happening NOW, you begin to feel a little pain in the belly, without being able to associate it with anything remotely rational.
Yes, you did think of some kind of joke or funny sentence to begin with, but when you come in front of your colleagues, it’s (of course) all gone and you just stand there, stuck with your paper and hopefully the connection between your computer and the video projector needs your help, which allows you to have a little relief and gives you the feeling that you stand here for a valid reason (fixing this sh*tty video projector who refuses to work). Anyway, now everything’s alright, and you really have to talk. Then, invariantly, instead of beginning by the funny line you thought about, which is at this time long forgotten in your mind, you choose to flee. Yes, you flee in your main topic, because it allows you to forget the audience, to forget that you feel stupid, and most of all, to forget that your mind can’t think of anything to say apart from what is now written in big Calibri characters on the white wall behind you (and that you suddenly realize you should have given a little more time than yesterday evening 23pm to this morning 2am).
And guess what the audience feels right now, the very moment you start talking, and they realize that your first sentence directly concerns your main topic, without any introduction ? I’ll help you with this one : the audience feels pain. The pain of knowing that you’re ill-at-ease to the point of not being able to think, but barely to read what they could perfectly read without the help of your funny tremolo voice. The audience expects (wants) you to jump in the big empty space in front of you, and because you’re convinced that instead of jumping, you’re gonna fall, then you cling to the first branch that prevents you from falling.
Kind of awkward, you know. We all did this at least once, and we will do this again in our lives, but it’s arguably not the best way to start a talk. So, why would it be a good way to start a blog ? Let’s talk of anything that the blog won’t be about, first, and once the fluff is done, when your readers begin to get used to your style and to know you a little better, then dive into your topic.

Setting the expectations

Another point for what we could call meta-fluffing (fluffing on fluff ?) from now on, is to set the expectations for your blog-to-be. Not like “yeah, the expectation bar is very high blablabla”, but rather let your readers decide whether or not your blog is gonna be good for them to read. And most importantly, whether or not they’re gonna stand your heavy and clumsy and not-mature-yet way of writing for the time it will take to improve (usually several months), before you being able to enchant them with really insightful posts with a unique and subtle touch.
But as every kind of meta-(place what you want here), this first post is as for the readers to read as for the author to learn about his own writing. You see, I could publicly ask myself “what is my writing like ?” but now THIS would be boring. So instead, I could decide to write a post showing both you and me that yeah, this is my writing, at least it looks like this. Because you don’t know yet, and I don’t know yet. It informs you, and it helps me. Who said win-win ? No, please, no business jargon here.

Thou shall learn from your ancestors

Do you know how Zidane learned football ? For you Americans, football is just the way we, rest of the world, talk about what you call soccer. So how ? Yeah by playing football, you smart ass. Of course. But apart from that ? He learned to play football (or soccer) by watching other guys who were really, really good at playing football (or soccer). By listening to their advice, and most importantly by paying close attention to what they did right that the others (who didn’t play as well) did wrong. For instance, what made Pelé a great player, partly lies in the following explanation.
During a world-cup game in the 60’s, Pelé once realized that the opponent goalkeeper had a strong tendency to stay really far off his cage. He noticed that during the first half of the game, and then in the second half, he waited for an opportunity to shoot from a very long distance (far in his own part of the field). The opportunity came, and Pelé shot, totally surprising the opponent and his own team. Then, he missed the goal. So what ? He could have passed the ball to a team mate, eventually leading to score, but that wouldn’t have been as bold. He choose to shoot, missed, and that was part of what made him a great player. Because he took the risk. From now on, any team in the world that wasn’t Brazil would be terrified by what Pelé what capable of attempting. Even if obviously each time he had some chances to fail and some other chances to succeed, it was not the point. The point is that he was willing to take the risk, and therefore, knowing a bit about the ability of Pelé to correcly use both his feet (and his head, and his chest, and unlike Maradona, not his left hand), opponent teams had now no choice but to adapt by trying to prevent Pelé from putting his risk-taking tendency into action. Thus, playing a more defensive football/soccer. And thus again, being less able to expand their game and occupy the field. It’s kind of a negative-spiral self-realizing prediction, when other teams began failing over and over because of being so afraid to fail, which made them even more afraid to fail, and so it goes.
Back to Zidane. Of course, he saw the game we just finished talking about, and not just once. In a very Socratesque way, he made the following assumption : “Pelé is a great player. Pelé takes risks. So, great players take risks” (I leave to you the debate of knowing whether this logical assessment is valid or not. Oh by the way, it is not). Zidane saw this and himself not willing to stay a little nation-wide player, knew that if he wanted to become a world-class player, he had no choice but to take risks too. So he tried. And he… well, he kind of succeeded. And again. And again. Well okay, this blog is not aimed to be a YouTube “Zidane Best Goals” channel.
Anyway, the important thing is : Zidane learned from his ancestors, which humbly show the way of success to every person willing to pay attention.

What do the best bloggers do

So what could this blog’s author learn from his ancestors ? Apart from the fact that calling them ancestors is not necessarily the best way of making friends of them (which after all we absolutely don’t care), we could dress a list of several bloggers in the computer and startup field (which is what this blog is about) who are both wildly inspiring and widely successful :

• Paul Graham (I didn’t want to begin with Joel Spolsky)
• Joel Spolsky (now that is done)
• Jeff Atwood
• Steve Yegge
• And so on

What lessons do they teach ? If we could once again make a list to enumerate pieces of writing advice given by these authors, it would probably look something like this:

1. Get people to review your articles
2. Use and develop your own style
3. Don’t be afraid of writing your very first articles
4. Don’t be afraid of what you think others will think

We can associate each of these items to one particular reason. The following is to be read like this : “Advice number (X), because (blablablabla)” :

1. Because at the beginning it will be crap
2. Because at the beginning it will be crap
3. Because at the beginning it will be crap
4. Because at the beginning you will think it’s crap, and you’ll be rightADF+

So let’s choose to go the Zidane way : pay attention to one’s Pelé bloggers (being the authors mentioned up-front), and assume one’s very first posts will be crap. Don’t be afraid, let’s get them reviewed, assume your style, and everything will be fine. And then the bloggin’ goes.