I want to write more. I keep a diary, where I write mostly short things about each day. But, it is hard to be intrinsically motivated to write things that only you will see. This isn’t a problem on the internet, where anyone can post what they want. Writing longer blog posts seemed hard, so I joined fosstodon.org (@markp), a decentralized “twitter” social network (I want to avoid twitter due to its algorithmic curation), There, I could write shorter things (which didn’t seem like such a big commitment), and get some social engagement which has been hard to come by lately. On fosstodon, I saw a lot of people posting about 100 Days to Offload, which is just encouraging everyone to just write on their blog, no matter how well put together the posts are. Specifically, the challenge is to write 100 blog posts in a year.

The premise is that writing is a habit that requires effort and time to learn. So I’ve decided to use my blog for this challenge, and to start posting much more often than I have been. My goal is to hit 50 posts in a year, which is only one a week. Not only is this very achievable, and it gives plenty of time to produce content of some quality. 50 posts leaves no room for excuses, and if they go well enough, I may still have time to hit 100.

There is a lot I want to get out of this challenge. Firstly, I want my blog to have some posts that I am proud of and that are helpful. Right now, it is mostly some minor showcases of my projects, but none of them are really that interesting or insightful. Second, I want to get better at editing my writing. It is something that I have always avoided properly doing (if you go back to my early posts, there are some obvious grammatical errors). Thirdly, I want to practice being creative and do other things than just consume. It is much harder to be attentive and focused on creative endeavors, especially after years of putting them aside.

If you are like me, and have always wanted to write and create on the internet, why not start now? If what you make ends up awful, oh well it was just part of that weird challenge to pump out content. The potential for something great to arise, even if unlikely, is worth the effort.