Backend SQL and PHP developer with an infusion of technical writing and entrepreneurial dreams. Working towards paving my own way in the creator economy with lessons learned and more importantly, those yet still to come.
Writing and programming crossroads
Some housekeeping.
I originally had 2 different forms for this email list before re-branding it to the current iteration. If you signed up here or here and no longer wish to receive these emails, please opt out at the bottom of this newsletter. No hard feelings at all.
I notice 2 specific skills that have stuck with me over the last couple of years that are intertwined together:
- Writing
- Programming and Code
- Writing about programming and code
Oops. Yeah, I know.
That's 3 things.
But, do you see the correlation between them?
Is this the magic formula to success I've been searching for to make it as an online creative Techpreneur Developer?
Maybe…
Here are some fears concerns I have about the path of a technical writer, programmer writer, UX writer, or whatever other fancy dancy terms it's called:
- Will my programming skills stagnate?
- Will my writing skills stagnate?
- How do you effectively devote time to each skill since they are both individual superpowers in their own right?
- Is this path difficult to scale as a one-person shop?
- What if I just want to head-down code and not write any? Or vice versa?
The fact of the matter is I love to write code and write about code. Each fuel the other.
When I learn something new about code, I always write about it. Or try to. (In my defense, I have a massive Evernote file with enough blog posts topics in it that I'll never run out of ideas.💡)
WordPress and blogging
I actually enjoy running my own WordPress blog. It is my personal developer diary.
Writing and scheduling the posts are enjoyable and meaningful to me. I like to keep at least 3 weeks of posts in the queue to go out each Wednesday at 6 AM so that makes me tick.
I even wrote, Write Code to Write About Code, over on my Medium account about all of this a good while back so it's definitely been on my mind. (That's a Medium friend link which means you can read the article without being a member. But if you want to join the platform, I'll sing your praises if you use my referral link. 🔗)
All of this leads to another fork in the road for me with the same question I tend to always come to.
Is this something I can sustain, or is this shiny object syndrome?
I definitely feel like if I were to do more technical writing, then I would yearn for more programming and code. Plus, I mostly write about PHP and SQL and can put a draft together on either of those subjects without much fuss.
However, I know if I'm writing about an unfamiliar topic, then I have a research and learning period as well. This is pretty common in the technical writer field and a lot of people do it.
But, could I?
Newsletters
Newsletters are all the rage these days. I've been writing and publishing my own curated developer newsletter, OpenLampTech, for the last 6+ months.
It is really taking off and honestly, I enjoy creating and reading it as much as the subscribers do (I hope).
OpenLampTech is actually the newsletter I wish had existed. And, now it does.
Perhaps a developer newsletter, with a good mix of original and curated content, scratches both the programming and writing itches for me?
I'll finish up here for now.
Enjoy and be safe if you are in the US and celebrate the Memorial Day Holiday.
I enjoyed these 3 reads this week:
Hi! I'm Joshua Otwell.
Backend SQL and PHP developer with an infusion of technical writing and entrepreneurial dreams. Working towards paving my own way in the creator economy with lessons learned and more importantly, those yet still to come.
Read in browser I've noticed an interesting metric that I believe deserves some attention (from me at least). In 4+ years of weekly blogging on my Digital Owl's Prose developer blog, I have approximately 180 readers who receive an email every time I publish an article. To be fair, this isn't necessarily the same thing as an email list but, is instead a WordPress(dot)com thing. However, in 6+ months of publishing my weekly OpenLampTech Substack newsletter, I have amassed approximately 132 (at...
Some housekeeping. I originally had 2 different forms for this email list before re-branding it to the current iteration. If you signed up here or here and no longer wish to receive these emails, please opt out at the bottom of this newsletter. No hard feelings at all. I believe goal setting is essential in order to track progress or regression. My short-term goal is to consistently make $50/month combined from any of my side hustles. Seems reasonable right? Not too overly ambitious. I'll...
Some housekeeping. I originally had 2 different forms for this email list before re-branding it to the current iteration. If you signed up here or here and no longer wish to receive these emails, please opt out at the bottom of this newsletter. No hard feelings at all. "Skills pay the bills…" That is the jest of it at least. However, are self-taught or self-realized skills also valuable? Sometimes I feel I need some form of validation for the skills I've learned on my own as a self-starter or...