Blog Post Writing Club
by Željko Filipin
Inspiration
Smokers pressure you to light one, drinkers pressure you to drink one, we pressure you to publish one. – Hrvoje Šimić
In August 2020 I’ve read a very interesting article. Word rafting by Hrvoje Šimić. The idea is simple. Create a small club. Agree on the rules. Each member has to publish an article in a time frame. If you don’t publish, you have to leave the club.
The Club
I liked the idea. I had a blog since 2005. Sometimes I would publish multiple posts in day. Sometimes there would be months between posts. I wanted to write more. I didn’t think I could publish every week. Publishing every month sounded more realistic.
I’ve asked around at work and in October 2020 three of us started on the adventure. Elena and Soham joined me in this crazy experiment. In the first year, we’ve had members joining and leaving the club. The club never had less than 2 or more than 4 members.
Tyler joined Elena and me in June 2021, completing our current membership.
Rules
We’ve made some minor changes to the rules over the last year. These are the current rules.
- You have to publish 1 blog post a month. (The last day of the month is the deadline.)
- If you do not publish on time, you are kicked out of the club. (You can join the club after 1 month.)
- The club can have a maximum of 5 members at any time.
- All communication happens at invite-only private super-secret Slack group writing-club.
Results
In the last 12 months, I’ve published between 1 and 5 articles a month, 28 articles in total. That’s a bit over 2 articles a month on average. Exactly what I was looking for. Positive peer pressure to keep me publishing every month.
I was hoping our internal chat will be more busy, with members reviewing each other draft posts. That didn’t happen. At least not yet. I’ve also tried suggesting that every member leaves a public comment for other member’s posts. That didn’t happen too.
I’m hesitant to open the invitation to the club to anybody. I’m not sure how the club would work if we didn’t all know each other. If I know you well, and you’re interested, let me know. The club still is accepting 2 more members.
tags: wikimedia - years