Write Like You Code

As I’ve been writing more and more words (be that strategy reports for clients or blog posts like this) instead of code and I’ve noticed a change in the way I write. I don’t mean the style, but the actual process of creating.

I can’t say if this is true for everyone, but certainly for me, when I used to write anything I would have what I needed in my head, and it would all pour out in a single linear stream with my fingers generally being the limiting factor. Granted at this point what I’d generally be writing was just an email or perhaps some short technical documentation.

As I’ve had to evolve to write more and longer items of work, be that strategy documents, white papers or content for you dear reader I’ve found that instead of writing linearly I start with a blank page and kind of splurge ideas out onto it in anything but a linear fashion. Like throwing paint haphazardly at a canvas. I’ll write random paragraphs. I’ll leave notes to myself about what I’m thinking but don’t quite have the words to express. 

And then I’ll go back and edit and edit again. In fact, I’ll usually spend as much if not more time editing than I will writing in the first place.

While I was thinking about this the other day, I suddenly realised that I’ve been on this journey before. The way I write code has evolved in much the same way.

When I first started out programming, I would write linearly. Rarely going back and refactoring, just getting it all done, line by line. As I tackled bigger and bigger projects, I found I would pick up all sorts of random parts of the codebase and grow it almost organically till the edges of different parts met. All the while refactoring the code, adding tests and so forth.

Given that most of my audience it technical, I guess I thought I’d share a tip. Write your words, your emails, your markdown files and asciidocs like you write your code. ⌨️