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Editing & Publishing

Writing the first draft is the easy part. Turning it into something worth publishing takes more effort but follows a repeatable process. Write the ugly draft without stopping. Then cut 30%. Then read it aloud. Then get one person to read it. Then publish it somewhere. Consistency beats virality. A post published every two weeks will do more for your career and your thinking than a viral post you never follow up on.

Write the Ugly First Draft

Your first draft should be bad. Not deliberately bad, but unselfconsciously bad. The goal is to get your ideas out of your head and into text as fast as possible.

Rules for the first draft:

  - Do not stop to research
  - Do not fix typos
  - Do not rewrite sentences
  - Do not worry about structure
  - Do not delete anything
  - Write for 30-60 minutes, then stop

The first draft is a brain dump. It will be too long, poorly organized, and full of tangents. That is correct behavior. Trying to write a polished first draft is how people get stuck. They edit while they write, which means they are doing two things badly instead of one thing well.

Separate Writing from Editing

Writing and editing use different parts of your brain. Writing is generative — you are creating material. Editing is critical — you are evaluating and cutting material. Doing both at once creates a stop-start pattern that kills momentum.

Bad process:
  Write a paragraph. Reread it. Rewrite it. Reread it again.
  Write the next paragraph. Go back and change the first one.
  Delete the second paragraph. Start over.
  [2 hours later: 200 words]

Good process:
  Write everything in one pass. Do not reread until you are done.
  Close the file. Come back tomorrow. Edit then.
  [45 minutes: 1500 words of rough material]
  [Next day, 30 minutes: 900 words of edited material]

The good process produces more, faster, and the quality after editing is higher because you made editing decisions with fresh eyes.

Then Cut 30%

Your first draft is too long. Everyone's first draft is too long. The goal of the first editing pass is to cut roughly 30% of the word count.

This is not about trimming a word here and there. This is about removing entire paragraphs, sections, and tangents that do not serve the reader.

The Paragraph Test

For every paragraph, ask: "If I deleted this, would the reader miss anything?" If the answer is no, delete it.

Common paragraphs to cut:

  - Background the reader already knows
  - History that does not affect the solution
  - Caveats that apply to edge cases no one will hit
  - "As we all know..." preambles
  - Transitions that exist only to connect sections
  - Repeated points stated differently

The Sentence Test

For every sentence in the paragraphs that survived, ask: "Does this add information the previous sentence did not?"

Before:
  "It is important to note that this approach requires careful
   consideration of the various trade-offs involved. There are
   several factors that need to be weighed against each other
   when making this decision."

After:
  "This approach has trade-offs."

Two sentences became one. The information content is identical.

The Word Test

For every multi-word phrase, ask: "Is there a shorter way to say this?"

Wordy                          Concise
──────────────────────────────────────────────
in order to                    to
at this point in time          now
due to the fact that           because
in the event that              if
a large number of              many
has the ability to             can
it is important to note that   [delete entirely]
for the purpose of             to
in the process of              while
on a daily basis               daily
prior to                       before
with regard to                 about

These substitutions seem minor individually. In a 2,000-word post, they collectively save 200-300 words and make every sentence crisper.

Read It Aloud

After cutting, read the entire post out loud. Not in your head — actually speak the words. This catches problems that silent reading misses.

What reading aloud reveals:

  - Sentences that are too long (you run out of breath)
  - Awkward phrasing (you stumble over the words)
  - Repeated words (they become obvious when spoken)
  - Missing transitions (the flow breaks when you hear it)
  - Jargon density (a paragraph full of acronyms sounds absurd aloud)

If you stumble while reading a sentence, the reader will stumble too. Rewrite that sentence until you can read it smoothly.

The Screen-to-Paper Trick

Reading on the same screen where you wrote creates blindness. You see what you meant to write, not what you actually wrote. Change the medium:

  - Print it out and read with a pen
  - Send it to your phone and read there
  - Change the font and font size
  - Read it in a markdown preview instead of the editor
  - Use a text-to-speech tool

Any change in medium forces your brain to process the text as a reader rather than as the writer.

Get One Person to Read It

Before publishing, have one person read the draft. Not three people. Not a committee. One person who roughly matches your target audience.

Ask them specific questions:

Questions for your reviewer:

  "Where did you get confused?"
  "Where did you get bored?"
  "What would you cut?"
  "Is there anything you expected to see that's missing?"
  "Can you summarize the main point in one sentence?"

If they cannot summarize the main point, your post does not have a clear enough thesis. If they got bored in the middle, your middle section is too long. If they got confused early, your context section is insufficient.

Who to Ask

Good reviewers:
  - A coworker who might face the same problem
  - A friend who works in a similar domain
  - A more junior developer (they catch missing context)
  - A more senior developer (they catch technical errors)

Bad reviewers:
  - Someone who will only say "looks good"
  - Someone who will rewrite it in their voice
  - A group (you will get contradictory feedback and freeze)

One specific reviewer giving honest feedback is worth more than ten people giving polite approval.

Where to Publish

You have several options. Each has trade-offs.

Personal Blog

Pros:
  - You own the content permanently
  - You control the design and presentation
  - Content builds your personal brand over time
  - No platform algorithm deciding who sees your work

Cons:
  - No built-in audience — you start from zero
  - You maintain the infrastructure
  - SEO takes time to build

A personal blog is the best long-term investment. Use a static site generator — Hugo, Astro, Jekyll, Next.js — and host on a free or cheap platform like Netlify, Vercel, or GitHub Pages. Do not spend more than a day setting it up. The blog's design does not matter. The writing does.

Company Blog

Pros:
  - Built-in audience from the company's reputation
  - Editorial support (sometimes)
  - Credibility by association

Cons:
  - You may not own the content
  - Publication schedule may not match yours
  - Content may require approval processes
  - Posts disappear when companies rebrand or shut down

If you publish on a company blog, cross-post to your personal blog after a reasonable delay. Always keep a copy you control.

dev.to & Medium

dev.to has a large developer audience, markdown-native editing, and supports canonical URLs for cross-posting without SEO penalty. Medium has broader reach but its paywall frustrates technical readers and its code formatting is poor. For developer audiences, dev.to is the better platform choice.

The Cross-Posting Strategy

The best approach for most people:

1. Publish on your personal blog first (canonical URL)
2. Cross-post to dev.to with the canonical URL set
3. Share on social media (Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Mastodon, Bluesky)
4. If your company blog is interested, publish there too

Setting the canonical URL correctly means search engines know your personal blog is the original source. You get the distribution benefits of platforms without giving up ownership.

Consistency Beats Virality

A viral post gives you a spike of traffic that fades in a week. A consistent publishing schedule builds an audience over months and years.

Sustainable cadences:

  Once a month   — very achievable, good for longer posts
  Twice a month  — a solid rhythm, the sweet spot for most people
  Once a week    — ambitious, requires shorter posts or a backlog

Unsustainable cadences:

  "Whenever I feel like it"  — you will publish twice, then stop
  Every day                  — burnout in two weeks

Pick a cadence you can maintain for six months. Set a recurring calendar reminder. Treat it like a commitment, not a hobby. The writers who build audiences are not the best writers — they are the most consistent ones.

What Consistency Builds

  - A body of work you can reference and link between
  - Search engine authority (more pages = more chances to rank)
  - Writing skill (you get better by doing it regularly)
  - A reputation as someone who shares knowledge
  - Material for talks, workshops, or a book

The Publishing Checklist

Before hitting publish, run through this list:

Content:
  [ ] Title is specific and describes the problem or solution
  [ ] First paragraph hooks with the problem, not a self-introduction
  [ ] Code examples are complete and runnable
  [ ] Trade-offs are acknowledged
  [ ] Post has been cut by roughly 30% from the first draft

Formatting:
  [ ] Headings break up the text every 3-5 paragraphs
  [ ] Code blocks have syntax highlighting (correct language tag)
  [ ] Links work and point to the right destinations
  [ ] Post renders correctly in the publishing platform's preview

Meta:
  [ ] One person has reviewed it
  [ ] You have read it aloud
  [ ] Canonical URL is set if cross-posting
  [ ] Publication date is correct

Common Pitfalls

  • Polishing forever instead of publishing. Done is better than perfect. Set a deadline and ship it.
  • Writing the first draft and the final draft in the same session. Separate writing and editing by at least a few hours, ideally a day.
  • Skipping the read-aloud step. It feels silly. It catches problems nothing else does. Do it.
  • Publishing only on platforms you do not control. Always keep a copy on a domain you own.
  • Waiting for a large audience before publishing. The audience comes from publishing, not the other way around.
  • Optimizing distribution before optimizing content. No amount of social media strategy compensates for a post that does not help the reader.
  • Giving up after three posts because you did not go viral. Consistency compounds. Give it six months.

Key Takeaways

  • Write the ugly first draft fast, without editing. Separate writing from editing.
  • Cut 30% of your draft. Test every paragraph, sentence, and word for necessity.
  • Read the post aloud. If you stumble, the reader will stumble too.
  • Get one person to read it and ask them specific questions, not "is it good?"
  • Publish on a platform you own. Cross-post to others for distribution.
  • Pick a sustainable cadence and stick to it. Consistency beats virality every time.