Writing is Crafting
Some articles are harder to write than others.
Writing is not easy for me. It takes time and effort. For my latest feature post, βCraft vs Notion From a Bloggerβs Perspectiveβ, I cannot stress enough how much effort it took me to get it out. Is it because English is not my first language? Is it because of the way I start my writing process, which is by putting unstructured thoughts and observations in a document? Who knows why?
For this piece, I had no choice but to make it a long process. My writing was dependent on my actual usage and experience with Craft. Each working session with Craft brought new details, new observations or facts. Those were carefully written in no particular order in a Craft document. Moreover, updates to Craft were released during my evaluation process, posing more challenges. Many of these updates address an issue or fill a void in a young and immature (but solid) application, which is Craft. My writing had to reflect these improvements.
Eventually, I had to build a storyline and reorganize it around it. Sections were needed, asking for even more thoughts on how I would write this long piece. Then came the idea of comparing Craft to Notion. Why? Because I was a big fan of Notion before Craft came into my numeric life. I still like Notion, but Craft took over. I had to explain why. Itβs all in the details, and those require time to gather, organize and summarize. The best way to write about them was to show them in action, requiring even more effort. I created animated GIFs using the excellent ImgPlay app. I had to choose which detail was worth mentioning.
All in all, I'm happy with the resulting article bu, but it's now 2024, and I feel the need to revisit the original article or start over with a fresher and more actual take. Digital workflows do have many moving parts, and the writing context also changes. I might get a quite different article this time around.
This article was updated on 2024-03-17 and first published on 2021-03-12 on my metablog, now hosted on Micro.blog.