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Brian: And today, once again, we’re talking about tools, but this time focus on tools for publishing and collaboration in writing, which is all a bit more complicated than what text editor do you use?  So, to start at the simpler end of the spectrum, though, there’s blogging and then there’s publishing things like books and pamphlets and whatnot. So let’s talk first about blogging tools, publishing to the internet. Write While True Episode 56: Writing Tools for Drafting Transcript

Brian: I’m Brian Hall. And today, I can’t wait, we’re talking about writing tools, talking about your writing stack. And we’ll actually spread this out over two episodes. Today we’re talking about the idea phase, outlining, collecting notes, and drafting. So just the writing part. We’ll save publishing, editing, collaboration tools for a future episode. Write While True Episode 2: Small Bits of Writing How to Take Smart Notes [amazon affiliate link] Obsidian Roam Research Notion Scrivener Transcript

Lou: Today, I would actually like us to look back two episodes where we talked about reader profile, so writing towards a specific reader, and to maybe double-click on that a little and talk a little bit more about the archetype readers that you might be writing towards. So a lot of the way I’ve come to think about this came from Amy Hoy. If you don’t know her, Amy Hoy, she’s one of the proprietors of the 30×500 e-course and methodology of product making. Her idea is that if you have a $30 per month product, and you find 500 customers, that that would be enough to build a small business. And the way that she wants you to get towards that product is by creating educational content for the audience that you intend to serve with the product. And then you’re going to, along the way, find your product after having done this educational content. Stacking the Bricks (Amy Hoy’s site) Write While True Episode 53: Pick a Reader Write While True Episode 5: Audience and Message Transcript

Brian: Today we’re talking about negative feedback. Lou: Oh boy. Brian: Yeah, yeah. No, this one’s gonna hurt. When you write something and you share it, and then somebody tells you that it’s absolute trash in some manner or another, and there’s really no avoiding it. Transcript

Brian: And I’m Brian Hall. And today we’re talking about reader profile, the person or people for whom you are writing, which is a really powerful concept to spend some time on, preferably before you start writing, at least if it’s a big project. I think this came up in the last conversation and your example was, I do B2B SaaS. If you’re in gaming, things might be a little different, something like that. I just want to talk more about that because of how useful it is to make those distinctions.  And I guess the basic point I want to make about reader profile, and we’ll get into what it is and how you do it, but it should make your writing easier to produce. Write While True Episode 5: Audience and Message Transcript

Lou: Hey, Brian. I wanted to start this episode by doing a little bit of a follow up to episode 48, where we talked about starting a collaboration. One of the things we ended with was doing a simple collaboration by just getting feedback on something you’re writing. And I wanted to talk to you about your thoughts on what to do with feedback. Brian: Yeah, let’s do it, for sure. And to begin, the assumptions here are that you’re working on a piece of writing that you intend to iterate on. You’re going to revise this writing, you’re going to improve it. It might be a book, newsletter, blog post, something you care enough about to spend time on after you first put it out into the world for feedback. Write While True Episode 48: Start a Collaboration Transcript

Brian: I’m building up my ability to do that by spending my mornings and my first sip of coffee, learning this framework. And at the same time, you got to watch out because learning a JavaScript framework is not writing per se. So that’s what I’ve been up to. And it’s felt productive and like it works toward my ultimate goal, my ultimate writing focused goal, but I haven’t been writing. So I’ve mixed feelings about that.  And I guess I want to say, Lou, you went through the whole process of blogging for a long time and then taking on a book project or multiple book projects, writing the book, editing the books. Now you’re in the phase where you have to be marketing the book. I hope you’re marketing the book. Talk to me about writing goals in different phases of projects. Transcript

Brian: I’m Brian Hall. And today we’re talking again about habits. In the last episode, we both set out some intentions to change our writing habits and establish a daily practice. Let’s check in on that. Lou, how did it go for you? Lou: Not great, Brian. I did the habit none times. Brian: Okay, not great. Remind us what you were going to do and tell us what happened. Write While True Episode 49: Tiny Habits Transcript

Brian: And so just getting yourself in position and getting started in this way tends to lead to more powerful, robust output. I guess I’ve reached the point where just by starting consistently every morning, I was cranking out a blog post a day for quite a while. And I guess that’s the other thing I’ll say too, is habits can come and go. You can lose a habit and it’s probably not helpful to beat yourself up about that because you can also regain them. If you’re in the middle of a sprint, you might write every single morning and you might produce quite a bit. And then you might finish that book or reach the end of that series of blog posts. And maybe you abandon your habit. It’s there to be reclaimed, I guess. Write While True Episode 1: Training to Unblock Yourself Write While True Episode 19: Prompt Your Morning Pages Tiny Habits [ad] by BJ Fogg Transcript

This is the beginning of season five, episode 48, and I’m going to tell you about something that we’re doing a little different now. This has always been a podcast where I, a software developer, talks to you, who I think are also software developers, about what I write and I’m trying to share with you tips and techniques for writing for people like us that want to write. And in this season of Write While True, we’re going to start something new. Write While True is now a collaboration between me and another software developer who writes. His name is Brian Hall. And throughout the entirety of this run of podcasts, I’ve talked a lot about the kinds of things I write, blogs, and I wrote a book, and this podcast. Write While True Episode 43: Accountability Groups Write While True Episode 47: Write Useful Books Transcript

It’s been a while. Episode 46 came out in late January of 2025 and I’m recording this now in mid-December, so it’s been about 10 or 11 months. When I last left off, we were in the middle of season 4, and I was telling you about all the things I was learning as I was writing my book, Swimming in Tech Debt. Well, I’m happy to say that I finally finished Swimming in Tech Debt, and it came out in September of 2025, a couple of months ago. And then the print book came out about a month and a half or so later, and I’ve learned so much about the book publishing process that I want to share with you. Write Useful Books [affiliate] The Useful Authors community Transcript

This is the 7th episode of season four. I started this season in January of 2024. My intent was to document the process of writing a book. But even though this season is over a year long, there have only been 7 episodes, and that’s because I took a 9 month break. I want to talk more about what happened during that break, and how I was derailed from my plans, and how I recovered. The Four Disciplines of Execution [affiliate link] On Writing Well [affiliate link] by William Zinsser Swimming in Tech Debt (my book) Help This Book (book sharing platform) Useful Books Community Transcript

But even with all of that new writing, a lot of the ideas and content are drawn from my blog. That’s what I want to talk about today — How I started this project by reviewing and gathering my work. My first step, at the end of 2023, when I decided that I wanted to write a book, was to immerse myself in my own writing, so I just read my blog. I just read all of the posts. Season 4 started with The Four Disciplines: 1, 2, 3, and 4 The Four Disciplines of Execution [affiliate link] Write While True Episode 13: New Ideas where I talked about … … A Technique for Producing Ideas [affiliate link] Morning Pages Write While True Episode 1: Training to Unblock Yourself Write While True Episode 19: Prompt Your Morning Pages Smart Notes Write While True Episode 2: Small Bits of Writing Journals Write While True Episode 21: Dedicated Journals Write While True Episode 22: Harvesting Journals Assembling first drafts Write While True Episode 3: First Drafts Transcript

My intention after episode 43 was to follow along the process of writing the book and share what I learned along the way. But, a few things happened that derailed me (in a good way). The Four Disciplines of Execution [affiliate link] Write While True Episode 23: Take a Break Taking a Successful Break Swimming in Tech Debt Follow-up on my Tech Debt Article in The Pragmatic Engineer Newsletter transcript

There’s a hole in this process, and we need to fill that right now. This only works if you’re doing the lead activities consistently, and if they really do build up to the end goal. It’s true that working on the book is intrinsically fun and interesting. And if that’s all that happened, I’d probably be okay with it, but I really do want a book in the end. Write While True Episode 40: Let’s Write a Pamphlet Write While True Episode 41: The Lead Measure Write While True Episode 42: Keeping Score 4DX: Applying the Fourth Discipline Useful Books Community Transcript