03 Jun 2026 #writing
For years, I was afraid of calling myself a writer.
In 2024, I doubled down on my writing.
After burning out and getting laid off, I paused my coding career.
I filled my days writing a daily post and studying my writing heroes.
Hundreds of posts later, “writer” still felt impossible.
I thought I needed a big follower count and a best-seller.
Of course, that was my inner critic talking.
Make your first $1
One rabbit hole took me to an interview with Devon Eriksen, a sci-fi author.
He said,
“If you’ve written and you’ve gotten paid for it, you’re a writer.”
Thanks to my blog, a company asked me to write tutorials for their website.
Somebody had already paid for my words.
In your face, inner voice.
Earn at least $1, and the title is yours.
Do the thing and hold the title
If money is out of the equation, redefine what makes you hold a title.
I had to ask myself who a writer is.
That’s someone who teaches, entertains, or inspires using words.
If I was teaching, entertaining, or inspiring with words, that already made me a writer.
And I was one the moment I decided to take writing seriously.
Do the work, keep improving, and you own the title.
“In a journey to…”
Often a new title is behind redefining your own labels.
Sometimes it’s as simple as updating your email and social media bios.
Something like “Coder turned digital writer” or “I’m on a journey to make a living writing.”
And when someone asks you what you do, plug your new title.
“I’m a software engineer, but these days I’m writing a book.”
It also helps you share your new projects.
Writing books finally quieted my inner voice. If you’re into coding or personal growth, my books are waiting here.
02 Jun 2026 #misc
If we’re not paying, we’re the product.
Because social media is free, corporations profit from our likes, comments, and scrolling data.
Apart from being the product, we’re unpaid workers too.
Recently Seth Godin wrote about participating in social media as unpaid labor:
“Labor is work that we get paid for. It’s work we wouldn’t do for free. And for most people on social media, it’s unpaid labor on behalf of the platforms.”
His words made me rethink how to use LinkedIn, before quitting social media once and for all.
Use it strategically to showcase your work and redirect people to a place you control.
Keep it at an arm’s length. Otherwise, you’ll become the fuel for AI, algorithms, and robots you don’t control.
01 Jun 2026 #wellness #experiments
Unlike my second Analog Sunday, I maxed out (and probably exceeded) my 1-hour screen time.
Here’s what I did on screens:
- Read Bubbles weekly and daily Briefing
- Paid my monthly bills
- Wrote tomorrow’s post
- Video-called my uncle and aunt
Offline, I spent most of the time:
After ~40 notes, some chain of thoughts have appeared: social media over-consumption, digital minimalism, and creativity/writing.
If you want to follow along, here are the rules for my Analog Sundays and a simple idea to reduce my phone time.
31 May 2026 #misc
Big cities have “content” in odd places:
- A gummy bear in a wall
- A love letter in a metro wagon
- A motivational message in a bridge
Thanks to James’ new ways of storytelling, I learned the Internet, like a big city, has odd places for art too:
Google Docs.
They’re a corner of the internet away from social media, search engines, and AI.
They form a gray web: The Doc Web.
A term coined by Elan Ullendorff, originally in a Google Doc.
Join the Doc Web
And to practice my 10-idea list habit, here are 10 ways to adopt the Doc Web as a writer, solopreneur, or creative:
#1. A book:
Publish it by sharing a read-only public url.
If anyone wants to download it, they can create a copy.
#2. A landing page:
Use headers, bold, italics, underline and include a call to action on the last page.
#3. A micro-blogging platform:
Tweet by adding a timestamped paragraph at the top.
Share it with “commenters” permission and you’ll have replies.
#4. A poll application:
Want to collect questions for an AMA or Q&A session?
Share a document and ask people to leave one question per paragraph.
They can upvote a question by increasing its font size.
#5. A survey or questionnaire:
Share a document with your multiple-answer questions.
People answer with a “+”.
#6. A membership area:
Use your members’ email to give restricted access to a document with your exclusive content.
#7. A guestbook (a la Facebook wall):
In your blog, link to a public Document for anyone to sign it.
#8. A magazine or episodic publication:
Use a single document as the latest edition.
To release a new version:
- Make a copy of the last edition
- Overwrite the original content, and
- Link to the previous edition
#9. A bookmarking service (a la Delicious):
Whenever you find an interesting link, add it to a public document.
Keep it organized with an index on the first page.
Share it with friends.
#10. A forum:
Start each question on a new page.
Include the creator’s display name and timestamp.
Answer by adding your name and a timestamp before your reply.
Use comments to start threads.
To run your next membership or community, the Doc Web is all you need.
And to start a blog, forget about hosting and domains.
You already know what to use instead.
A Doc. Why not!
30 May 2026 #misc
Time for another blog challenge.
This time, Rishabh started one about AI.
Here are my answers:
How was your first experience with AI models?
I jumped to try ChatGPT when it was announced.
But since it was still in beta, it was always too busy.
Then in 2024, I tried Copilot for coding.
First, it felt like, “hey this is cool.”
Weeks later, it was more like “this is dangerous.”
That’s my AI coding journey in two lines.
Do you use AI or are you completely against using it?
Here’s my full statement for AI.
But in a nutshell:
For coding, I use it for the boring and repetitive parts.
I don’t use AI inside my coding editor, but in a browser tab.
For writing, I want AI and its tentacles away from my writing…except for proofreading.
Do you have any preference among different models, for example Claude vs ChatGPT? If yes, how do you choose?
I never wanted to create an account for ChatGPT, especially after the news that your ChatGPT chats were somehow indexed. I use Copilot on Edge.
What aspect of AI models do you like and what do you not like?
They feel faster than Googling.
But they sound helpful and confident, even generating nonsense.
That’s the real danger: blindly trusting whatever they throw up.
We need real skills first before leveraging AI.
How do you feel about AI generated images? Does it annoy you if someone uses them in a blog post?
The first time I tried AI was to play with image generators.
Since I’m not naturally talented at drawing, I use them here and there.
When I syndicate my coding content on dev.to, I generate funny cartoons with cats as covers.
It’s annoying when covers all look the same.
Same colors, layout, and fonts. Eeewww!
I find it more annoying when a post starts with “In the fast paced world of…“
That makes me roll my eyes and stop reading.
Internet is flooded with AI slop now, full of generated text, images, audio and videos. How do you filter it from authentic human creation? Do you have a strategy?
My phone time has reduced my content consumption.
So I’m more conscious of what I read and watch.
These days I’m more into blog aggregators and bookmarking social media profiles instead of scrolling feeds.
Are you hopeful for a better future with A.I. or a dystopian one?
It’s hard to be hopeful when CEOs use AI as the goat for layoffs.
But overall as humanity, we’ve always progressed.
With AI, it isn’t the exception.
In any case, I’m doubling down on my creative side to thrive in the AI era.
If you’re curious, here are my answers to the (Bear) blog questions and the ten pointless facts challenges.