Comments on https://lichess.org/@/datajunkie/blog/25-why-write-about-chess/Zph2S0qP
The quote at end is impressive take-home, liberating maybe. Thanks for sharing (whole blog).
I had similar positive experiences from my writing in chess - a lot of my best tournament results came after a period of extensive writing.
In the last 3 months, I also started writing journal entries about my recent passion, poker. Two days ago, I caught up on 9 months of 'missed' journaling, and although it took 8.5 hours and 32 pages total, it was well worth it to reflect on what had worked and mistakes I'd made previously. (I also borrowed your style of quotes by adding a quote at the start of each of the 52 sections, to break up the repetition of recounting/recollecting.
Personally, I feel like my game improved faster in the 3 months of frequent writing than in the 9 months prior to that (where I wasn't recording notes of any form).
@Craze said in #3:
> I had similar positive experiences from my writing in chess - a lot of my best tournament results came after a period of extensive writing.
>
> In the last 3 months, I also started writing journal entries about my recent passion, poker. Two days ago, I caught up on 9 months of 'missed' journaling, and although it took 8.5 hours and 32 pages total, it was well worth it to reflect on what had worked and mistakes I'd made previously. (I also borrowed your style of quotes by adding a quote at the start of each of the 52 sections, to break up the repetition of recounting/recollecting.
>
> Personally, I feel like my game improved faster in the 3 months of frequent writing than in the 9 months prior to that (where I wasn't recording notes of any form).
Thanks Max! Quotes are fun to use :-)
To be honest my performances haven't improved since I started writing (rather the opposite—I suppose it also depends on what you're writing about), but I think that's down to other factors, and in the long run I do feel writing can be good for your chess as you explore parts of (your) chess deeper in the process of writing. Probably chess training itself is more likely to help with actual chess improvement, but for some people, maybe spending time thinking about the game deeply through other avenues like writing can help their game.
If it does not, at least there is the satisfaction of the understanding deepening while thinking about it for writing. Whether the writing is published or not, this is an exercise in explaining to oneself first.
Some math book author, I think, wrote that the best way to learn something is to write a book about it. (or teach it). something like that. I do not publish. but just putting one-self in the position of explaining things we think we know bring new things to the surface, the concreteness of laying down those string approximations of thoughts, besides being brain torture, acts as sound boarding. If you believe there is a reader at the other end.....
What you wrote could be said of people who are journaling their thoughts, but publishing is more concrete pressure I would think.
This is great. I started chesspicks.com and got distracted with life. But your post has motivated me to get my MOJO back.
Many coaches advise their students not to write blogs. I know of a national coach putting a player out of the team because of blogging. By blogging you give your opponents valuable information about yourself which means you don't take chess seriously enough (your own results and the ones of the team). There are plenty of other more serious players eager to be part of the national team.
"After 6 months of publishing posts about chess (and halfway to my original ‘goal’ for 2023, 50 posts)"
I think setting such goals don't make sense. With such state of mind you risk at some point to write posts of which you afterwards aren't satisfied about. I've seen some bloggers to delete their complete blog because of getting in such trap.
As an experienced blogger I only write when I have something to really say otherwise I don't write. I also only write when I have sufficient time for it so that blogging doesn't bring extra stress. So often I take breaks.
" I believe everyone has a market they can write for"
I must counter that and refer to the ones popular http://kenilworthian.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-end-of-chess-blogging.html
Particularly I refer to the line : "But this also seems like a good time to withdraw from the field because I am convinced that professional chess blogging has made the amateur chess blog increasingly irrelevant."
This was written in 2014 and things only became worse since.
1) In 2023 there are more professional blogs than in 2014.
2) The quality of professional blogs has increased since 2014.
3) Vlogging/ streaming/ youtube has surpassed blogging 100x since 2014.
Chessplayers don't have the time to look at all the available content so obviously they will prefer the best ones/ most popular ones. This more or less means amateurblogs don't get any attention and disappear in anonymity. Did you know that the average timespan of a blog is a mere 100 days?
"Why write about chess?"
Money, money, money. I also see it here on lichess e.g. https://lichess.org/forum/general-chess-discussion/hidden-advertisements-at-lichess
People write a blog to recommend their new book, coaching, products .... This doesn't mean that the content of those professional blogs is not useful or good. However without some sort of moneystream behind there would be no blog.
So this links back to my previous post. Amateurblogs (so no profit at all) have no future.