/devwriting

All resources & exercises from the Miami Dev Writer's Retreat

Dev Writer's Workshop

Dev Writer's Retreat

This is a writing workshop that contains all the readings and exercises from swyx and michelle's Dev Writer's Retreat in Miami.

It is comprised of 4 modules (based on the 4 days) that each have resources and exercises. Parts of it were recorded and now available on YouTube.

Module 1

This module is focused on getting ideas for writing, trying to flesh out what you're good at, and some general resources on dev writing.

Module 1 Readings

Short Reads

Longer Reads

Module 1 Exercises

  1. ​What is one tech (large or small) that has changed your life?
  2. ​What are you weirdly expert about outside of work?
  3. ​What blogpost or article is permanently stuck in your head?

Module 2

This module is focused on thoughtleading, writing formats, and SEO.

Module 2 Readings

Idea tier list

  • S tier: do interesting things offline and announce them or topics that will be popular no matter what
  • A tier: provide insights and state quotable opinions (thought-leading)
  • B tier: doing work for others - aggregating content, making a newsletter, or analyzing other people's work
  • C tier: self-serving, all the rest of the content that people usually tell you to do when you're trying to write

Writing formats

  • Straightforward but address the primary concern
  • The Guide to Remote Work That Isn't Trying to Sell You Anything
  • How to Get Rich (without getting lucky)
  • How to Market Yourself (without Being a Celebrity)
  • Superlatives: An interesting story about the first/last/best/worst experience when you did X. You see a lot of these in Rachelbythebay's work. Mtlynch focuses more on documenting his journey semi-realtime.
  • Data & News: This is a lot of work but collect data for yourself and publish it for others and others will find that useful.
    • This is the strategy I am adopting for AI stuff.
    • Dan Luu does this a lot to back up his work https://danluu.com/
    • Performance porn always
    • The cutting edge of data is news, and you can see this on Gergely's substack but you're basically a journalist at that point
  • How $POPULAR_THING Works: This is Fly.io's and Alex Xu's strategy
  • Listicle works well :).. but an organized listicle is an overview

Module 2 Exercises

  1. Microcopy Exercise from Philip Kiely
  2. Come up with 3 article ideas, and write 3 titles each

Module 3

This module is focused on styles of writing, getting inspiration for your writing, and editing.

Module 3 Readings

General Resources

Editing Resources

Extra Resources

Module 3 Exercises

  1. You are giving a speech introducing yourself and your company/cause. Write a Public Narrative - story of us, story of you, story of now - to convert complete strangers into fans, customers, and employees. Public Narrative - Obama, Bezos, Musk, Tenev
  2. Look over some of your blog posts and edit using one of the following frameworks: ABCD or CRIBS
  3. Write a GPT3-assisted article about Kubernetes and Pizza on OpenAI!

Module 4

Module 4 Readings

Module 4 Exercises

  1. Visualize/Illustrate 1-3 of your articles/ideas, using Excalidraw, tldraw.com, or other tool of choice. If you need inspiration, illustrate someone else's essay!
  2. Schedule 3 social media posts promoting the same article, on Typefully or Buffer. Do not repeat yourself. Use your visuals if it helps!
  3. Start a newsletter (Revue, Substack, Convertkit, Buttondown. Hashnode has basic newsletter functionality as well). If you have one already, take some tactics from the reading and apply them for your next issue.
  4. Start a writing infra repo. Add timeline, reference list, key tools, list communities, recommended reads.