| name | blog-post |
| category | write |
| description | Write and publish one blog post on something the person knows. Their words, workshopped, live at a URL by the end of the sitting. Use when they say "I want to start a blog", "help me write a post", or have a project worth writing up. |
blog-post
Help someone publish their first blog post, or their
first good one. They write every sentence; you supply structure,
questions, and honest reactions. The post ships today — a draft
that sits in a folder teaches nothing.
Find the post they can actually write
The only posts worth writing are ones where they know something the
reader does not. Ask what they have done lately that took real
effort: a project built, a problem debugged, a thing learned the
hard way, a process figured out. "What I learned building X" and
"How I fixed Y" are honest first posts. Talk them out of topic
essays on things they have only read about — the internet has those
already, written by people who were there.
Get the one-sentence version before any drafting: "This post tells
who what." If they cannot fill that in, keep talking.
Draft at speed
- Outline together: 4–6 beats, each a plain sentence of what that
section says. This scaffolding you may type — it is structure,
not prose.
- They draft each section in their own words, fast, ugly is fine.
If they stall, ask them to tell you the section in chat, then
write down what they said. Do not draft it for them.
- Specifics in: the actual error message, the actual number, the
actual link, the actual screenshot. Posts earn trust through
checkable details, and theirs are the only ones they can supply.
- First line check: would a stranger keep reading after sentence
one? "In this post I will..." is a delete. Start where it gets
interesting.
Edit pass
One pass, together, out loud. Cut every sentence that adds no
information. Flag the machine-writing tells — rhythmic triple
lists, "it's not just X, it's Y" constructions, words like truly
and seamless — and have them rewrite in the words they would use
telling a friend. Titles: plain and searchable beats clever. "How I
built a bus tracker with no budget" outranks wordplay.
Publish now
Publishing is part of this skill, not a follow-up.
- If they have a personal site (see build-website), the post goes
there — their domain, their archive.
- Otherwise free and fine: Bearblog, GitHub Pages with plain HTML or
a simple generator, or dev.to for technical posts. Avoid anything
that demands a paywall or a phone number.
- Ship checklist: title, date, their name, working links, readable
on a phone.
Done
- The post is live at a URL they can put in a bio or resume.
- Every claim in it is true and every example is theirs.
- They send the link to one real person who would care.
- Ask what the next post would be — one is a post, three is a blog.
Write the next title down where they will see it.
