Name: Julia
Title: Application Developer
#CNC2022 Cohort: Write More Cohort 1
Write More Article:
Introduction
Hello everyone. My name is Julia, I'm a self-taught developer trying to help others get into tech by sharing my experiences and writing content that can help individuals expand their knowledge - besides coding, which was one of the reasons I found a job after a year of self-study.
For a few months now, I've been writing articles on dev.to and CodeNewbie, sharing content on Twitter, and the response has been great. This motivates me to become even better at writing, so I can be sure that what I want to share with others is well received.
Even though I find my articles quite satisfying so far, I wanted to start a different approach to writing articles that might lead to an even better solution/satisfaction. Also, it often happens that even though I have an idea of what I want to write about, I have trouble starting to write. So I was hoping for some good tips on how to get started and keep writing, even if it sometimes seems impossible.
When I learned that the CodeNewbie community was starting a new challenge, I was immediately hooked and was sure I would participate in the Write More Challenge this time. Last year I participated in the "Get a job" challenge, which I successfully completed and got a job shortly after. So I definitely wanted to participate in that challenge again.
What the challenge has promised participants
Hi Mina-san ๐ !
My name is Julia and I decided to participate in this challenge because #CNC2021 "Ready to get a job" was quite a success for me. ๐
I am excited about my progress and improvement at the end of the challenge, which I am sure I will make. ๐ช
I am not nervous but really excited to start with this years challenge. ๐คฉ
My history with writing is, that I started a few months ago and I have many ideas but I am not quite consistent since I always have troubles to start my articles. ๐ตโ๐ซ My goal is to fill my learning website with great content as soon as possible because my mission is to help other self-taught developers to find a job as well.
Wish everyone good luck and have fun ๐
Let's see what happened during the challenge and what my conclusions and thoughts are.
Mission 1
In the first week, I was supposed to come up with 3 blog ideas that would fall into one of these categories.
- Tutorial: A step-by-step guide with instructions to teach the reader how to do something specific
- Explainer: A breakdown that explains a technical concept to the reader
- Project: A post that talks about a project you worked on and explains the journey and technical challenge you experienced
I have a lot of ideas about what I could write about that I want to share with the community that is in the same situation I was in not too long ago: self-taught, coming from a completely different field, maybe in underrepresented group, etc.
I really liked the first mission because it was the first time I thought about how to categorize blogs. Most of my blog ideas fall into the "explaining" category. I think concepts are the most important thing to learn, because you can show a lot more in interviews than just learning about the code itself.
My TOP 3 are:
1) How to use GitHub the professional way: Using Project, Issues to show off project management skills; create a Readme.md for your projects; how to create a PR; how to keep GitHub clean and "readable".
Would this be explainer, tutorial and project all in one? ๐
2) How to keep a11y in mind when creating a project: what IS a11y; how can you test it; why is it important.
Would this be an explainer?
3) Communication for Devs? How to communicate; Maybe in connection with Git Workflow in the company/project?
Explainer? Project?
I do not have a traditional tutorial idea รก la how to build "this" app ๐ค
after finishing Mission #2 I realised that every topic is an explainer!
I had some ideas about what I would like to write about in the challenge. In the end, I decided to pursue the topic of communication for developers.
Mission 2
In Mission 2, I was to create an outline for my blog post idea using one of the templates provided by CodeNewbie. The goal was to fill in the blanks with my thoughts to get something down on paper.
With the outline templates sent to me by the CodeNewbie community, it was easy for me to start a new article for the first time. Even though I didn't like some parts of how they were worded by me to stick to the template, I knew that this was just the beginning and would soon evolve into a much more professional article.
But the feeling of having started an article in such a short time kept me motivated and made it easier for me to consider continuing with writing this article.
See my finished rough draft here. There are no pictures, graphics, colors or other design elements here yet. That's because the goal was to turn the bullet points into paragraphs.
Late to the party, I chose "Explainer Outline" because it fits the topic about communcation for devs and accessibility I want to write about best. At certain points the outline helped me a lot to get started, but in the middle of it I got a bit lost. I think it was mostly because I had the feeling that I have to stick to the outline sentences 100%. I managed it in a way I am not quite happy about YET, but I am sure it will be better for the next task ๐
Here are my drafts:
Communiation for devs
a11y
Hi everyone. Here is my draft on my blog post about communication for devs. Happy about every comment and suggestions for improvement. ๐
Mission 3
In Mission 3, I had to create a Google Form where other participants could answer questions to help me improve my article.
Unfortunately, no one made it this far but me ๐.
But even though no one gave me tips on my article, I think I managed my article quite well on my own.
Still, I would have been interested in others' drafts as well.
If you are interested in the draft at that stage, check out my draft here.
Hi fellow participants ๐
I created my draft and would be looking now for someone filling out this form (mission III) about your thoughts on my draft. I really appreciate it ๐
Here's the link to my draft on communication for devs.
Hopefully I will receive feedback soon and that others will share their drafts as well so I can learn to give feedback. I am excited to read my fellow learners drafts, how they right, what they are writing about, I am sure I will learn a lot from it. ๐
Missions 4 & 5
The goal of Mission 4 was to bring my post to life with colors, graphics and photos. Read the finished article, "Communication for devs"!
Spicing up my blog article was the most fun part. I was finally able to rewrite some parts, add images and emojis to highlight parts of the article, and put the finishing touches on it so that in the end I was satisfied and felt good about publishing it and showing the world my latest article.
The response from the entire CodeNewbie community has been great. And even though none of my peers seem to have made it this far, I hope they will eventually finish the challenge. Stay strong, stay motivated, it will pay off, I swear!
And here it is, my article about Communication for dev
Enjoy reading it, everyone ๐
I MADE IT ๐
I am proud that once again I finished a challenge, overcome obstacles and did not give up til the bitter end.
Curious about my reflection post? Check it out here.
Final Reflections on #CNC2022's "Write More" Challenge
The hardest part, as always, was starting to write an article. As I mentioned at the beginning, I have a ton of ideas, but it's really hard for me to start writing. But when I wrote the outline with the help of the template, I felt like I had already overcome the most difficult part. The journey started to go smoothly, my motivation increased and I felt confident to update my outline in reasonable time and finish my blog.
Now, in order to overcome this hurdle from the beginning even after the challenge, I will continue to start my drafts with the outline templates that CodeNewbie shared with me. They are super helpful and made my biggest obstacle disappear within minutes.
The goal of helping others by sharing my findings is what drives me. I have a manageable outline that I want to write about. It's mostly about finishing my learning website and sharing my experiences there with other self-taught developers who want to get a job in the tech field.
So if I said everything I wanted to say, shared everything with the community, I could stop writing articles. Therefore, it makes the most sense for me to write at least one blog a week to get the learning website done as quickly as possible.
Also, working with my CodeNewbie mentee helps me to better gather my thoughts and put them on "paper". Since my mentee has fully committed to code in the last few weeks, we have many meetings where we talk about different content, I manage to create much more content.
And what is more motivating than going on a journey with a close friend, sharing knowledge and feelings and experiencing all these things together, which I can subsequently share with the whole community in the form of my articles?
What's Next
I think this will be my last CodeNewbie Challenge. But to all the developers out there who are trying to get started with coding, or who want to land their first job, I highly recommend participating in this great challenge that helped me with both my job search and my writing problems.
As for me, I'm going to follow up on my 2022 plan on how to become a senior in a year and finish my learning website for all the developers out there who need someone to share the same experience. If I can help at least one developer out there by sharing my knowledge, I will have already achieved my goal.
Thanks for your reading and time. I really appreciate it!
Top comments (2)
Huge congrats on this accomplishment Julia! I've loved following your journey!
Thank you so much, Gracie :)