> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://blog.annabyang.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Writing for the Sake of Writing is Not Worth Reading
- URL: https://blog.annabyang.com/writing-for-the-sake-of-writing/
- Published: 2018-04-18T20:26:01.000Z
- Updated: 2026-03-13T09:01:35.000Z
- Description: I wasn’t going to contribute to the garbage on the internet.
- Author: Anna Burgess Yang
- Tags: Writing

I have been in a weekly writing habit since 2009\. Two or three times per week, I will sit and compose something in my blog, even if it is the typed equivalent of a few scribbles of thoughts. Never a fixed habit, where I would commit to “Writing every Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday!” But every few days, I have gathered enough thoughts in my head to form a few paragraphs.

For some reason (a new challenge, perhaps?) I thought “I am going to write something *every single day* for 30 days! I even found a series of writing prompts to help with the days when I had not come up with a topic on my own.

I put my first post in this challenge here on Medium, rather than in my own blog. On to Day 2.

Day 2 came. I wrote. I hit publish. I waited about ten minutes. Then I deleted it.

It was garbage.

I had written something only for the sake of hitting “publish.” It wasn’t well thought out. It wasn’t well constructed. It wasn’t even very well written. **It wasn’t worth reading**.

Austin Kleon is a writer I follow, and he is a big proponent of “Show Your Work” (even wrote [a whole book](https://www.amazon.com/Show-Your-Work-Austin-Kleon/dp/076117897X/ref=sr%5F1%5F2?ie=UTF8&qid=1524051018&sr=8-2&keywords=show+your+work&ref=blog.annabyang.com) about it). The concept is that writers, artists, musicians should become comfortable with sharing their works in progress: that finished, perfect masterpieces do not reflect the sweat, stumbling, and yes, the garbage that came before it.

I believe in “show your work.” There is something brave about putting an unfinished product out there for the world to see. It [builds a community](https://blog.annabyang.com/writing-community-support-for-new-writers/) of those who are midway through their journeys to a goal of finished work.

But putting work out there just so that I can say that I hit “publish” 30 days in a row? No.

There is so much “noise” on the internet. So many people publish garbage for the game of collecting followers, building an audience, click-bait titles, or shameless promotion of writing with no substance.

I wasn’t going to contribute to the noise.

If I want to challenge myself to write for 30 days, fine. I can chicken-scratch in a journal or type something out in OneNote. I don’t need to clutter up the internet with hundreds of words not worth anyone’s time.

I can be happy with the fact that when I *do* write, it is because I have something to say. That the topics came to me organically and I sat down with the intention of writing and sharing.

---

*You can read about the future of work and career pivots on my* [*Substack*](https://annabyang.substack.com/)*.*