6 months, 19 posts, 80k views. It’s been a wild ride.

Timeline

• 6/14: First post on Medium
• 7/7 - 10/19: Break from posting
• 10/19: Last post written on Medium before blog.karenying.com launch
• 10/20: Started working on blog.karenying.com
• 10/25: blog.karenying.com launch

Definitive Ranking

S Tier

1. Blogmas 2020

   • Hands down the post I put the most time, effort, and love into. Peep the semi-interactive calendar visualizer! Had an actual blast posting daily and learned tons along the way

2. I Tracked My Mood Every Day of 2020

   • Another long term project. Some pretty interesting trends came out of it and the app itself definitely holds a special place in my heart

3. The Ultimate Guide to Becoming a VSCode Girl

   • The shitpost that literally no one asked for but the one that I felt like I was meant to write. “Have you always been this funny?” — a friend after reading it

4. 50 Shades of Dark Mode Gray

   • This post combines my appreciation for dark mode and my inclination to inspect element on everything. The predecessor to the next post on this list

A Tier

5. GitHub Dark Mode is Too Dark

   • Making it on HN is sucha milestone. I didn’t really edit the version of this post that I put out because obviously I didn’t think it’d get as big as it did. But I’m pretty happy with the final / current version

6. Hack Keyboard Shortcuts Into Sites with a Custom Chrome Extension

   • I’m an avid user of GCal and I still use the extension I made in this tutorial daily. The concept itself is so dope. Like you can add custom shortcuts to web apps with a Chrome extension?? Wat

7. 404: React Page Not Found

   • I’m glad this post has pretty good SEO and can help people who ran into the same mysterious bug that I did. Pretty fun to dive into source code to find answers

8. Pixels vs. Bricks

   • It was cool to put my limited architecture knowledge to use. The comparisons aren’t perfect but I tried

9. 2020 Blogging Recap

   • Aka this post. We stan self-reflection

B Tier

10. Quarantine Day 259: Princeton CS Senior Takes the AP CS Exam

    • I wish this post was a YouTube video instead. Pretty funny idea. Kinda disappointing results

11. Boost Visual Accessibility by Auto Flipping Text Color

    • Mixed feels towards this one. It took me a long time to write and is probably too complicated for its own good. But I stand by the content / message

12. Customize Chrome New Tab Page in 30 Seconds

    • I really do adore the custom new tab page I built. Makes me feel like my browsing experience is personal. The tutorial itself is kinda just okay though

13. Adding Transitions to a React Carousel with Material-UI

    • Another post that does well with SEO. But Material UI is kinda meh. This probably coulda been done with simple CSS.

14. Let 2020 be the year PNG icons die

    • My first post! Why is it so angsty lmfao

C Tier

15. v2.0 Stable Release

    • Blogging on my own site >> Medium

16. I’m a Gen Z-er and I want you to stop using emojis

    • Ya why is this also so angsty jeez

17. Configuring a Mac for a PC User

    • The only person this helped was my mom

18. Simple React Router Nav Bar

    • Didn’t enjoy writing this one and I can’t remember why. Think there isn’t much explanation and it’s kinda like here’s the code

19. Annoy (or Impress) Your Coworkers with a Slack Bot From Scratch

    • Please don’t follow this tutorial it’s actually bad

2021 Goals

I didn’t want these goals to be like get “X number of views” or “X number of subs”. Reach and virality is cool, but it’s not why I started blogging and why I still blog. I’m gonna continute to create quality content that I genuinely enjoy and stand by, not clickbait-y content to gets views.

While the ultimate goal is to get sponsored by Netlify or have Microsoft recognize me as the official VSCode girl, here’s what I came up with for 2021:

1. Write less coding tutorials
2. Post every month
3. Do a collab post
4. Blogmas 2021
5. Edit more

Write less coding tutorials

I like writing tutorials — through them, I truly understand the concept I’m trying to teach and I’m glad they help people. On top of that, tutorials do really well for SEO which makes sense.

However, if you look at the list above, the highest ranking tutorial is #6. So clearly, they’re not my favorite content. It also doesn’t really make sense to promote tutorials — why would you read a tutorial unless you actually needed to? I wouldn’t notify email subscribers about them.

8 out of 19 posts were tutorials, ~42%. In 2021, less than 42% of my posts should be tutorials.

Post every month

When I took my 3 month break, the longer I was away from blogging, the harder it was for me to pick it back up. By posting at least once a month, I hope this doesn’t happen again. Consistency really is key.

Do a collab post

One of the best parts of blogging is the tech community. I’m super down to collab with someone for a post. Email me if you’re interested!

Blogmas 2021

At this point, you probably already know how much I enjoyed Blogmas 2020. I should be working full time during December 2021. Daily posts on top of that could be a lot. But I would love for it to happen again.

Edit more

This one isn’t measurable. Lemme try to articulate why it’s important.

With this goal, I aim to spend more time polishing my writing and developing a strong voice and consistent style.

Here’s a tiny tiny example: on the last day of Blogmas, I found every instance of the word “just” in the post and thought about whether or not I actually needed that adverb. I nixed it most of the time because without it, my voice just sounded stronger.

I’m not looking to formalize my tone or anything like that. I think I can keep this casual vibe / stay true to my personality while still improving my writing. Over-editing is definitely a thing so I hope I can find that balance.

With many posts, I was too lazy to thoroughly edit. It felt like the last 20% that takes 80% amount of effort. However, I know it’s important because I noticed that if I wrote down the voice inside my head, it was often too ramble-y. While writing I would break it down into smaller sentences or cut out unnecessary words. Thus, to become a better writer, I need to think harder about my voice, not only while writing, but also after. This means putting in more editing time.

I want my writing be as clear and succinct as possible.

In addition to editing, I’m gonna pay more attention to post structure (headers), emojis, punctuation, and strategically using bold and italic text as emphasis.

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To hit these goals, I would need to write at least 12 posts, at least one per month, with < 42% of them being tutorials, one being a collab post, and one being Blogmas 2021. Challenge accepted!

Thank You

If you made it to here, you’re a real one. You should consider subbing to my email list in the form below hehe 😛

Huge thanks to all my friends who I constantly bother about blog stuff — yup, I’m annoying. And thank you to everyone who’s reached out to me, shared my stuff, and read these words. Blogging has brought me so much joy this year and I’m glad you were part of it!

I’m hype af for 2021 ✕ blog.karenying.com.

Thanks for reading!