I do think Matt is lucky to realize that he can make a change. He's well known on the web and will most likely be successful at finding an audience for his writing. I think it would be much more challenging form someone like myself -- very few people read this blog -- to switch from my cyber-security to writing full time. I think my family would starve. However, I do wish to return to my first love -- web development. I just don't know how to do it and still keep my current income stream.

Thanks for the link to Riccardo. I will follow him on ADN and I added his site to my reading list. I understand his sentiment. I'm not a writer -- not in the professional senses of the word -- but I related especially to what he wrote here:

Feedback is little. People don’t seem to care (much). My attempts at attracting people’s attention towards this place, my projects and my fiction don’t seem to have long-lasting effects. There’s the occasional spark. The occasional link. The fleeting endorsement. But readers don’t seem to stick, to return.

I've been writing on this blog since 2003. My readership is still quite small and I get few comments or feedback on the content. My best article was one I wrote in 2012 about using the Raspberry Pi for HDR photography. Most of the inbound links and readership were from Germany1. Weird. When I feel disappointed my writing stops and suffers for a bit. Then I start again. Perhaps we all just need to keep doing what we do and not worry about success? I don't know the answer.


  1. Apparently Spiegel.de linked to my blog.