
Ask HN: Why did Paul Graham stop posting essays on his site? - hayksaakian
I notice the most recent was from November, not the others are about a month apart.<p>Does anyone know what's up?
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jd
The most obvious reason is that pg writes an essay when he has an idea or an
insight he wants to think and write about. New insights don't arrive on a
fixed schedule.

If pg had been posting every month the HN thread would read: "Ask HN: is it
just me or has the quality of Paul Graham's writing gone down?"

~~~
coldtea
> _The most obvious reason is that pg writes an essay when he has an idea or
> an insight he wants to think and write about. New insights don't arrive on a
> fixed schedule._

And yet, they did somehow, for several years.

Not to mention insights are not like some divine illumination. You can get
them and shape by the actual process of writing down your thoughts on a
matter.

> _If pg had been posting every month the HN thread would read: "Ask HN: is it
> just me or has the quality of Paul Graham's writing gone down?"_

Well, it's not like it has not, either. Last 4-5 years are nothing like the
essays circa Hackers and Painters era.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
Inspiration is in my view more like earthquakes then a continual shower - you
need to wander around looking at the world and asking why is it like that?
Eventually the pressure builds and builds and suddenly you know - and have to
write about it. The first ideas out the door are the most powerful - I guess
the comments about free and wild animals and entrepreneurs are just
aftershocks.

The quake can release an awful lot of ideas that you can work through all at
once or one at a time. But eventually the quake runs out of power and another
must build up

Which basically all means "Be careful what you ask for" - another quake and we
won't be able to stop him posting them.

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toyg
He's never been that prolific. I guess he writes when he's got something to
say. Some of his previous essays reflect long-held beliefs, supply of which is
clearly limited.

~~~
weinzierl
If you consider the time from when he started to publish essays on a regular
basis ("Java's Cover" in April 2001) until November 2012 it is 143 essays in
140 months.

Given the length and quality of his posts I'd consider this incredibly
prolific for a single writer. Otherwise I completely agree with you.

(Some time ago I made a table with the length of the essays vs time. I never
published it, but if someone is interested I can do so.)

~~~
emillon
> (Some time ago I made a table with the length of the essays vs time. I never
> published it, but if someone is interested I can do so.)

The answer to this kind of remark is always : please do so :)

~~~
weinzierl
Actually I misremembered, I never plotted the data against time, it's just a
CSV with word count for all essays.

I put the CSV on Github[1], there is also one for codinghorror.com and the
scripts that I used to create the tables. Some additional word count data
(e.g. John D. Cook's The Endeavor) is on my website[2].

[1] <https://raw.github.com/weinzierl/length/master/wcpg.csv>

[2] <http://weinzierlweb.com/length>

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buro9
I suspect it is something similar to the support issues for open source
projects... you want to share your code, but the moment you do you find
yourself having to support it at a cost to you (a good problem, you have
people wanting to use the code)... but all you wanted to do was share.

His words have gone from mere thoughts and opinions that he's felt a need to
share, to being received in some other way that it was intended and loaded
with so much extra interpretation that then leads to that support cycle.

Writing is hard, but defending that writing when a large number of people will
tear it to shreds, misinterpret it, over-analyse, take metaphors literally,
and treat literal words as ambiguous... it can kill a lot of the desire to
write and share.

He clearly cares about sharing his thoughts and views, but because of the
above, I figure he must find far greater satisfaction and reward from sharing
those things with his YC classes who probably really listen to what is being
communicated and acting on it, rather than just debating and pedantically
arguing over the choice of phrase.

I now expect to be downvoted for implying that we as an audience don't
necessarily help him. And of course, I may be very wrong, it's just an
opinion. I'm sure he'll pop up and say in a few hours time.

~~~
brudgers
> _"His words have gone from mere thoughts and opinions that he's felt a need
> to share, to being received in some other way that it was intended and
> loaded with so much extra interpretation that then leads to that support
> cycle."_

"Blessed are the Cheese Makers"

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tnuc
Didn't he have a child or two in recent times?

They certainly take all your time away.

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xSwag
Quality over quantity. He won't write an essay unless it offers real insight
into something worthwhile.

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wellboy
Having a blog myself, I don't post for months, but then all of a sudden I have
an idea and I push out a couple of thousand words within a few hours with a
100 likes.

Sometimes muse hits you and it just flows, sometimes it's on holidays for
months. :)

~~~
abcd_f
Wow. A 100 likes. Stuff that matters.

~~~
wellboy
More than many techcrunch posts :P

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gkoberger
I seem to remember reading he tends to write mostly during the fall months.
Also, November was right before the previous class, which would explain why he
got busy quick.

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tptacek
Guy's pretty busy now.

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inetsee
Could it be that he's busy helping other entrepreneurs get their startups
going?

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ioncereadknuth
I heard he only writes when someone sacrifices a goat in his name. That's your
cue.

