Starting a new web site is hard. You have no audience and it can be frustrating when you're pretty sure nobody is listening. It's something I think about a lot being mostly unknown in the nerd blogosphere. But I like writing on the web and I think I'm fairly good at it¹.

Two articles this week gave me some much needed reassurance.

The first is by Lord Broome who, like me, has infant twins to contend with:

...if I skip a couple of days because my twins have an appointment at the hospital, or because I'm working to a deadline, then so be it. What does it matter? Who does it really affect? No one. No one at all.

And the second by Matt Alexander. Matt's piece had so many good nuggets of advice that I wanted to quote them all. That's a bit dick, so I'll just use these:

Emulating the path of successful people is an effort in futility, but, if you seek to simply comprehend the psychology and methodology beneath each successful person's digital demeanor, you will learn a lot.

and

So, in those early days, as so few people are visiting your weblog, do not be disheartened and do not succumb to producing soulless content. Leverage those quiet days and weeks to develop your voice.

If you write with conviction, readers will come. That's as simple as it is.