30 Days, No Breaks: What Daily.Dev Taught Me About Writing

It's been a while I've done one of these

Hey there 👋

Welcome to another issue of Arc - kinda like the personal corner for my thoughts on matters related to…well anything.

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In today’s post, I want to go over a recent small win if you can call it that.

In my preparation to start writing for Substack again, I needed a warmup set, and that is exactly what I did - kind of.

Here’s what happened.

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There wasn’t a launch plan. No accountability buddy. No vanity thread with a catchy hook.

I just wanted to write. Every day. For 30 days.

Why? Because I hadn’t been writing enough. Not publicly. Not privately. Not in a way that made me reflect on what I was already doing and saying, every single day, across work, conversations, mentoring, and projects.

So I gave myself a quiet challenge: post one atomic piece of writing every day on DailyDev → https://app.daily.dev/squads/sknexus (Check out our squad)

No “brand strategy.” No scheduled posts. No aim to grow an audience.

Just: publish daily. And see what breaks - or doesn’t.

Now, 30 days in, here’s what I learned.

Markdown is More Than a Format

I didn’t expect this to be the first thing that stood out. But it did.

Markdown changed everything about how I think about publishing. I used to write in Google Docs, paste into whatever platform I was posting on, and then spend 10–15 minutes fixing spacing, headers, bullet points, and bold/italic inconsistencies.

On LinkedIn, it was even worse. Tab spacing would break. Lists would collapse. Bold lines became normal text. Paragraphs ended up in the wrong place. It was always a mess.

DailyDev supports Markdown natively. That meant I could write once - and paste anywhere. Cleanly. Predictably.

It wasn’t just about saving time. It was about preserving intent. If you’re a writer or even just someone who writes a lot, that matters.

Bonus: most AI tools now default to Markdown. So it also made feeding back and forth between writing and generation a lot easier. That loop just became frictionless.

More platforms should support it. Not just for “technical” users.
But because formatting should not be a creative burden.

Writing Alone Isn’t Enough (Anymore)

This sounds obvious. But it still slapped me midway through.

You can write daily. Write clearly. Write insightfully.

And still no one sees it.

Because; and here’s the punchline; distribution is the other half of writing. And sometimes the heavier half.

I come from a product background. I know that “build it and they will come” is a myth. Yet somehow, I forgot that when it came to content. Publishing felt like the endpoint.

It’s not. It’s step one.

DailyDev is a niche platform. I love that. It feels safer. Less performative. But that also means you can’t rely on the feed alone.

When I shared my posts in other DailyDev squads engagement doubled or tripled. When I dropped links into small Discords or work groups, people actually replied. They resonated. Sometimes they debated. But at least they saw it.

When I didn’t share?

Silence. Like I never hit publish.

And to be fair, part of that’s still on me. I didn’t engage back as much. I didn’t comment on others’ posts. I wasn’t “building community.” I was just posting into the void.

Next time, maybe I fix that.
Or maybe I just accept the tradeoff: writing for clarity, not reach.

Still, good writing deserves a reader. That means you can’t just post. You need to place your writing where people will care.

Yes, AI did help this time

I used AI for this challenge. No point in hiding that fact.

Even though most of my writing on other platforms so far is manual, I wanted to test out AI for this self imposed challenge.

But not in the way you probably think -

This wasn’t a “prompt it and post it” challenge.
I didn’t wake up, write “Give me a smart LinkedIn-style post on tech burnout” copy the output, and hit publish.

That’s what most people do. I think, probably, definitely, maybe.

That’s also why most AI content still feels like fluff. Optimistic bunch of lazy and long sentences.

The catch for me however -

It isn’t using AI; it’s training it.

And that’s what nobody tells you. Or didn’t tell me at least.

Most people skip that part.
They grab GPT, ask it to write like “Naval,” and then wonder why the output sounds like a self-help bot from 2016.

Here’s what I did instead:

I fed GPT my actual writing - over 200,000 words of it.
Yes, that tends to happen when you have been writing over 5 years here and there.

Then I fine-tuned the model to write like me.
Not like “a good writer.” Like myself - filtered through my own language, cadence, formatting quirks, and paragraph rhythms.

The results? Pretty different.

I even tested this with friends who’ve read a lot of my writing.
Sent them posts without attribution. Asked them: “Which one do you think is me?”

They couldn’t tell the difference between the AI-assisted version and the human-only one.

The untrained GPT version? They knew instantly. Overstuffed phrases. Generic metaphors. Weirdly forced tone. That version felt like a parody of thoughtfulness - not thought itself.

And as I have said so many times now, it feels once again -

AI won’t make you a better writer. It just makes good writers faster.

It will make senior devs, even better. Good designers, even quicker - list goes on - maybe try reading:

Rich Get Richer, Poor Get Poorer - Dev Edition

If you haven’t written enough to know your own voice, AI can’t create it for you.

You’ll just get whatever’s floating at the top of the internet soup. And that’s rarely the kind of writing that sticks.

Train it with your words. Your tempo. Your actual structure.

Then use it like a sidekick, not a savior.

Ideas Are Already In The Room

This one snuck up on me.
For the longest time, I thought I needed to sit down and “come up with ideas.”
I’d open Notion, stare at the blinking cursor, and ask: “What should I write today?”

Big mistake.

What worked this time? Listening to myself.
Not in a meditation way. Just...paying attention to what I was already saying. All day long.

Team calls. Customer chats. Slack debates. Community messages. Mentoring juniors.

I was already saying smart things. At least, sometimes.
But I wasn’t logging them.
So this month, I did.

Anytime something clicked; a sentence, an analogy, a problem breakdown - I’d drop it into a WhatsApp chat with myself. One line. Maybe two. Done.

By the end of the week, I had 8–12 ideas ready to go. All pulled from real context. Not brainstormed. Just captured.

The content was always there. I just wasn’t noticing.

Now, I don’t even think in “writing prompts.” I think in fragments. Hooks. Observations. And I trust that if I save them, they’ll turn into something.

Fundamentals Still Matter

This one feels old school. But it stuck.
Yes, AI helped. Yes, Markdown helped. Yes, I had better workflows.

But none of that mattered if the writing was mid.
Structure still mattered.
Tone still mattered.

So did knowing how to break a paragraph for tension, how to land a line, how to vary sentence length, how to slow down a rhythm with punctuation, how to let the silence do the work. See, this was too long to read in one breath. Exhale, and inhale.

If you’ve never done that by hand, no model will do it for you.

When people say “writing is a superpower,” what they mean is:

You know how to think in a way that others feel.

And no amount of prompting hacks will get you there if you haven’t written 100 bad posts first.

Good writing is rep-driven. It compounds.
If you’re new - let it be awkward.
If you’re experienced - keep tightening the screws.

AI is an amplifier. It scales your instincts. But there needs to be something to scale.

Consistency Still Sucks. And Still Works.

The biggest lesson is also still the most boring.
Writing daily is hard. Even when you like writing.
Even when the format is short. Even when the deadline is self-imposed.

Some days I was sharp. Others I was half-asleep.
Some posts I loved. Others I pushed out just to hit publish.

But the thing is: it added up.

Even the mid posts taught me something. Even the throwaways helped sharpen my workflow.

Some days, I wrote something I didn’t even realize was good until I reread it later. That’s what consistency does: it gives you room to be surprised by yourself.

You don’t need to be brilliant every day. You just need to show up often enough to bump into brilliance.

I don’t think I’ll keep posting daily. That’s not the point.

But I do think I’ll write more regularly now. And I won’t wait for motivation. Or mood. Or time.

I’ll write because that’s how I think best.

Daily.Dev helped with that. It gave me a platform that felt quiet. Focused. Unpretentious.

Not everything needs to be a thread. Not every thought needs to go viral. Some things just need to be said.

Final Thought

I didn’t do this challenge to go viral. I didn’t even tell most people I was doing it.

I just wanted to write.

And what I found, buried under the posts and drafts and Markdown headers, was this:

You already have the ideas. You just need a place where it’s safe to say them.

For me, that place was DailyDev.

For you, maybe it’s a newsletter. A Discord. A Notion doc no one sees.
Doesn’t matter.
Just find it.
And write - not for reach, but for clarity.

Because when you publish often, it doesn’t just make you visible.
It makes you better.

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Oh, and if you were curious, here’s everything I published:

1. https://app.daily.dev/posts/when-ai-becomes-a-crutch-why-knowing-the-language-still-matters-kzxzbhpdj

2. https://app.daily.dev/posts/the-problem-with-taking-quotes-at-face-value-4l11i5sdr

3. https://app.daily.dev/posts/that-one-week-clone-request-run--auknifsyw

4. https://app.daily.dev/posts/from-perfect-competition-to-monopoly-can-you-build-a-business-that-owns-its-market--rxld77iak

5. https://app.daily.dev/posts/juggling-projects-without-losing-your-mind-urhqjpyzv

6. https://app.daily.dev/posts/the-path-beyond---what-to-do-when-every-platform-saturates-ry2wkwy8e

7. https://app.daily.dev/posts/when-giants-mirror-each-other-rebels-win-uqicqx6dl

8. https://app.daily.dev/posts/why-startups-keep-drowning-in-technical-debt-and-what-to-do-about-it--bhki6gfk8

9. https://app.daily.dev/posts/the-mistake-that-kills-9-out-of-10-indie-projects-xcnjzwv9s

10. https://app.daily.dev/posts/hourly-vs-fixed-price-projects-what-solo-freelancers-need-to-know-o8cdezyrg

11. https://app.daily.dev/posts/your-portfolio-isn-t-for-devs-it-s-for-clients--f9koglshm

12. https://app.daily.dev/posts/when-you-need-to-say-no-1fix6zaf9

13. https://app.daily.dev/posts/why-you-ll-never-be-an-expert-and-why-it-s-probably-fine--ellljkyiw

14. https://app.daily.dev/posts/rnd-isn-t-a-luxury-it-s-your-small-team-s-secret-weapon-e2y6dcqq7

15. https://app.daily.dev/posts/the-illusion-of-security-xuum4hveu

16. https://app.daily.dev/posts/remote-startup-vs-corporate-job-how-to-choose-without-regret-rrtsrwaxr

17. https://app.daily.dev/posts/writing-is-the-fastest-way-to-learn-jhe9hyqbp

18. https://app.daily.dev/posts/empathy-wins-product---here-s-why-ibb7fcdov

19. https://app.daily.dev/posts/the-issue-of-full-stack-fsmi103qf

20. https://app.daily.dev/posts/brute-force-over-brilliance-get-the-reps-in-f3xwl4o08

21. https://app.daily.dev/posts/insider-pov-how-ai-app-builders-are-sold-xym7fln4c

22. https://app.daily.dev/posts/how-to-rebuild-yourself-from-zero-a-practical-system-for-personal-growth-8jn94aewn

23. https://app.daily.dev/posts/gon-grit-and-getting-started-lessons-from-a-hunter-x-hunter-wnaewevrp

24. https://app.daily.dev/posts/the-power-of-presence-lwqe1eu7u

25. https://app.daily.dev/posts/the-day-you-realize-you-can-t-do-it-all-tgop59xtz

26. https://app.daily.dev/posts/when-reach-becomes-the-only-metric-tncbyvun0

27. https://app.daily.dev/posts/ownership-isn-t-a-job-title-it-s-a-decision-md1upq9gl

28. https://app.daily.dev/posts/when-perfect-means-never-z0fh6xqqi

29. https://app.daily.dev/posts/marketing-without-ads-and-why-effort-still-costs-you--xweuyuou5

30. https://app.daily.dev/posts/learning-isn-t-linear-it-s-a-loop--23pgytvb7

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